Hair Algea

[reeffreak]

setting up new 225 and have a hair algea problem, purchase 10 lettuce sea slugs "no help" trying to get phosphat under control before adding fish. Thinking about adding 5 yellow tanks, or anything else that may help. Thoughts from anyone?

[reefman8471]

The best way to combat hair algae is to approach it from several different fronts. The first is to make sure you do regular water changes (weekly or biweekly). Secondly, make sure you run a good phosphate remover (iron oxide). Third, take the rocks and scrub them, preferably in a bucket of saltwater. And last add some animals that will consume hair algae (combination of crabs, snails, sea slugs, and algae eating fish like tangs and rabbitfish). You do not want to increase the bioload to much though as you might be hurting yourself more than helping yourself.

James

[redpheonix]

I had a real bad problem with hair algae for awhile... i tried several sea hare but my large crabs always desided to try and eat them, but they are great for hair algae... also i have heard that elephant snails are great for hair algae also... they look very similar to a key whole limpet... but i agree with James.. take the rocks out first and scrub them clean in one bucket of saltwater and then rinse them in another bucket to make sure you got it all of good...
I used a magnum 350 with a hose and a tooth brush to clean most of mine off because i couldnt get my rocks out, then i would run the magnum with a clean sock in it and some phosban to polish the water for a day... i also added a few emerald crabs and blue/scarlet hermits.
If i had corals with hair algae all over their base like a candy coral or a torch i took them out of the tank and sat them in another smaller tank or in my sump with nothing but hermits in it and in a day or so they had picked it clean... it was their only food source... and i still use that method on occassion when i have a coral that wants to start growing it again... the only place i have hair algae now is in my overflow...
hope some of these options might help you...
Zack

[DrHank]

I had a similar problem for almost 8 months. All I can add is make sure that you're using DI water for make up and top off, Rinse any commercially prepared frozen food with DI, don't overfeed, try Phosban or other phosphate remover, consider a fuge and harvesting macro algae. All pretty much the same info that has been talked about time and again.

From a livestock standpoint, I added a rabbitfish. It was a slow process but finally I won. I'm sure that you will too. Good luck!

[redpheonix]

The fuge thing really works too.. i for got to add that to my list... i used cheto in my fuge but grape calerpa grows like crazy also... i know several people who have used yellow eye tangs for algae grazing... or maybe even a lawn mower blenny...

but the ro water for top off ect.. is also a must.. if you use tap water you are defeating the purpose... i know that mobile has a really high level of phosphates in the water...

[lowrider]

The fuge thing really works too.. i for got to add that to my list... i used cheto in my fuge but grape calerpa grows like crazy also... i know several people who have used yellow eye tangs for algae grazing... or maybe even a lawn mower blenny...

but the ro water for top off ect.. is also a must.. if you use tap water you are defeating the purpose... i know that mobile has a really high level of phosphates in the water...

and thats not all

[snoopdog]

I can positively say large amounts of small blue hermits will tear any hair algae up. When I say large amounts I mean 75-100 for a 29 gallon. As long as they can climb to the hair algae , the algae is gone.

I found an inexpensive source for hermits this year on Ebay.

[DrHank]

That would mean that he would need 600-800 for his 225. Wow, that's a lot of crabs! I think I'd reduce nutrients and add a nice sized rabbitfish ( Foxface Lo or Scribbled Rabbitfish) and possibly a Kole tang.

[snoopdog]

He could probably get away with 200 and that is not expensive really. Yeah a fish would be a better solution, maybe even mixed with 200 hermits.

[Redfish]

The first thing you can do is have patience since you are just setting it up.

After that, you really need to keep three things in mind; light, nitrates and phosphates. Without any one of those items the algae cannot grow. In general, phosphates control the rate of hair algae growth. Phosphates are the easiest to control in your tank as well.

In the long term your natural, stable biology will natuarlly act as a phosphate sink for exportation. With a little bit of help from say snails or crabs to catch the odd growths and a refugium your algae will be controlled. You could also run GFO long term.

In the short term, your biology sucks and phosphates are not being exported or sunk. The easiest way to control algae right now is aggressive use of GFO or other phosphate removers and water changes. If you don't want to scrub the rocks, get some blue legs or mexican turbos. I like the mexican turbos because their poop is easier to siphon out for export.

Manually cleaning out as much algae as you can will help clear it up quicker. Also, if you only have fish at the moment turn the lights out and leave them out for a while.

The last trick is one I just learned from one of the experts. Keep your pH and alkalinity high by using as much kalkwasser as possible. As long as you are doing water changes and your calcium/alkalinity is close, you cannot add too much kalkwasser, partularly in a dirty tank. If you add too much, use just make sand.

[reefman8471]

In addition, kalkwasser actually precipitates phosphates I believe. So that will help keep the phosphates down. Get a good phosphate test kit...ideally you want to keep your phosphate levels at 0.02ppm or less.

James

[Amphiprion]

Yup, phosphates are insoluble in pH values of around 10 and up. However, there isn't too much stopping them from becoming redissolved, unless you have your kalkwasser drip somewhat close to a skimmer inlet. The higher pH seems to also limit the amount of CO2 in the water, so that should help combat the algae, as well. Personally, I would just keep water parameters where they should be, maybe with Ca++ and alkalinity slightly elevated (for various reasons) and the use of a ferric oxide hydroxide-based phosphate remover and water changes. Like James said, you ideally want it less than .02. Another note I should mention is that though your phosphate test kit may not detect phosphate (they could be in organic/bound forms or too low/sequestered), if you have an algae problem, you have too much. As much as it hurts, manual removal is going to be best in these cases, not to mention more reliable. It is good to have animals as backup, but I don't too much like to rely on them exclusively, especially hermits. They can start picking at other stuff if the algae isn't to their liking.

[Scootman]

I am no expert, but I had an extreme hair algae problem in my 75 gallon tank up until recently. This is a close up picture of one piece of live rock which was coated in HA.



My entire tank was full of the stuff. I would take out my rocks and scrub them, but the algae would return within 2 weeks. I began reading everything I could on the subject and these are the steps I took:

1. Increased my janitorial crew
2. Began using kalk water as my top off (RO/DI).
3. Added more live sand and live rock to help stable my water's bio filtration.
4. Increased water circulation by installing a wavemaker and 4 MJ 900 powerheads.
5. Purchased and installed a better skimmer. This really seemed to do the trick. My original skimmer was one of those cheap sealife systems 75 skimmers. I bought a used Aqua-C EV 150 and it's nickname is the "Frothinator".

Here is what I think the above changes have achieved:

The "stuff" stays in suspension because I now have a lot of water circulation. These nutrients are making their way down into the sump where the skimmer is catching it. The kalk is increasing the skimmers ability to extract the phosphates as well. Whatever nutrients are escaping the sump and falling into the rocks and substrate are being eaten by the snails, hermits and emerald crabs.

In my case, it was just a few weeks later and all my hair algae had vanished. I'm now getting the purple algae and I'm pumped!

Good luck,
Scoots