Lawn mower blennie

[tomaquar]

I have a huge hair algae problem. I am very aware of the effects of poor maintenance but that is not the problem. I have a one inch perc, a one inch black mollie and and two inch yellow watchman. I feed them twice a week and do a 10% change the day after feeding. Ive cut back the photo period to 5 hours and Im using LEDs so there is no yellow shift. Ive taken water samples into the best LFS in the area and my nitrates and phosphates are minimal.

The turbos and nassarius dont seem to help and for whatever reason I cant keep a turbo alive more than a couple of weeks . No idea here Ive reduced the tank temp in order to try to accomadate.

So if anyone has any other ideas Im open to suggestion.

The point of the post however is will a lawnmower remove a mat of hair algae? My tank is too small for a Tang.

 

[corbett_n]

I don't think lawnmowers do that good of a job and some may not eat it at all. a seahare will clean up your tank in no time. Its no joke though you have to be ready to take it back , give it away , or feed it nori when the hair algae is gone. Mine first one wouldn't take nori so I had to give it away, now it is on its 4th tank of hair algae. It completely cleaned my tank in about two weeks. Do you have a skimmer?

 

[tomaquar]

I do, its an in tank air driven Berlin in a 25 gal. My set up wont really allow for a hang on. Ive also been adding Mg but that doesnt seem to be helping either.

Im reaching a point where I am considering taking all the rock out and bleaching them!

 

[corbett_n]

Seahares aren't expensive I would go for that, they will eat the algae for sure

 

[tomaquar]

Ill give a shot. Thanks

Any ideas on source of nutrients? This is the first time Ive ever tried a deep sand bed. Is there some caveat that isnt commonly covered in the typical write up's on the topic.

I never had this problem when I had a bare bottom.

 

[reefaroni]

maybe you should beef up your clean up crew?

 

[d0ughb0y]

If your snails are dying, maybe your tank has copper.
I've had good luck with lawnmower blenny. It can rip hair algae out like no other snails can. If you have tried to manually pull out hair algae, you know it is not easy. It probably won't hurt to use some gfo and raise your magnesium a bit.

 

[Scungili]

Another choice:

Doing a 3 day blackout killed off all my hair algae and cyano.

If you do a blackout, be careful that you don't overheat your tank if it's an open top. I made the mistake of covering my tank and not allowing for any evaporation, my tank shot up to 92 degrees, I caught it on the second day but still lost a few corals and fish. Real bummer, but even 2 days of darkness got rid of the hair.

 

[ingtar_shinowa]

I as not aware blackouts were so effective. Bud, you also need to remove the hair algae manually because the algae is your nutrient export. Just doing water changes MIGHT imporve your situation but get in there and pull some weeds. I had a bad problem and I stopped feeding, added a fuge, and pulled gunchs out and now I've beaten it!

 

[tomaquar]

So turning off the lights for three days wont hurt the corals? Im up for it if there isnt a downside.

 

[ramtmac]

i bought one to help with my gha problem too but he only enjoys eating off the glass. Not the best purchase. Just my experince

 

[zachfishman]

How old is the system? My tank went into a GHA explosion in its second month, even with unmeasurable nitrates and phosphates. Things cleared up with time (and snails).

 

[ninjamini]

If you have a hair algae problem then read my cure all. I just recently took a tank off someone's hands, a very experienced reefer too, who had a hair algae problem that they could not fix. But the fix is so easy when you understand it. This is the instructions for a established tank. If your tank is under 3 months old read below* first.

Hair algae wont grow if you don't feed it.

1. Use Ro/DI water ONLY. If your not doing this then you are making a fatal mistake.

2. Pick off the big clumps of hair. Pull the rocks out you can and pull pull pull. Dip them back in the water to get the algae to hang down. Turn off the flow for the rocks you cant remove while you pick it off. By picking off the big clumps you remove the nitrates and phosphates from the water.

3. Know why it grows. It consumes nitrates, phosphates and light. Export the nitrates and phosphates with water changes and some cheto. Rember if you test says that you have 0 Nitrates and 0 Phosphates that does not mean you don't have them. It just means that they are consumed. If you have algae growing then you have nitrates and phosphates. Yea there in there.

4. Cut back on feeding. Where do you thing those nitrates and phosphates come from. If you have any really piggy fish then you may want to move them to QT.

5. Turn down the photo period by shutting the lights off and only turn them on for 6 hours a day. Most corals can handle this for a month. Just think of it as the rainy season.

6. Get a emerald and some mexican snails. Yea the big ones. They will both eat the short stuff.

7. Time. Give it 3-4 weeks then start to turn the lights to 7, 8...more hours till your back to a normal amount of time.


Done. Now I have my nano cube filled with sand, rocks, zoos and fish because I was able to follow this plan and he was not. Which is weird since he has an awesome sps tank.

*If your tank is new that is less than 3 months old then the question is not how to get rid of them but understanding that this is only part of the natural cycle of a new tank. If this happened just as your ammonia and nitrites test at 0 then its going to grow. Its the same reason because there is alot of nitrate and phosphate in the water. This would be the time to do your first water change and then add your clean up crew. They will take care of the algae along with water changes.

Remember don.t feed your nuisance algae and it wont grow.
Good Luck.

 

[Whisperer]

I do not suggest LMB because not all of them eat GHA but I have one in my new 90G that ate all the GHA that exploded a few weeks after the tank was up. I got this one from LA. I believe they call it sailfin algae blennie and it was only $7.99. I was surprised when I saw mine eating the GHA like a cow.