Hair Algae
 

Hey guys,

I have had my tank running for a year now, it is a 10 gallon nano, with 1 clown and 1 clown goby. Over the last few months I have noticed that hair algae is starting to cover my live rock. I have had an aquaclear 500 filter converted into a refugium with light and macro algae running for over a month, and since then the macro has doubled in size, but has not slown down the rate at which the hair algae, and algae on the glass grows. I am using RO water from a local store, and do a water change religiously every week. I even took out a small piece of live rock covered in hair algae out a couple weeks ago, pulled all of the hair algae out, and it is covered in it once again. My clean up crew consists of 2 blue leg hermits, 1 scarlett, 2 cerith, 3 astrea, and 6 black ones from Elite. My clean up crew does nothing for this algae. This is really frustrating. Any ideas?

Algae as you know needs a food source. Both nitrates and phosphates contribute to this food source. Many times your readings of these 2 might not seem high do to the fact that the algae is consuming it faster than it can enter the water colum.
The first thing I would check is your source water. Most stores that sell RO water do not do the required maintenance needed to keep the Nitrates and Phosphates low.
Secondly what are the current nitrate and phosphate levels in your tank?
Third what Macro are you using in your refugium? how is it lit?

J

Nitrates show up a bit on my test kit, but phosphates do not. I heard leaving the lights off for a day or two might kill it, but will this do anything to my fish/inverts? The macro is red, I think its Red Feather Kelp. I got it from Golds in Calgary.

I tried leaving the lights off for a whole weekend and it didn't do a thing for me. Hair algae is evil evil evil evil!

I would still Test your water that you use for water changes.

Leaveing the lights off might help. But you will not have delt with the cause and it would quickly return.

How old are you bulbs. This could also contribute

Im using a 72w power compact lighting system and the bulbs are about 10 months old. Is that too old?

*Bing Bing Bing* We have a winner :), after around 6-12 months of use your bulbs degrades and then you find nusance algea explodes.
Levi

Not sure if I understand levi could you expand on this with examples. I understand that nitrates and phosphates give hair algae a food source but you are saying low light PAR output also feeds hair algae.
Thanks
Kevin

Here are some of the potential causes that I found with my battle with hair algae.

1) Changing out all bulbs, a more yellow spectrum seems to lend it self to algae growth
2) Macro algae, and a variety of macros at that.
3) RO/DI water
4) Manual removal of the algae
5) Running the tank with a reduced photo period
6) A Blackout period, I hear it works for some, but it didn't do anything for me.
7) Run a phosphate remover
8) Larger water changes
9) Ensure all your water parameters are in order with limited fluctuations
10) Add additional members to your clean up crew, e.g. hermits, urchin, lettuce nudibranch, seahare
11) Remove rocks and scrub them all down and pluck them clean.
12) Run a Nitrate spong or remover
13) Changing your salt brand. It seems that some salt brands may have phosphates.
14) Add in GHA eating fish

I hope something works out for you!

Its not the par,but the shift in spectrum.Older lights put out a more favorable spectrum to the algae.Even with more favorable light the algae still needs po4 and no3 as fuel.Its impossible to not add these to our systems,unless one doesn't feed at all.So a shift in spectrum can be enough to tip the balance in favor of the algae