How else to do battle with hair algae

[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.

[ponokareefer]

My urchin does occasionally pick up rubble, but hasn't moved any larger items, and my rock structure is not glued together. I do glue down my frags though, and it hasn't moved any of them. It has taken one of my clips off the glass that held the algae strip and hid it under a rock on me. I don't have clams, but do have anemones, frogspawn, blastomoussa, an open brain and branching hammer corals, and it doesn't bother any of them. My frogspawn, brain and hammer's are not glued down, and it doesn't move them. It has carried a couple of snails around and some crabs, but put them down after a while. It did clean a little coraline algae off my conch, but didn't move it.
I also set up a refugium with chaeto, and the algae was slowly dwindling, but the urchin sped things up for me. I think that I had corrected the problems that led to the algae, but just couldn't get rid of what was there. At least not fast enough for my liking.

[michika]

I already have a refugium set up, and it doesn't seem to be doing much. My cheato is growing at what I would call normal pace.

I can't blast anything with hot RO/DI as my tank is just too small and I have too many corals. It would for sure kill something.

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.

[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.

[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.