How else to do battle with hair algae

[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.

[ponokareefer]

I initially tested for phosphates as well, and they were 0, and the algae was growing. I switched my water source to RO, along with all the other suggestions and just stopped checking. I know everyone says you need to find the problem, but mine wasn't going away, and until I got the urchin, it was only shrinking barely.

[michika]

How about a photo? Something I can take with me when I go shopping.

Is the green a dark green or more of a turquiose?

[Delphinus]

Ummm ... sort of a "light green" I guess. I'll take a photo of it tonight and post it.

[christyf5]

I had a tuxedo urchin that cleared up some hair algae I had growing on the underside of my centerbrace (eventually I took some teeth out of the overflow to reduce the water level). He was a great addition to the tank, ate various types of algae, constantly plastered various rocks, caulerpa and stray zoos all over himself and (most importantly IMO) stayed small.

Currently I have a diadema urchin which arrived as a hitchhiker on a rock. He was about the size of a pencil eraser when I moved at the beginning of April. "So cute, I think I'll keep him" His test is now the size of a small mandarin orange and his spines are easily 12-15 cm long. So suffice it to say they are speedy growers. He also eats rock. He makes lovely little piles of granular sand all over the place. I often wonder how long it would take him to whittle all the rock in the tank down to just sand (not to mention how long it will be before I stick myself with one of his spines)

IMO, hair algae is one of those things that come on fairly quickly, and like everything else in this hobby takes forever to get rid of (ie. browning out of corals in like 2 days then months to color up again :confused). Between RODI usage and a phosban reactor (or even phosban in a filter bag in a high flow area) it should clear up on its own albeit slowly. It may help to pull some of the longer bits out by hand and then siphon any stray bits.

[Pescador]

My old 125 looked just like your tank and I was just about ready to throw in the towel.
I don't know what the solution was for sure but I put in three diadema urchins, a new skimmer, and changed to Tropic Marin salt. It cleaned up pretty fast after that.
I still think it was switching salt but that's pretty hard to prove. It's never come back anyway.
Good luck and hang in there.

[michika]

I'm thinking that I will look for an urchin, but only after I've found a way to secure all my SPS frags down.

Until then I guess I'll just conitnue with the points I outlined above, and with what I've already been doing. I hope this nasty outbreak takes care of itself soon, because its making my tank look like quite the eyesore.

[Delphinus]

Honestly, I think it's an unadvertised rite of passage for most reef tanks to go through a cycle like this in their first few months or so... This tank is about that, isn't it? If so ... continue on, as you are doing, and it should clear itself eventually. It's when the tank does have measureable nasties like nitrates and phosphates that you can't account for when you start to have REAL headaches. For example, my ritteri tank, just can't keep nitrates under 30. I can't keep any corals in that kind of sewage. Where do they come from? I have no idea, it's not like I overfeed, it's not like I don't have a good skimmer. I guess it's just having a 24" anemone turns out to be a bioload beyond my wildest imagination. But weirdly I dont' really have any filamentous algaes in the main tank except for in the overflow strainers. I guess the urchins, rabbit and abalone are basically keeping things clean that way. But I do get the occasional bad bout of cyano, man I wish I could figure out a way to deal with this nitrate problem (tank is about 1.5 years old now).

[Okguy]

Originally Posted by 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.

What about a small hang-on filter? Anything that forces the water through the media bag should do? I'm using my fluval 304 that I normally run empty obviously too big for you but, I've seen small hang on fluvals for dirt cheap at local pet stores (of course I can't find one online to show you).

Originally Posted by michika

Okguy,

I have tested for phosphates, but it reads 0. Obviously because there is still growth in the tank there are still phosphates in the system. At this point in time I'm starting to think testing for phosphates is a waste of my time. I know I have them, as they are contributing to the algae growth, yet all tests show that there is 0.

I agree with you all my phosphate readings were also 0 but thought it might be worth a try....

I just finished reading the blog on your website and it basically shot down some of my other theories (contaminated base rock and lighting).

But there was some info I couldn't get that might be contributing to the problem.

1) How many and what type of fish do you have in the tank? I see you have at least 1 Tang in there, which will create a lot of waste for the algae to feed on.

2) What is the flow rate. I think you're somewhere between 20-30 times but I couldn't find what return pump you are using.

3) What salt are you using? I've read that some salts can cause the problems (of course I can't remember which or find the thread) but maybe someone else can chime in on this one

4) How many pounds of live rock do you have in the system?

5) Is the tank 3 months old? If so this might be part of it's maturing process. If this is the case you might just have to wait it out.

I'm willing to bet it's #5 but you never know. If you find a way to get the water to flow through the phosphate remover you can turn algae cover rocks over (if no corals are attached to it). The lack of light should kill it and the phosphate remover will lock up the phosphates they release. Just don't turn them all at once as this would probably cause a nitrate spike in your system.

I agree with Delphinus this is a rite of passage and it will only take a few minor adjustments and time before you are algae free.

Good Luck!

[michika]

Okguy

To answer your questions:
1) fish are the orange shoulder (~1"), who is leaving in the next few weeks, and a six line wrasse.
2) Off the top of my head I don't know what the flow rate is. The return pump is a mag 7, and I'm using a hydor koralia 1 in the display for additional flow. The returns, which come through spray bars, are on a SCWD.
3) I'm using Red Sea Coral Pro.
4) I guess around 30lbs in the display, ~5lbs in the sump, but really its just a pile of frag plugs for pods to propagate in.
5) The tank is actually parts from my 230g, so everything in the tank (aside from new SPS additions and a clam) is around 2-3 years old. The rock has been with me since I started in 2003, so its certainly not new rock.

If its a right of passage, shouldn't this have happened in one of my first tanks? This is like my 5th tank, and I've never had to deal with this stuff before. Sometimes I wonder if its the PC bulbs, because before this system I never used supplimental lighting... This is so frustrating.

The strangest thing is that this tank used to be set up in the basement of my house while I was preparing to move, and while the 230g tank was dismantled, I didn't have any algae problems before. The only things that changed between then and now are that I used tap water for a few weeks, I added a chiller, added the hydor powerhead (to combat the algae), and some SPS frags.

I have to say GHA is worse then getting your tank wiped out by red bugs.