Hammer Coral-how to remove hair algae

[6-line]

Hi all,

currently I have a plethora of green hammer frags (branching, anywhere from 5-15 heads) but although my algae problems seems to be getting better I have a lot of hair algae growing on the long stalks of the heads (the skeleton). I've used a toothbrush and the stuff is downright subborn and doesn't come off. My snails aren't really 'spot' cleaners. Any thoughts? I'm trying to part with some of these corals but I can't sell or trade with the algae issue....

thanks:hmm5:

 

[johnnymu]

can you frag the skeleton that has the hair algae off?

 

[6-line]

Hi. The original coral was 50 plus heads. Now it is about 7 separate Corals with anywhere between 5 to 15 heads. Bottom line is been fragged pretty well. It's growing between the branches

 

[trackhazard]

I had a similar problem with a hammer and a patch of bryopsis. Basically, I would wait till the heads were pulled in after the lights went out and you could see the skeleton and algae clearly. I would pull out the hammer and use fresh hydrogen peroxide on the affected areas making sure I wouldn't get any on the actual heads. I kept doing this every night until I ended up getting most of it off. The hammer wasn't happy but I managed to save most of it.

TBH, fragging the whole thing and cutting out the affected area would have been easier but I wanted to keep the shape of the thing.

-Charlie

 

[6-line]

Thanks track. Did you dip the branches or like pat them with it.

 

[trackhazard]

I used a small eye dropper and squirted the H2O2 onto the parts of the skeleton that were affected. If I could have dipped most of the skeleton, I would have but I couldn't.

I also made sure I removed as much of it manually as I could beforehand.

-Charlie

 

[6-line]

I'll give it a try....

 

[chris1017]

I don't know if it would harm the hammer, but kalk paste does a good job on any algae I have on my rocks.