How else to do battle with hair algae

[marie]

You forgot to add to your list "get more clean up crew" . I would recommend an abalone and/or some turbo snails.

Bristle worms are amazingly helpful as well. My husband spent 10 min one night watching a particularily large worm (12+ inches) clear a inch square patch of hair algae off the back glass.

My husband is away from home 6 weeks at a time and what do we do when he is home? Watch worms

[michika]

Thanks!
I added a larger clean up crew once I noticed the issue was getting out of hand, but I haven't seen an impact yet. Any other clean up crew recommendations? Snails in particular?

[Clown]

Just bought a Arrow crab and it ate just about all the crappy algae

[marie]

astreas are good for the glass but in my experience they very rarely go on the rock, cerith keep mostly to the sand and i have never had any luck keeping margaritas for any length of time. Turbos seem to make the most obvious dent in the algae.
I haven't had any experience with sea hares but I've heard they are wonderful algae eaters maybe you could borrow one from somebody for a few months

[Chowder]

You can also try a seahare but make sure your powerhead intakes are covered. They have a tendency of getting sucked into them. Have you tested for phosphates. Those can also feed algae .

[Snappy]

Catherine I would call Neil and get about 50 blue legged hermits and your algae will be gone by Sept - Oct. It worked for me last fall. You saw my tank so imagine it full of hair algae and then gone 3 months later from hermit crabs.

[Delphinus]

I'll second the abalone suggestion, they're very very cool. Almost as good at nuisance algae control as a seahare, but seem to be less prone to starving themselves out (seahares eventually eat all the hair algae, then starve, unless they adapt to other food, but more don't than do).

There are some smaller abalones that would do well in a tank this size. I know Elite here in Calgary usually has the ones that are about 2" in size. Mine that I've got is a solid 8" so maybe a little too big for a tank your size, so watch out for the smaller ones. Mine is green, but these smaller ones at Elite that I've seen were more brownish.

Another wicked algae eater I've got is a green urchin. I have not been able to ID the species of urchin as it does not match any of the ones I've been able to research. It looks just like the temperate species urchin "green urchin" but a smaller scale model thereof. Basically, think a decorator urchin or blue tuxedo urchin, but all green.

Seahares are basically the ultimate algae eaters though. Just be advised that they starve once the tank is clean. Although I did have one that took a liking to the nori I feed my tang everyday, so he did fine for almost two years before meeting his end in a powerhead. (Which was weird, because he crawled onto powerheads without incident all the time, just eventually one time it ended badly.). But I think it's more the exception than the rule, if they won't eat any offered foods you're better off to lend him out, or sell him, to the next tank that has an algae problem.

Anyhow hope these suggestions help..