Hair Algea revisited

[rottielover]

I was just wondering if anyone might have any other idea's on battling Green Hair Algea.

Here is the background on my system: 320 gal total
120 tank with 3x250watt 14k MH's and 2x96watt PC's Photoperiod is 10 hours total on the PC's and 8 hours total on the MH's (sunrise/sunset scheme, pC's on first then 2x mH then last MH, reverse for dusk).
Total live rock between sump and tank ~300 lbs. Tank only has between 1 and 3 inch araginite sand layer.

150gal sump, used to be lighted for frags(150watt MH 10k Pendant), but moved lighting when hair got too thick, now the sump just has Live rock

50gal fuge setup. Has 150watt MH pendant described above and 2 x work lights with Flor. Lights that Melv's Reef website did the review on... It's growing Grape Calp. and Cheato and is currently FULL (I've already thinned 3x 5 gal buckets PACKED with macros and it's grown in full again). When I say full, I don't mean that there are strands all over, I mean it's tightly wedged and packed in there together and takes a major effort and very sharp shears to get it out.

Current tank readings as I remember them from last night:
temp 80 F
SG 1.025
PH 8.2 / 8.3 (meter was going back and forth for a long time)
Alk 13 dkh (I used to try and keep it at 15, but ever since the Calcium reactor I let it stablize out using only the calcium reactor)
Calcium ~425 ppm (again, I used to shoot for between 350-450 when dosing powder, but now that I have the calc reactor I pretty much let it go)

Amonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0 (Low Range Kit)
Posphate 0 (Low Range Kit)


Just about everything I've read about GHA is that you supposed to at least detect SOME pos in the water, and I can't detect ANY.

I use RO/DI water from my own unit, and my TDS readings are between 0-3 If they get to 4 I change the cartidges. TDS and PH meters we're recalabrated with fresh fluids last night as well. Last nights TDS reading was 1.

I manually pull out all the GHA I can every chance I get, I currently have a 20 gal trash can FULL of the stuff, and that's from about 3 weeks worth of pulling...

I used to have a lawnmower blenny (2 years), he ate some, but never kept up..

Purple Tang and Foxface lo, I've watched them eat it on occasion, but they don't feast on it or chow it down or anything, pretty much ignore it.

Mexican Turbo's seem to be fine cleaning the glass, and don't seem to touch it. Various other snails and crabs are the same story.

I've been told to cut back on feeding so many times that my fish are starving . I've started using measuring spoons so that I know exactly how much food is going in the tank. I'm currently feeding 1 tablespoon of Formula 1 or 2 (rotated day to day) and 1 teaspoon formula 2 pellets. Once per week a add a about 1/2 of a 1/4 teaspoon of DT's Reef Diet (oyster eggs) right before the lights go out for the corals.

Once in a blue moon I'll put in about 1/4 teaspoon of Cyclopeeze.

I've been feeding this way for 3months, nothing has died from lack of food, but I'm sure my fish hate me.

About 6 months ago I took about 40 lbs. of Live rock and followed the "cooking rock" method (no oven's involved trust me) and within two weeks of putting it back there was some GHA on them.

I've tried running carbon, no carbon, Pos removal, no pos removal etc. etc.

I'm running out of idea's!! I had hoped that a 50 gal tub full of macro would help me out of this mess, but even with regular pruning the macro AND the hair grows and grows.

I have two Skimmers, a Lifereef VS-24 and a CSS 225. Niether pull very much skimmate out anymore since the macro algea really took off. At most I'm getting about 1 and 1/2 gallons of "weak ice tea" looking skimate every 10 to 15 days.

I'm about at my witt's end... Anyone tried anything else? Anyone used that "Stop Hair Algea" product?

BTW, if anyone wants some grape calp. or cheato, PM me, I'll sell you a load of it cheap, complete with worms, live mysid shrimps, and pods that live it it

Also stay tuned, in the next few days or weeks I'm probly going to start putting up some frags for sale, this long power outage really wiped me out $$$ wise and I need to make some quick money so that I can afford fish food and the like.

 

[hagfish]

One thing you need to keep in mind is that hair algae needs nutrients to live. Those nutrients are phosphates and/or nitrates. If your test doesn't show values for those then it's either a bad test or it's very likely that the hair algae (and your macro algae) is consuming the nutrients before you ever test for them.

I don't see any mention of your flow. And I also don't see mention of your fish total and types.

I think you should be getting more than what you are out of your skimmer(s). I would consider selling both and getting just one that is of better quality. From what I've read that will do better than 2 decent ones.

 

[rigleautomotive]

i agree with hagfish.one high flow skimmer that works consistently like a beckett injected or a ETS downdraft would be able to starve the algae in a few months proviving stong water flow was present.get a clean up crew from garf with diversity and the crabs work with the snails.dont skimp on the critters.you need lots until you get it stable.lots of random flow will help.if you do these few things hair algae will go away.then you will have to figure out how to remove coralline which i think is a pain.

 

[mpcart]

How often do you do water changes? Frequent water changes should help.

-Mike

 

[dela]

How about some urchins? If you don't have softies, they would probably be "reef safe". I don't think they bother hard corals.

Also, I've always wondered how poisonous sea hares really are!

I'm going to be placing an order as soon as things cool off from saltwaterfish.com. It should not be hard to make the $75 minimum order. You are welcome to join.

Same issue.. hair alage.. but mine is just starting up and I don't want it to get out of control.

Mark

 

[chadfarmer]

urchins will eat it

 

[saltyunderground]

Pin cushion urchins will even eat the cotton candy algae. I have bought them at MS and Chad at Gateway has ordered some for me too.

 

[DrBDC]

My frag tanks have hair algae issues and what I've found is if I rotate frags from the frag tank to the display, my foxface and kole tang have it removed within a couple minutes. Sometimes my foxface won't even let me set the frag down before it starts trying to eat it and that gets me a little nervous about those spines.

 

[dela]

I’ve been trying that chem marine stop hair algae. Can't say I was super impressed, but my expectations were probably unrealistic. I've got two small hair algae patches I treated last week, and looking at one of the areas this morning, it's just about algae free. The other is unchanged. (Was it the stop hair algae or was it just a transient patch of hair algae???)

My theory is this. It's a product that seems to work by smothering hair algae, so if you can coat the hair algae and keep all circulation from that area, then it will affect the hair algae. If there is any circulation and the product blows away, then you are wasting your time, money, and adding who knows what to your tank.

I should have added this during the power outage!

Also, it kind of smells like jalapeno peppers. (That’s bad if you like hot sauce and you keep this product in the fridge next to the Cholula sauce!)

I wonder if it would work better to remove the rock during treatment. That would keep the product mostly out of the tank and make sure you keep circulation down.

Personally I do not believe this is a good cure for a hair algae infested tank. It could however, be a good alternative for the occasional hair algae clump if nothing in the tank will eat it and all circulation can be diverted from the area for a few days. Definitely better than sicking 100+ snails and 10 tangs on a small hair algae patch.

 

[rigleautomotive]

anybody want to buy some snake oil guarenteed to cure all illness.that is what you are adding to your tank in my opinion.control algae naturally,limit nutrients being added,and strong protien skimming and strong random flow.that is the safe and long term solution

 

[rottielover]

Sorry for being away, work has been crazy this week.

I'll try and answer the questions as I remember them being asked:

Flow - Mag 18 return from sump via 1.5" pvc
4 x Maxijet 1200's on a RedSea wavemaster set to random (highest flow).
2x Tunze 6000 on the Tunze wave maker, set to 8 hour "surges" with the left tunze cycling from 40% - 100% and the right from 30% - 80% (this was the settings recommended to me by Tunze) BTW they do not recommend having BTA's with these, but I have a large one and have not had any problems.

Maybe someone can help me add up these flow numbers? I think the last time I checked it was over 10x per hour tank vol...

Fish/Critter Totals:
1 x Foxface Lo
1 x Purple Tang
1 x Royal Gramma
2 x Green Reef Chromis
1 x Eng. Goby
3 x queen conch snails
4 or 5 Mexican Turbo
10-15 Astrea snails
Numerous Red leg and Blue leg hermits and a few scarlets
10 bumble bee snails (added a LONG time ago, some are probly dead by now but I saw 2 last night)
1 x cleaner shrimp
1 x Pencil Urchin (rarely seen, comes out at night, keeps about 2 of the rocks with "streets" or "paths" clean.
1 x Long Spine Urchin (haven't seen this one in a while, possibly dead)
3 x Pin Urchins (all died, 2 in shipping and 1 about 4 months later)

Corals:
4 various Acro's
2 Monti's
2 Leathers
1 Hammer
Varous zoa's and GSP and yellow pol. Mushrooms, and 1 rock of Green Ric's

I'm sure I'm forgetting something in this list, but it's pretty complete.

WaterChanges - Once a month I do between 20-30 gal water change (I have a 32 gal brute for mixing SW)


Skimmer ....

I have also been thinking long and hard about trading in the 2 for one really honk'n skimmer. But I really would like to get some idea's for the "best" skimmer I could get. Chadfarmer I hear your the equipment expert ?? Anyone else? I could really use some suggestions...

Also, how much do you think I can sell my current skimmers for? The power outage wiped out my reef budget for the rest of the year and then some. I would need to be able to sell my current skimmers and frags in order to get money for a better skimmer.

Lifereef VS-24 with Mag 9, it's about 18 years old now, I got it used, but it's still the better of the two skimmers I have now.

Coralife Super Skimmer 225 model, it uses that needle wheel type pump, can't remember the name... This one works, but not as well as the Lifereef IMO.

I may try the urchins again, If I can find a local source, everytime I've ordered them over the net, they have busted the plastic bags and the boxes always come dripping

 

[DrBDC]

Figuring percentage of the 1850 on tunze's you get one at 1295 average, one at 1017 average. Figure 600 on the mj's if they are each on 50% of the time, and w/o figuring exactly on the mag return, say 1000. That gives over 30X turnover on the display. Could it be more, sure but I would think that's not an issue. There is probably more than that on the mj's and tunze's. It would depend on how the cycles run. So you may actually be closer to 40-50X.

 

[rottielover]

Thanks for doing the math for me!!!

 

[DrBDC]

I must have been momentarily bored.

 

[hagfish]

I think you need considerably more cleanup critters (snails are my favorite). I have at least twice as much as you in a tank with a total volume about 1/3 of yours. I would add a bunch of nassarius and cerith snails. I wouldn't necessarily buy cleanup critters that are just for eating the algae. What I have in mind is that they eat the left over food and other stuff before it can turn into nitrates. It should be possible to get this to go away without all kinds of critters purchased just for eating algae IMO.

 

[rottielover]

So here's what I'm seeing: (please feel free to make corrections)...

1) More Cleanup Crew needed - snails and urchins
2) Big Bad skimmer - replace the two "OK" skimmers in favor of a model with a warp drive.
3) Continue to pull pull pull

Thanks for the suggestions all!

 

[craig813]

Have you tried using one of those vaccum syphons to clean your sand, like you would do in a fresh water tank? When I was battling gha it seemed to make it not get any worse or die down a little. It might have just made it not grow and my cleaner crew did their jobs, but either way. I don't think you posted how long this tank has been up, when you read the tanks of the month stuff they always say they change out some of their sand every year. good luck
craig

 

[rottielover]

Hi Craig,

I had never heard of the changing sand out every year thing...

The tank is now... 3 years old I think, can't remember exactly, I'll double check... sounds about right though...

I've never changed the sand, nor have I "vac'd" it, I was afraid to do so, thinking it would suck out critters.

 

[craig813]

I don't know if everyone recommends it or not. I saw it on a couple of the tank of the month shpeals, so I thought I'd try it. It seemed to make things cleaner.

You might suck out some worms or pods but it's not that big of a deal.

I think it helps to remove some of the ditritus that doesn't make it to the overflow and to the skimmer.

 

[650-IS350]

I currently have 2 golfball sized turbo's that are cutting down the hair aglae. New tank just put them it about 2 days ago.. remarkable difference on the dent they have made.