Help! Green Hair algea bloom

[danny zubot]

Can someone tell me an effective way to rid my tank of green hair algae? Last time I had a bloom I spent hours pulling and scrubbing my rocks. I don't want to do that again, its too stressful on my tank. Do I need a certain snail or crab or fish?

[Sushiman]

You need to stage a multi front attack: assess your filtration, feedings, lighting photoperiod, bioload & h2o changes. these all contribute. Next keep a healthy population of detrivores to keep wastes from piling up & fowling the tank water. Consider adding an urchin, in my experience one of the best algae destroyers out there. Add a quality <phosphate resin to your sump. I have been algae-free for three years using this approach & I was plagued by hair & Bryopsis. Scrubbing the rocks will just spread algae like wildfire, pluck it off & try what I've mentioned. I also have a large UV on my set-up, like'em or hate'em, my tank is loads better since I added one.

[gbeef]

Id say time. i had a horrible aglae bloom
everything was green, just do your water changes and patienice.
if you wan critters i found turbos and trouches worked really good.

[danny zubot]

Well, the water changes aren't a factor. The green algae bloom as well as a brown algae bloom has all occured since I did a large water change after treating for cyano. the total change was about 45% over a couple of days so there shouldn't be any real No3 and waste problem. I did however stir up my sand bed a bit, causing either a ditritous fallout over my tank. Or I killed enough nitrifying bacteria to warrant having the bloom due to under nitrification. This is one of my therories, ther other is my photo period as mentioned. In the past 2 months I have gone from 180 watts of NO and Pc lighting to 380 watts of MH and Pc lighting. The MH bulb is new but the PC was purchased from a fellow reefer in Calgary and I was told that is was 4 months old at the time, 6 months old now.

I do have a lot of hermits, and cerith snails, and a couple of tourbon snails in my sump. I will consider and urchan, but will a tang eat hair algae? This is my real question.

[AJ_77]

You might want to consider a lower-form of algae eater rather than a Tang, Danny. That's a big commitment - seriously... What about the snails/sea hare route?

And yeah, that big a change in lighting will often give what you have now. I took 2.5 weeks to ramp up when I got my MH, and it wasn't a problem for me. (Of course, you want to turn them on NOW, and get that full photoperiod you paid so much money for... )

[Beverly]

Do you have any kind of macroalgae in the tank to help soak up the nutrients?

[albert_dao]

I have a seahare I could "rent" out if you want Danny.

$5 til he's done and just bring him back. Gauranteed to eat bryopsis (I grow it in a Rubbermaid tub for him). Lemme know if you're interested.

[marie]

Well, the water changes aren't a factor. The green algae bloom as well as a brown algae bloom has all occured since I did a large water change after treating for cyano.

Thats the problem with using chemicals to get rid of cyano. You don't find out what causes it and just end up with a different type of algae.
I would suspect a combination of, lights and nutrient build up , maybe in the rocks or sandbed

[gbeef]

heres a pic of my tank during the end of its cycle.
http://www.canreef.com/photopost/sho...php?photo=1404

fuge worked from me also.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by albert_dao

Gauranteed to eat bryopsis .

Does it eat normal hair algae though?

Steve