How else to do battle with hair algae

[andresont]

http://www.hiddenreef.ca/storefront/...categoryid=112

This Phosban Reactor works good for me, when i got this running in my system algae got down very fast thogh i had way less then you are.

[michika]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions.

I'm hesitant to add more to my clean up crew as they aren't currently making any dent in the issue. I currently have ~35 hermits, the bulk of which are blue legs, 15 various snails, turbos, astreas, and cerith's. I also have a handful of bumble bees, and a lipstick conch. I'm worried that adding more will have the same effect of nothing. Am I seeing no direct benefit from my clean up crew because its too small?

Does anyone have a link for abalones? I want to research their care and requirements more before I look into purchasing one.

My tank is quite small, so I will have to pass on a seahare, or an urchin, as they will probably be too large in my system. What about a lawnmore blenny?

Can anyone make other recommendations, other then adding livestock, and other then what is on my list above?

[dreef]

I second the phosban reactor..i too tried everything,better husbandry,snails,urchins,rabbit and tang.Was fighting a losing battle.Bought a reactor and three weeks later, gone..nothing i now feed nori to the tang and rabbitfish

[Slick Fork]

Is this a bryopsis algae? I have been pulling my hair out with that stuff for ages and have recently tried the magnesium treatment. Sorry I can't find the link but a search on this site should give the link to the one on reef central.

I am 2 weeks into it and almost 100% algae free. I had a blenny pass away on me earlier this week but I don't know if the magnesium had anything to do with it. I've been adding it much slower than everyone else did (haven't even hit target levels yet) and my other fish are ok so I'm hesitant to blame magnesium for his death. I did have a small ammonia spike when the algae started dying off as I think the algae was sucking up a lot of pure ammonia and just died too quickly. Otherwise no negative effects.

Another tactic would be to try 3 days of darkness. Again there's a thread on RC and I believe it was in reef keeping magazine a month or two to ago as well so digging it up shouldn't be too hard. People seem to have had good results with that.

[michika]

I know what the Mg treatment is. I don't think its bryopsis, well at least not the larger portion of the algae. I'm still trying to raise my Mg levels, anyways because I feel they are a bit on the low side.

I haven't yet tried the darkness method yet, but maybe I will try it out.

Delphinius,

What does the urchin eat after its devoured all the GHA in my tank? Did you ever have problems with them picking up or moving too much around? I'm worried that it will devistate my SPS field, and hurt my clams.

I'm going to skip on the lawnmore blennie. I've never had one before so I thought I might as well ask.

I'm going to try and source out an abalone, and then go from there.

For those who have suggested a phosban reactor, I don't have the room for one. I already have a phosban reactor running as a kalk. reactor in my top off bucket. How has everyone else plumbed a reactor into their system? Photos if you have them.

So for now I'm going to try and do the following:
- Add more clean up crew, more snails
- Try a few days of complete darkness
- Look into an abalone & or an urchin
- Try to see if I could add on a phosban reactor.

Any other suggestions?

[Okguy]

Regardless of what critters you use to help control to outbreak, you still need to address the source or the problem. I agree with you that the tap water caused the problems by probably adding phosphates to the system.

Have you tested for phosphates? Do you use phosphate remover?

Even if the phosphate readings are 0 they still may be present since hair algae is very efficient at using it. Also remember that as the hair algae dies it puts the phosphates back into the water column which is then available to help colonize other areas of your tank. If you currently don't use phosphate remover, you may want to consider doing so. I know you don't have room for a phosban reactor but you may have room to put a bag of phosphate remover in.

I'm just getting over a bad outbreak of hair algae but mine was caused by an old bulb (you might want to check this as well). When I replaced the bulb the problem didn't go away, but as soon as I started using phosphate remover the algae began to subside.

[ponokareefer]

Hi there,

I battled hair algae for a couple of years trying all of the things you have tried, even an abalone, with little success. The phosban slowed things down, as did all of the other things, but what cleaned out my tank almost completely was a tuxedo urchin. Best $15 I ever spent. In a matter of 2 months, it is almost completely gone. It only took about 2 weeks to see most of it gone, now it slowly nibbles at the rest. It was fun watching it rip the algae right off the rocks and carry it around for a while! And unlike slugs, when an urchin dies, it doesn't take out part of your system with it, like the one I tried. If you are worried about feeding it after all the algae is gone, just pick up some Ocean Nutrition Algae Sheets. They love them!
Good luck with whatever choice you make in the battle.

[michika]

Okguy,

I've already changed out my bulbs. I do run a phosphate remover in a filter media bag just below the return pipe.

The difference between running it in a filter bag, and running a reactor is that I have to find how to push most, if not all, of my water through the reactor. If you have a suggestion for how to add in or run a reactor in a small space, please let me know.

Ponokareefer,

Did you ever have problems with your urchin knocking stuff over, or causing damage?

[Reefer Rob]

Second the Tuxedo. It eats the soft algae and doesn't strip the Coraline like my short spine does.

Best thing I ever did for algae in my tank was set up an algae refugium with Chaeto. All the nasties grow in the refugium due to the more favourable light spectrum and not in the display.

You can also blast the patches with hot RO/DI water. It will die overnight. Just be careful around your corals, and don't do too much at once in a small tank.

[Delphinus]

Hey Catherine,

Originally Posted by michika

Delphinius,

What does the urchin eat after its devoured all the GHA in my tank? Did you ever have problems with them picking up or moving too much around? I'm worried that it will devistate my SPS field, and hurt my clams.

It seems to me that urchins are more adaptive (or adaptable) than, say, seahares.

Each species has their own preferences though, making them better or worse than others for particular algae types.

For example, I have a diadema urchin, and... to be honest I'm not sure what his preference is. But this thing eats like a pig. I can feed it pellets, flake, chaeto, .. you name it, as long as it's a herbivore feed he seems to eat it like nuts. I really need to film a video of it catching flake and eating it because it is like nothing I have seen before. He does actually pick out flake from the water column.

The tuxedo type urchins seem to rasp the rockwork and glass. They're after coraline algae usually, but something you get this fuzzy hard algae that grows on coraline, they'll totally remove that in the effort to get at the coraline.

I bought a "math" urchin in an effort to get at some problematic caulerpa on my rocks. While he took care of it, he's also a "boring" (I don't mean "uninteresting") type urchin meaning he actually burrows into rock (by eating the live rock to make a hole large enough to fit into).

This green urchin of mine, that I have not been able to ID, has been a hair algae eating machine. I see him on my nori feeding stick at night so I think that's what he eats now that the tank has been cleaned of hair algae (for the most part). I'll try to snap a picture of him. Think "blue tuxedo urchin" but completely green. I've not seen an ID of this species anywhere online. Colby at Elite seemed to know it though, he said "this one is good for algae" and he called that one right. I wish I could find you an ID because this is the one you want. The others, .... probably not so much.

I have a blue tuxedo and the math urchin in the tank with my clams, there are no issues of interaction with them whatsoever.

Anyhow, I hope some of this info helps. At some point, I'll try to get a picture of the green urchin to show you so that you know what to look for.