Bad Hair Algae

[likwid]

Ya I spent $60 on a bottle of Algae magic that did nothing at all for my tank.

Ill try 3 days of darkness and post the results.

[BC564]

wow....I dont know what to tell you ......hmmm

[fiorano]

can cyano also get all long and stringy too because i have like thick red slime on some parts of my sand that is like flowing with the water in strings?

[Farrmanchu]

Are you using tap water? That's an insane amount of nuisance algae. I would decrease the waterchanges and feeding, maybe even lower the bioload. Manually remove the Hair Algae, and use Maracyn antibiotic on the Cyano. I've found that too many or too large of water changes can contribute to this problem, especially if you use tap water.

[Johnny Reefer]

Originally Posted by fiorano

can cyano also get all long and stringy too because i have like thick red slime on some parts of my sand that is like flowing with the water in strings?

Yes.

[Black Phantom]

I helped a friend of mine with the exact same problem. His tank was two years old with a ton of algae and after this "amazing cure" his tank cleared up in less than a month.
Stop using water from Wally Mart, or Safeways, or Co Op. Unless you know exactly how often they change their filters then the chances are you are getting more than good RO water. Go fork out the money and buy yourself your own system. That way you can keep track and change filters accordingly.
That's my two cents worth tonight. Hope it helps

[Skimmerking]

that is major phoshates in your tank get a refugium going and stick that HA in there and the will take it down some. that is what I did get some phosphate sponges to soak it up

[likwid]

Well I did the 3 days without light technique and most of the cyano is gone. All of the hair algae remained however. I have decided to change from fill it yourself RO water from walmart, to pre bottled distilled water that says 0.01 ppm on the bottle. This will be more expensive, but I will try it out and see what happens. I have also changed the flow in my refugium so that the water flows under the baffle and up throw the liverock and chaeto, instead of just overtop of everything like before (mis-read the DIY instructions).

[Reefer Rob]

The lights out thing seems to totally annihilate cyano, I don't know for how long. I think it might help with your hair algae if you did it regularly, say once a month. Did the lack of light have any negative effect on your corals?