Hair algae problem help

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

One word.... Pellets.

Nutrient control is key.

[naesco]

Hair algae is caused by poor water conditions, overfeeding, and poor lighting conditions.
You need to correct the problem to solve it.
To have your algae eaten, borrow a sea slug (acclimate her properly) from the LFS or a fellow reefer and she will get the job done and remember to return her before she starves to death.
You will be amazed at how quickly the algae disappears.

A kole tang will not help as they eat and need film algae to survive. Film algae grows on the glass.

[BlueWorldAquatic]

Water quality and Phoshpates are your enemy.

For Hair algae we have found these are the most effective;

foxface, Scopus Tang, and Dragon (brown bar) goby, after it's all gone you will have a few nice additions in your tank.

Seahare, exellant choice, but when you run out of algae, you need to re-home him or he will starve. If he dies, you have a mess of chemicals in your tank.

Mexican Turbo snails, HA gone in days, they will survive afterwards.

Ken - BWA

[DiverDude]

+1 on the Sea Hare. I have one in my tank and in 24 hours it had eaten most of the algae. It goes back to the LFS on Sunday.

Of course, the algae is just the symptom of the water quality problems others have already addressed.

I guess each case is different and it's still early for me but between stringent water quality management and the Sea Hare (and really no livestock in the tank for bio load), my algae problem is almost done (knocks on wood).

You can win the war -you just need to outsmart the enemy !

[wgama]

I tried a sea hare...had it for two weeks then it crawled down my overflow and died(probably should have covered it...). I will try some mexican turbo snails and look into a phosban reactor. I use RO water from the local water store. I also have 2 bulb strip light on the tank that has bulbs that are over a year old now, ill change those. I've been doing weekly 5 gallon water changes and siphoning off the majority of the algae. Ill up that to 10 gallons now. Thanks for the input guys/gals. Anymore advice is appreciated.

[toxic111]

is this in the 120gal system? if so 10 gal should almost be your minimum water change.. I would recomend 10% water changes weekly. And up from there to battle the algae. It took me over a year to get mine under control. A sea hare or Turbo snails will help, but the orgin of the problem needs to be found as well.

Make sure to do a complete set of tests and post the results here. Also maybe ask the water store what thier TDS is in the water, or buy or borrow a TDS meter.