Frustrated with Hair Algae
 

Other than rabbitfish, what other fishes can i get that will help me battle with hair algae that's growing on the rocks right under my halides? My rabbitfish is currently not being very helpful and neither is my lawnmower blenny. thx

can you cut the lights for a week without any harm to other stuff? if not a week, then try three days a week with no lights until the crap goes away. how long is your current photoperiod?

Seahares do a better job on hair algae than fish IME. Just keep them away from powerheads.

But yeah, look for the cause instead of focusing mainly on the symptom. What are your water parameters? High nutrients feed hair algae.

Anthony

I've had luck with blue legged hermits. Put them in your sump for a few weeks and then place them where you want them to eat. Once they are hungry enough they will chow down the hair algae but once they get a taste for the other stuff they stop so you may have to starve them again.
Sea Hares will also do a good job on hair algae.

agreed. a sea hare worked great on hair algae for me.

unfortunately it worked so well it starved to death when the tank was clean of hair algae :(. maybe try to arrange somone to pass the sea hare along to when you're done with it, so it doesn't starve in your tank when the algae's gone.

if you're using seio/tunze's for water flow, you can just wrap vinyl window screen around the intake sections to prevent the sea hare from getting caught. You'll have to clean it twice a week though. I had to save mine once from the overflow chamber too. that was a pain.

i've been battling mine for months. cut down on lighting & check age of bulbs, limit feedings, increase skimming, use ro water, manually remove the algae, i've also setup a phosban reactor.....
the battle can be won.
with my trigger fish, i cant put any creatures to help, he thinks it lunch for him :)

What is the status of your RODI uit?

i do water changes everyday and so far my parameters has been good. i top off with RO. so it may be the age of the bulb since it's getting to the 1yr point... i currently do not have a sump and i think sea hares are alittle too big for my 50gallon.

Try not to have yout TDS reading go much above 5 before your change out your filters.

Where did you get yoru liverock from? Was is from another tank? Is the HA new, or has it been around for a while?

I had a seahare in my 40 with no problems, I just had to keep an eye for corals that he may have knocked over. Just be ready to do something with him when you run out of hair algae. Depending on how bad it is, it may take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, but they're hardcore eating machines.