Ok, I have changed my bulbs and lowered my photo period to 8 hours a day. Decreased feeding and amount of fish in the tank. And have completed multiple water changes with only RO water. Yet the hair algae in my tank continues to grow at amazing rates. I am going to soon change wet/dry filters and upgrade to a better one with a filter media shelf. My question is: as far as filter media regarding hair algae, would BioChemZorb, PhosZorb, or NitraZorb work better to help starve the hair algae? I just cant remember what hair algae survives most on, phosphates, nitrates or just about all excess nutrients.
Trying to resolve hair algae problem? need a few pointers
- Thread starter tah532
- Start date
urbanthreatz
New member
I'm having the same problem, i bought a few sea hares from my LFS and they went to work chowing it down. It was explained to me like this: you could be doing everything in your power to try and keep it from growing, but there's still a lot of it reproducing. So if you cut down the amount of algae in the tank, there's less of a population to make more.
HPD Turbo
New member
If it is a FOWLR why dont you turn off your lights for a week?, that will take care of it.
I have a reef and I do 3 day with no lights every month and works wonders.
I dont have experience on FOWLR but my belive is that nothing happends to the fishys when there ios no light. Just turn your actinics for feeding 1 hour.
I have a reef and I do 3 day with no lights every month and works wonders.
I dont have experience on FOWLR but my belive is that nothing happends to the fishys when there ios no light. Just turn your actinics for feeding 1 hour.
Yup. Turn your lights off until it is gone. Change a lot of water and vacuum the top layer of the substrate while the lights are off and the nitrate and phosphate are in the water column and not tied up in the algae.
I would spend the money on salt mix and RO water rather than use the chemicals. Fix the root cause, not the symptoms.
You can also siphon the hair out when you change water. It is not too strong and a lot of it will come out.
Sea hares don't poison tanks when they die (you might be thinking of sea apples). However, they are usually very large and if they do die, then they can add a substantial N and P load to your tank as they decompose. Sea hares will also die when the algae is gone, so move them along to another home when the day comes... or you can feed them nori (and add more N and P to your tank).
I would spend the money on salt mix and RO water rather than use the chemicals. Fix the root cause, not the symptoms.
You can also siphon the hair out when you change water. It is not too strong and a lot of it will come out.
Sea hares don't poison tanks when they die (you might be thinking of sea apples). However, they are usually very large and if they do die, then they can add a substantial N and P load to your tank as they decompose. Sea hares will also die when the algae is gone, so move them along to another home when the day comes... or you can feed them nori (and add more N and P to your tank).
aquaman67
Active member
You don't mention what type of skimmer your using. I had the same problem for some time and like others did more than necessary water changes wasting salt. I use Purigen and carbon which run into 3 wet/dry filters in my 50 gallon sump filtering over 1800gl/hr. Finally I had to upgrade my skimmer as the one I was using began to leak. Becuase I'm getting a 300gl tank to replace the 155 FOWLR tank I purchased a skimmer that is rated above the size of the new tank. I bought an AquaC EV400 rated to 450gls. Would you believe within a week almost all of the hair algae was gone. I know that a good skimmer should be at the top of our priority lists but so often we try to get away with less on this equipment when it should be at the top. If you don't have a high quality skimmer and have the funds to buy one you will be amazed at how fast that algae disappears.
Scott
Scott
Sharkbait1
New member
I just read another thread here on RC that says to raise your Mg up to the 1500 range. Just kills off the hair algae and doesn't harm anything else..
I'll see if I can find it again but might be worth a shot. Didn't have to adjust lights or anything just kept dosing Mg till was 1500 and kept it there for about a month...
I'll see if I can find it again but might be worth a shot. Didn't have to adjust lights or anything just kept dosing Mg till was 1500 and kept it there for about a month...
Address the cause and not the symptons. It would be great if you could buy some kind of critter to eat it all, but that seldom works.
My 125fowlr had a massive hair algae outbreak for about a year. I tried: an army of snails and hermits, PB tang, yellow tang, rabbitfish, sea hare (died quickly), new bulbs, taking the rocks out and scrubing them, added 2 stream pumps and many water changes. None of these measures worked.
What did the trick was adding a DI to my Ro unit. It turns out that my RO was leaving a lot in the water, so everytime I topped off the tank or did a water change I was added more fuel to the fire. After several 25% water changes with RODI, the hair algae faded and hasn't been seen since. I also started rinsing off frozen foods and I cleaned up the sand bed.
Using a phospate remover can't hurt either.
My 125fowlr had a massive hair algae outbreak for about a year. I tried: an army of snails and hermits, PB tang, yellow tang, rabbitfish, sea hare (died quickly), new bulbs, taking the rocks out and scrubing them, added 2 stream pumps and many water changes. None of these measures worked.
What did the trick was adding a DI to my Ro unit. It turns out that my RO was leaving a lot in the water, so everytime I topped off the tank or did a water change I was added more fuel to the fire. After several 25% water changes with RODI, the hair algae faded and hasn't been seen since. I also started rinsing off frozen foods and I cleaned up the sand bed.
Using a phospate remover can't hurt either.
Sharkbait1
New member
My bad.. The thread was for bryopsis
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1113109&perpage=25&pagenumber=1
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1113109&perpage=25&pagenumber=1
mattsilvester
Team RC
tah532 ...... jmicky41 hit the nail on the head.....
Nuisance hair algae, typically, is the symptom of bad or deteriorating water quality. Do you test your water often? If so, what are your nitrate & phosphate readings?
A fluctuating pH can also cause problems, brought on (typically) by lowe alkalinity (dKh).
What size is the tank and how many fish, and what type fo fish do you have?
What do you feed? How often? Do you rinse it first? Are you sure food is not going uneaten?
Do you have a clean up crew (if your fish selection allow)?
I presume we are talking FOWLR? If you have 1lb per gallon or more of LR, then why are you still running a wet-dry (surplus to requirements)? A wet dry (aka nitrate factory) will not do you any favours as far as algae goes.
Do you do water changes? How much and how often?
Do you have a sand substrate? Is it fine sand or crushed coral? How deep? Is it "live" (ie. full of worms adn pods etc.)?
What type of flow do you have in your tank?
What type of skimmer?
Do you have a macro algae refugium?
Sorry about all the questions, but I could type a 10 page essay on possible causes without this type of info.
Generally, you can have two types of hair algae, in my view (well there are 10's or 100's of types - I'm just generalising):
The type thats easy to get rid of and the type thats not...... the latter is more of a reefing problem, where algae persists in spite of pristine water quality...... we will assume that you have the forner.... the type that is being fuelled by nutrients.
Generally, the first thing yopu need to do is test for nitrate, phosphate, pH and alkalinity. People normally get away with alkalinity in a FOWLR because frequent water changes buffer it up..... but it is very easily fixed by adding baking soda (from the super market). You simply mix it with a bit of fresh water and pour it in..... its very easy and will benefit your tank in many ways - most notably by buffering and maintaining a higher, more stable pH. But - I would not add anything to a tank withtout being able to test for it before and after......
Nitrate and phosphate - depending on your fish, you could probably dramatically reduce levels by a series of large water changes, using RO water. First turn off all pumps then clean, srub, and remove as much hair algae as you can by hand. Let settle for a while then do a big water change, getting out any visible muck you can see....... anything up to 50% is ok, as long as the replacement water is aged 24hrs and adjusted for temperature etc. Repeat this every couple of days for a week to 10 days...... this should reduce nutrient levels dramatically, remove the roto cuase of it, and thus starve out the remaining algae.
This route is dependent on having good make up water, and to be honest, a 10% water change using RO water is as good as a 20% change using tap water....... so if you haven't got an RO unit, get one..... unless you have perfect tap water, which is unlikely and rare.
Doing this alone, together with buffering up your pH using baking soda should cure the problem. The next step is maintaining it.... which comes down to regular maintenance, good equipment, sensible stocking levels and correct feeding methods.......
HTH
Matt
Nuisance hair algae, typically, is the symptom of bad or deteriorating water quality. Do you test your water often? If so, what are your nitrate & phosphate readings?
A fluctuating pH can also cause problems, brought on (typically) by lowe alkalinity (dKh).
What size is the tank and how many fish, and what type fo fish do you have?
What do you feed? How often? Do you rinse it first? Are you sure food is not going uneaten?
Do you have a clean up crew (if your fish selection allow)?
I presume we are talking FOWLR? If you have 1lb per gallon or more of LR, then why are you still running a wet-dry (surplus to requirements)? A wet dry (aka nitrate factory) will not do you any favours as far as algae goes.
Do you do water changes? How much and how often?
Do you have a sand substrate? Is it fine sand or crushed coral? How deep? Is it "live" (ie. full of worms adn pods etc.)?
What type of flow do you have in your tank?
What type of skimmer?
Do you have a macro algae refugium?
Sorry about all the questions, but I could type a 10 page essay on possible causes without this type of info.
Generally, you can have two types of hair algae, in my view (well there are 10's or 100's of types - I'm just generalising):
The type thats easy to get rid of and the type thats not...... the latter is more of a reefing problem, where algae persists in spite of pristine water quality...... we will assume that you have the forner.... the type that is being fuelled by nutrients.
Generally, the first thing yopu need to do is test for nitrate, phosphate, pH and alkalinity. People normally get away with alkalinity in a FOWLR because frequent water changes buffer it up..... but it is very easily fixed by adding baking soda (from the super market). You simply mix it with a bit of fresh water and pour it in..... its very easy and will benefit your tank in many ways - most notably by buffering and maintaining a higher, more stable pH. But - I would not add anything to a tank withtout being able to test for it before and after......
Nitrate and phosphate - depending on your fish, you could probably dramatically reduce levels by a series of large water changes, using RO water. First turn off all pumps then clean, srub, and remove as much hair algae as you can by hand. Let settle for a while then do a big water change, getting out any visible muck you can see....... anything up to 50% is ok, as long as the replacement water is aged 24hrs and adjusted for temperature etc. Repeat this every couple of days for a week to 10 days...... this should reduce nutrient levels dramatically, remove the roto cuase of it, and thus starve out the remaining algae.
This route is dependent on having good make up water, and to be honest, a 10% water change using RO water is as good as a 20% change using tap water....... so if you haven't got an RO unit, get one..... unless you have perfect tap water, which is unlikely and rare.
Doing this alone, together with buffering up your pH using baking soda should cure the problem. The next step is maintaining it.... which comes down to regular maintenance, good equipment, sensible stocking levels and correct feeding methods.......
HTH
Matt
Sharkbait74
New member
Just a quick question associated with this.
I do experience a similar issue with a 200g FOWLR, 50g sump, using chaeto in the sump. I have 16x total volume turn/hour. 3 - 6" fine deep sand bed. I'm lightly stocked now but do have a 2.5ft Snowflake Eel. I know there's lots of food scraps and thus added some dither fish (5 small blue damsels). As well, I have 2 HUGE banded serpent stars that hang out with the eel and they seem to do a fine job on scraps. Having said that, I feed as much as i witness my eel swallow every 3 days. I feed the rest of the tank lightly. I still have greenhair algae issues and Nitrate issues. I am doing about 5% waterchanges weekly thus I am hitting 25% target monthly and am using RO/DI filtres.
What I am skeptical about is my 325g rated Tunze Skimmer. I do get a thick sludge from it but in my opinion it doesn't perform as well as the Aqua-C Remora Pro that I have for my 100g Reef Tank. Anyone else heard of success or frustration with a Tunze Skimmer?
I do experience a similar issue with a 200g FOWLR, 50g sump, using chaeto in the sump. I have 16x total volume turn/hour. 3 - 6" fine deep sand bed. I'm lightly stocked now but do have a 2.5ft Snowflake Eel. I know there's lots of food scraps and thus added some dither fish (5 small blue damsels). As well, I have 2 HUGE banded serpent stars that hang out with the eel and they seem to do a fine job on scraps. Having said that, I feed as much as i witness my eel swallow every 3 days. I feed the rest of the tank lightly. I still have greenhair algae issues and Nitrate issues. I am doing about 5% waterchanges weekly thus I am hitting 25% target monthly and am using RO/DI filtres.
What I am skeptical about is my 325g rated Tunze Skimmer. I do get a thick sludge from it but in my opinion it doesn't perform as well as the Aqua-C Remora Pro that I have for my 100g Reef Tank. Anyone else heard of success or frustration with a Tunze Skimmer?
I think the RODI and a kick butt skimmer are going to be the main tricks. I have a ton of LR, close to 200 lbs in a 135. I have been changing a lot of water, 75 gallons a week (tap water and I don't do it beforehand, it comes out of the tap into a trash can, mixed and stirred up for 5 minutes before going into the tank), and I have been brushing the rocks with a toothbrush weekly and cleaning all filter pads with a hose weekly and just recently developed hair algae in places.
The 3 weak links in my system are the number of fish (only a couple of big fish though), a skimmer that finished breaking in this week (likely cause to the excess nutrients and hair algae bloom) ,and using tap water. The next step as suggested by reefer334 is to go to RODI and replace my UV bulb.
The 3 weak links in my system are the number of fish (only a couple of big fish though), a skimmer that finished breaking in this week (likely cause to the excess nutrients and hair algae bloom) ,and using tap water. The next step as suggested by reefer334 is to go to RODI and replace my UV bulb.
Well these are all great starts for me to look into. I already use RO water from the fish store as add-in and change-out water. I have a Octopus NW skimmer which I think is pretty good and does take out some decent skimmate. I think the current hair algae has already taken hold and I just need to do something to get rid of it and go from there. I just ordered some phoszorb and chemizorb media for my sump, so I am going to pick at and scrub the hell (again) out of my rocks, do the water change, add the filter media, start rinsing my frozen food I use before adding, and we will see how it goes from there. I only have 2 fish in there now for almost a month now and the algae still keeps growing, I am wanting to add a kole tang so maybe he can help a bit too. so I really have little hope of any change and will probably end up eventually tearing down this tank and just getting rid of it all if this last effort doesnt work. Ive been dealing with this for almost 2years now and am just disgusted. Thanks for the tips though
Well I am techno. retarded and dont have the ability to load a pic, wish I did. I have one of those fake rock(ceramic) walls along the back of my tank and I would say about 70% of that is covered with about 1inch long hair algae along with multiple rocks with the same covering different areas and some areas in the sandbed. Plus, I can see little upstarts starting to grow on the rock wall in new areas and on new areas of rock.
