Hair algae can be an excellent way of removing nutrients, however it is almost guaranteed to get out of control in a display tank unless you have enough fish, crabs, snails and/or slugs to keep it under control.
Hair algae is actually pretty easy to get rid of. Plucking hair algae does not work very well. It tends to send little bits everywhere, so now it starts growing on more and more areas. You need to eliminate the food source! If you have hair or other nuisance algae you have to high nitrates and/or phosphates. Even if your test kit says you don't! The reason your test kit thinks you don't is the algae is taking the excess nutrients up and using it as food. If you do not eliminate the food source, you may get rid of one algae only to have another worse one pop up in its place.
Most tanks with canister filter tend to have hair algae. Canister filters work great for removing detritus and crap from the water column. The problem is it is still all in the system. All the stuff the filter catches immediately starts to break down into Nitrate and Phosphate. The longer it sits there the more of both you get. Simple solutions: clean the canister filter every 3-4 days (way too much work for me), use it for carbon and GFO only or get rid of it. This also applies to filter socks, filter foam or filter pads. If they are not cleaned at least weekly, I think your better off without them. If you have detectable Nitrated or Phosphates, it is easy to measure the change, just by cleaning your filter media every 3 days. If you do that for a month, I think you will find both measurably lower.
The next thing you need to do is use a small power head or turkey baster to blow off the rock work during water changes.
Increase your magnesium levels to 1300-1400. Most algae do not do well at high magnesium levels. This is easier for most people(Me included, I like fish!) then getting the nutrient levels down to where they really should be.
