hair alge

Ziggy692

New member
Hell every one i have got some hair alge issues. how can i get rid of this stuff any ideas thanks for any input.
 
Can you provide more information-
Did the algae show up recently?
How are your test levels?
What's your light sequence?
What's your bio-load?
How often/what quantity are your water changes?
(etc)
 
Any of these will work:

Hand pick
Feed less
Skim more
More flow
Clean filters (if any)
Phosban
Run your refugium lights longer
Dose sugar
Reduce bioload

Lots of options, but you have to figure out what's causing the problem before you can alleviate it.
 
for immediate relief i use Rolaids, then i do a water change with a 1/2" tube and use it to suck the algae right off of stuff. After that a good crew of herbivore/omnivore crabs + some snails should be able to keep up with it.
 
All of the above is true. Also, as was inferred above, a shorter photo period can help as well. I know that is hard to do, but it helped me. I also removed my glass tops which was reccomended by someone at Seachem.

And don't forget the Crabs!

There are quite a few good threads on RC about this. Use the google search (site:www.reefcentral.com) to find them. You probabally know that, but just in case.
 
It would be good to have other opinions here, but I would recommend a Phosphate test kit so you know what you are dealing with, I would recommend the Seachem kit very easy to ready and quick to use. My guess is, IMO, that you will find your PO4 (Phosphates) high. The question is where is the problem. With TDS at 15 maybe your water source. Someone else may have a better idea on a TDS of 15 being phosphate. Add a DI and you should be down to 0. But if I am not mistaken that is one the main reasons to use a DI filter, phosphates. They aren't very expensive to add, see the filter guys advertised here on RC. If your tank is the culprit, like mine, which is my best guess (maybe both), then there are a bunch of ideas presented above. Ryan also told me about dosing sugar and I think it is a feasible idea. But first I would read the posts Ryan pointed me to. Search on RC for "sugar nitrates 101" The post is huge, but worth the read. There is some dissension about dosing sugar. Mainly because there is no scientific proof that it works, so why take the chance. MANY swear by it and say it is widely used in Europe.
 
Try feeding every other day instead of every day.

Buy a more powerful skimmer.

Set up a phosban reactor.

Decrease photoperiod.

Grow macro algae such as chaetomorpha in a refugium.


These are just a few things that will help. Try one of them or a combination of them.

Chris
 
I agree with all the advice listed above. I have battled a phosphate issue for some time and one of the symptoms was nasty algae crops. I got a tip to try the Pura brand Phoslock and it almost completely eliminated the phosphates from my system.

One major point raised earlier in this thread is that you need to ID the source of your phosphates or you will continually have to react to the phos levels instead of preventing them.

Good luck.
 
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