Hair Algae prob

[dekay]

I've got one LR that's pretty much 50% covered with hair algae. Most of the other rocks have minor cases (bubble algae, like 5 bubbles, and some other kind that looks like little sticks thus far, maybe caulerpra).

I've got several solutions I'm considering at the moment, please give me your opinions.

1) get a Lettuce Nudibranch
2) manual removal
3) dump that specific piece of LR (pretty small, little bigger than a fist)
4) get another kind of invertibrate/fish that'll eat it.

I'm planning to manually remove the bubble algae and whatever the other one is this weekend. Won't mind trying a Lettuce Nudibranch cuz I'm in the midst of an algae bloom, so should have plenty for him to eat.

[Aquattro]

5) figure out where it came from and stop the source. When the source is stopped, the algae will go away.

[psuedo]

Why don't you take the problematic rock out and place it in a rubbermaid filled with salt water and a pump for a few days. All algae should be killed by then. As for the rest of the tank, turn the photoperiod down for a few weeks.

[PFisher]

Sorry to hear about the hair algae problem. I fought the stuff for several months and finally won. My tank has been hair algae free for 3 months now.

The way that I succeeded was to remove half of the rock and scrub it with a toothbrush in a bucket of tank water to remove all of the algae that I could. I then quarantined this half of the rock for a couple of weeks in a separate tank with no light. Then I returned the clean rock to the tank while repeating the process on the second half of the rock. I have only a 33g tank with 25 lbs of LR and no coral at the time, I don't know if this is a viable option or not, but I thought that I would suggest it. It worked for me, but I am sure that there will be many differing opinions.

I have since added some macroalgae to my system, and the hair algae has not returned (knock on wood).

Patrick

[Son Of Skyline]

How long has your tank been set up?

[dekay]

about a month

[Stretch]

1) get a Lettuce Nudibranch
2) manual removal
3) dump that specific piece of LR (pretty small, little bigger than a fist)
4) get another kind of invertibrate/fish that'll eat it.



1.Lettuce Nudi will only eat Bryopsis, is my understanding and when i had mine they would'nt even eat that.
2. Hard work, and you can't get all of it, Best method for me was to scrub every rock hard, and then i got luck with a yellow tang which eats the suff.
3. If its in your tank, dumping that piece of liverock will probably do nothing but spread to other ares of the tank
4. I've heard of many things that will eat the stuff, it's really hit or miss with them, I however got lucky, I didn't really hope my yellow tang would eat it, but it did. I just bought it because i been wanting a yellow tang for awhile

[Aquattro]

Are you using RO water?

[dekay]

Are you using RO water?

DI water

[Aquattro]

Missing any fish? Feeding messy frozen foods? Have you measured for NO3?

[Jack]

A new tank should experience a few algae cycles in the first few weeks/months but there is definatley something wrong if you've got hair algae all over the place.

Algae feeds on nutrients so you gotta find the source first.

[Son Of Skyline]

If your tank is only a month old there's not too much you can do. Manual removal isn't going to solve the problem. It's pretty normal in a young tank. Just do lots of small water changes, make sure your not pushing water too fast through your DI filter, and wait. It'll burn itself out eventually.

Then you'll get another algae bloom of some other type and you'll go through this all over again. It took my tank about 7 months before things really started settling down.

Have fun :cool:

[dekay]

Had two hermits die on me. Don't know why, but they were out of their shells and were in some crevices. Possible they died while they try to molt??

btw, i couldn't find the corpse for one of them, could that be the reason?

[Son Of Skyline]

Had two hermits die on me. Don't know why, but they were out of their shells and were in some crevices. Possible they died while they try to molt??

Or possibly they're just molts. The molt looks just like a real crab...only dead.

Either way I'd make sure there's no dead animals in your tank.

..and again. Keep doing small water changes until the algae dies off.

[Pete]

i had the same problem like you would not believe. all my rocks cover in green alge and thousands of little bubble alge. what i ened up doing was with a soft toohbrush scrubbing them in salt water. and i had to do this a few times along with more water changes and it all slowly went away. also bought a few left handed hermits and african red legs. as well as 2emerald crabs and i havent seen one bubble yet. i all so changed my filter to GREEN-X phosphte remover and green alge grows of lots of phosphates.

[pocilipora]

Yor algae has to have a source of nutrience and light to make it grow. Id sugest finding the source of the nutrience and remove it. :biggrin:

[smokinreefer]

i once had hair algae for a long time, and boy it is not fun when all your rocks are covered.

good advice given here...find the source and remove it. and i dont just mean that one particular piece of rock.

it needs light and nutrients.

IMO I feed my tank alot, which = lots of nutrients.
do you feed heavily? if so, do you really need to?
try cutting down feedings.

water changes? how often do you do them?
try increasing your water changes.

you mentioned you use DI water. as in tapwater purifier?
if so, think about going RO or even RO/DI...in the long run you will save money and you will get purer water as well.

i think i read that this is a fairly new tank right? true most all brand new systems will go through some sort of algae cycle(s), but dont discount this problem to a "normal" thing, not everyone suffers from hair algae.

whats your lighting? and photoperiod? all new bulbs? kelvin rating?
maybe change bulbs to newer bulbs, or try cutting down the photoperiod a bit.

i have ran photoperiods varying from 8hrs a day upto 12+hrs.


HTH or atleast gives you some ideas as to how to fight this.

but yeah, i would still yank that rock out and scrub the living sh-- out of it.

[TANGOMAN]

I battled hair algae in my 90g for longer than I care to mention... :redface: .
I played with lighting, feeding, manual removal...it kept comin' back. With your tank still being young, algae will have cycles. My culprit ? Insufffient biological filtration. I replaced a canister filter that was long since removed as I wanted to slowly convert to a reef set-up. I had a lot of live rock and a lot of flow so I figured it was "good to go..." Ammonia and/or nitrates were never detected but they had to be the source of the problem ? The algae was gone in four weeks and the coraline once again flourished. I really missed the hairy look so I again removed the canister filter and I was glad to see the rapid return of my hair... :rolleyes: . The canister is again back on and I'm goona' settle with a fish only system.
Good luck and be patient...

[Bob I]

I really missed the hairy look so I again removed the canister filter and I was glad to see the rapid return of my hair... :rolleyes: . The canister is again back on and I'm goona' settle with a fish only system.
Good luck and be patient...

Now if that would only work on your head.

:BIG:

[TANGOMAN]

On my head...? Says the the pot to the kettle ! :mrgreen: