What would you do?

[Frenchie2]

My bio cube (29 g) crashed a little while ago. So I am starting basically from scratch again... Cleaned the tank, put some live sand I bought at the LFS, put some awesome looking live rock from another reefer who had it in its sump for quite a while along with 1/2 the water from his existing tank (pristine water conditions) in order to kick in the biological cycle a little faster, then the other half with new RODI salted water. Put a couple of small power heads for more circulation and then wait a while before I put the fish and left over corals (lps) back in there. Well everything was peachy keen, water parameters excellent and everything looking good after a week. Then, I notice some damn hair algae starting to grow here and there. I have omitted the day lights all week, just left the actinic on for 9 hrs/day. Can't believe it! F#¥@ hair algae! I got a cleaning crew (25 blue leg hermit crabs - little wee ones) and they are working away but the algae is still growing. I scrubbed the rock with a wire brush, but it's still growing.... I performed a couple water changes (15%ea). I also put some Rowa phos & Purigen in the back chamber (middle) right off the bat. Is this going to go away? What else should I do? I am so tempted to just get rid of the rock and put some new one in there, but will the same thing happen again? Please advise

[lastlight]

in my experience you're going to get some hair algae. sometimes a lot depending on how your rock is to begin with.

with time (and this means months sometimes) you can beat it by encouraging a lower nutrient environment. I still have a bit too but it's no reason to scrap the rock.

[Dearth]

Hair algae is one of those nuisance algae that everybody experiences at some point or another in their reefing career there are plenty of critters that will nibble at it but few will outright eat it as part of their primary diet it is definitely not an overnight fix. Just continue weekly 20% water changes and I your feeding your critters I would go down to once a day and just very little at that eventually it will go away it takes patience is all.

[naesco]

Originally Posted by Frenchie2

My bio cube (29 g) crashed a little while ago. So I am starting basically from scratch again... Cleaned the tank, put some live sand I bought at the LFS, put some awesome looking live rock from another reefer who had it in its sump for quite a while along with 1/2 the water from his existing tank (pristine water conditions) in order to kick in the biological cycle a little faster, then the other half with new RODI salted water. Put a couple of small power heads for more circulation and then wait a while before I put the fish and left over corals (lps) back in there. Well everything was peachy keen, water parameters excellent and everything looking good after a week. Then, I notice some damn hair algae starting to grow here and there. I have omitted the day lights all week, just left the actinic on for 9 hrs/day. Can't believe it! F#¥@ hair algae! I got a cleaning crew (25 blue leg hermit crabs - little wee ones) and they are working away but the algae is still growing. I scrubbed the rock with a wire brush, but it's still growing.... I performed a couple water changes (15%ea). I also put some Rowa phos & Purigen in the back chamber (middle) right off the bat. Is this going to go away? What else should I do? I am so tempted to just get rid of the rock an
d put some new one in there, but will the same thing happen again? Please advise

what would I do?

I would begin at the beginning.
I would sell off your coral and livestock.
Put some new sand, rock water and wait for the tank to complete its cycle. Take the time to enjoy what starts appearing in your tank. have patience

Wait a month or so after your tank has cycled and add one small fish and some frags. Add another fish one month later.

Resist the urge to go faster otherwise you will likely be plagued with algae and or cyno problems and another crash.
Patience is everything in this hobby. There is no other way

[JmeJReefer]

Agreed. Cycling properly and patiently is what deters would-be reefers. This hobby requires some next level patience, and a troubleshooting game like you wouldn't believe! Try water changes first, if nutrients still high, something is up with ur rock r sand

[hillegom]

You could try H202, hydrogen peroxide, as a last resort.
Google and read up on it first.
I have not personally tried this method, just reading up on it.

Here is a start

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/26870...s-to-prove-it/

http://www.frozenocean.org/t1710-hai...rogen-peroxide

http://www.reef2reef.com/forums/reef...fing-tool.html

[Zoaelite]

Two common Reef Aquarium myths/ misconceptions;

-"Live sand" in a bag can reduce your cycle time.
FALSE; The stuff sold in wet bags claiming to be live only contains encysted bacteria, there are no other critters (worms, bristlestars, sand sifters). At 3X the price of regular sand your best off to buy a bacterial supplement and find a buddy that will let you take a couple handfuls of REAL live sand. Bagged live sand is about as effective as curing your cycle as Head-on is effective at curing your headache.

-"Transferring someone’s good water will help me with my cycle."
FALSISH; Very little bacteriobiomass exists in your water column, doing water changes is pivotal in cycling as it removes excess waste stabilizing your system. Your best bet is to use newly mixed salt water, this way you reduce the chance of introducing pathogens from someone else’s tank. In addition this ensures the water your adding is free of nitrate, nitrites and NH3.

Hair algae is a pain as manual removal usually results in a stalk still attached to the rock allowing the algae to grow back. It can also grow on lower levels of nutrients making it difficult to starve.

If the rock is small it could be removed, you could also take it out and scrub it thoroughly but this will cause your tank to cycle again.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Zoaelite

Two common Reef Aquarium myths/ misconceptions;

-"Live sand" in a bag can reduce your cycle time.
FALSE; The stuff sold in wet bags claiming to be live only contains encysted bacteria, there are no other critters (worms, bristlestars, sand sifters). At 3X the price of regular sand your best off to buy a bacterial supplement and find a buddy that will let you take a couple handfuls of REAL live sand. Bagged live sand is about as effective as curing your cycle as Head-on is effective at curing your headache.

-"Transferring someone’s good water will help me with my cycle."
FALSISH; Very little bacteriobiomass exists in your water column, doing water changes is pivotal in cycling as it removes excess waste stabilizing your system. Your best bet is to use newly mixed salt water, this way you reduce the chance of introducing pathogens from someone else’s tank. In addition this ensures the water your adding is free of nitrate, nitrites and NH3.

Hair algae is a pain as manual removal usually results in a stalk still attached to the rock allowing the algae to grow back. It can also grow on lower levels of nutrients making it difficult to starve.

If the rock is small it could be removed, you could also take it out and scrub it thoroughly but this will cause your tank to cycle again.

Dude, I love your science. Is that a weird thing to say?

But seriously, bang on.

I've been doing a metric sh*t ton of research in to phosphates recently for some soil analysis I need to do for my masters, and I'd also toss in there that certain nutrients like phosphate are much more dynamic and complicated than any of our crappy little hobby test kits can reveal. This rock that you are using very well may be contributing to the algae problem, but there's just about no way of knowing whether that's going to be an issue with any one kind of rock until you start using it. Are you using a phosphate absorbing media?

[Baker]

When I started my first tank I didnt know what to expect and i got a full blown breakout in green hair algae. I thought this was typical and just thought that I needed to get the appropriate critters to take care of it. So through talking with people, I soon got a sea hair. He was taking it down little by little. I then got bubble algae, so I got an emerald crab. Well the emerald ate all the bubble and started on the hair. Then I got green turf algae, so I got a Kole tang. By this time the green hair was out and the green turf was in. Keep in mind this whole time I was using ro/di water. It wasnt until I started dosing prodibio bioclean and the odd shot of h2o2 that everything disappeared. My point is, if you not going to start from scratch then these things just have to be dealt with appropriately. Was I frustrated at times and want to shut it down? Hell yea. But after about 7-8 months the tank has no algae and is really starting to appear like a real reef tank. I would just stick it out and deal with the problems as they come. I dealt with all those algae problems for around 4-5 months and now the tank is some thing that basically maintenence free. "Just add water" i do a little more than water changes every 2 weeks. Ive recently starting dosing additives and playing around with that. Im glad I was patient with all the problems. Helped me understand alot more about keeping a reef. Good luck with whatever you choose.

[toytech]

This has happened on every tank I started , rodi clean rock , its normal .
A turbo snail or two helps , and I find that after a few weeks or sometimes months it clears up on its own .