So Much Hair Algae!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

S

Spotted Leopard

New member
I have A LOT of hair algae in my tank :mad: - about 1 square foot of it. At first, there was only a little hair algae....so I bought reef hermit crabs. But that didn't work. The algae quickly took over my live rock. Then I bought a lettuce nudibranch. But it only crawed on the glass...cleaning diatom algae instead of hair algae like people claim. My most recent attempt at stopping this EVIL HAIR ALGAE was with a scopas tang. But it only nibbles on the algae probably once a day. What should I do to eliminate this EVIL HAIR ALGAE!!?!?!?!?!?!!!?!?!:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :D
 
Do a water change.Keep Nitrate down.HA is super easy to controll if it dose not have what it needs to grow IE Nitrate!Controll the source not the end result!
 
how old is your tank anyways? and what are your tank inhabitants and water parameters? do post your phosphate and nitrate levels, and how many fishes you have.

ed is right, control the source, don't add more inhabitants. that won't solve much. (it'll cause more algae problems)

keep your bioload low and do your water changes, nothing a good WC can't solve. :wink:

hth

-marty
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10359496#post10359496 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by edsimmons
Do a water change.Keep Nitrate down.HA is super easy to controll if it dose not have what it needs to grow IE Nitrate!Controll the source not the end result!
Click to expand...

ie phosphate too
 
Ok...so I have 6 blue-green chromis (1 inch each), 1 emperor angel (4 1/2 inches), and 1 scopas tang (4 inches). For inverts, I have 9 reef hermits, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 peppermint shrimp, and 1 brittle sea star.

My filtration system is a 30 gallon sump with carbon, a sock filter, and a HUGE protein skimmer designed for a 200 gallon tank that filters 80% of all the water that passes through the sump (tank flow is 8 cycles per hour).

My ph is currently 8.29 and usually stays around 8.2. I rarely take measurements of my nitrate because usually my water is clean enough to go for 2 months (but I do a water change with 99% r/o water every month to replace essential elements).
 
you must export more nutrients than you import. you must get phosphate down & keep nitates low. Phosar, ROWA, fuge, etc. You must measure phosphate with accurate kits (deltec, colormeter, HACH) & do the same with trates. That's it.
 
When you say "export more nutrients than you import," are you implying that I should do less water changes :confused: ? Because by reducing the water changes, I can easily decrease the amount of minerals I add into the system.
 
it's not the minerals, it's the nutrients in the water. by doing the water changes, you take out phosphates, nitrites and nitrates and put in water low in those nutrients.
 
I am by no means discounting water changes, but just wanted to mention that most (if not all) synthetic salt mixes contain some level of phosphates, among other nutrients. So even when using RO/DI water, you would still be adding nutrients into the tank during water changes.

I was reading another thread on algae, and some people run a phosban reactor on newly made up water, just to remove what's in the salt mix.

Here's an article that breaks down the composition of many popular synthetic salt mixes:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030608...om/fish2/aqfm/1999/mar/features/1/default.asp

hth,
rob
 
and i use natural seawater which contains more nutirents than synthetic, so i have found with my system it's fine doing water changes once a month. i mainly do them just so i can tumble the sand and loosen it up. by building up my macro algae and keeping the fish load low my tank is almost balanced.
 
I like the idea of waiting it out...but that takes too long so I don't think I will use that method

I'm currently using phosphate sponge. I've been using it for about 6 months and nothing has happened (with changes in phosphate media of course).

How do I get my nitrates even lower? (it's already really low)

also....i can't use water off the Oregon coast-though it seems like a good idea. It's so polluted. Not only that, but it's like a 2 hour drive to and back from the coastline....... What I don't really understand was that I use to have the same live rock in my tank. But there was never any hair algae. When I remodeled the tank and stuff, I took all the live rock out and I gave all the fish away. Back then I used a Fluval and my water quality was always poor and I never used r/o water. Today, my water is always super clean with less nitrates and less phosphate and I only use r/o water. Yet suddenly, hair algae popped out of no where. Why did that happen? Why did I not get any algae in conditions that suited the algae more like before I remodeled?
 
have you try to test your watter of phosphate before you add it to the tank? I think I read than natural sea water has some phospathe levels. try to run a test before you add it.

You may need to reduce your ligthing period too. Remember algae need food (phosphathe) and ligth to live.

phosphate sponge are only parcial fixes. You need to find the origin of the problem.
 
I remember reading a similar thread where it was determined that certain live rock contained phosphates that eventually "leached" out of the rock causing the problem. Unfortunately, I can't remember what kind if rock it was.
Perhaps, you could take a sample peice of you're rock and soak it seperate from you're system to determine if that is a possibility?
Good thing is, it's only temporary.
And yes, it was some time after set-up that this outbreak occurred.
 
I had a bad hair algae problem last year. I removed the rock and scrubbed the HA. After putting the rock back in the tank, I started using AZNO3. The hair algae never came back. I also started using phos-luck in a canister.
 
Wouldn't scrubbing the hair algae kill other forms of life on my live rocks?-such as coral algae, sponges, macro algae, featherdusters etc........
 
AZNO3 is a nitrate reducer. I bought mine from premiun aquatics. Marine depot also sells it. I just followed the package instructions. You will notice your skimmer putting out more due to nitrate depletion. I had a bad HA problem almost sold my tank due to frustration. I read about AZNO3 on RC and decided I had nothing to lose, so I gave it a try. And no I did not remove lose alot of good stuff rom the rock, I use a soft bristle brush.
 
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