PLEASE HELP ME GET RID OF MY HAIR ALGAE, this hair algae just wont go away! Options

[new-b-reefer]

Hello, i know i have probably got on some of the members bad side about my choice of haveing a small baby blue tang in my tank but as i promissed, she has now been adopted by someone else with a much bigger tank with more oopen space for swimming. she is up happy and active as ever. now i to ask about my hair algae in my tank. it is out of control. i am sure its a phosphate problem. i dont have a phosphate test but all the other tests are testing perfect. for a while i was using condition tap water for top off, i know now that it was a stupid choice. here is what i have done: i have my skimmer running 24/7 as usual, i have chaeto growing in the fuge, running phosphate remover, cuut down the light time and doing more water changes with RO DI salt water, and my top off is with RO DI freshwater, i have siphoned and scrubbed the algae out and it all came back, i even tried a sea hair and it ate some and it was dooing fine fore about a month and a half and then was just dead one day, everything else was alive and well but the sea hair just died of unexplained causes so i got it out asap. last night i pulled all the rocks out and put them in a bucket (in water of course) and i vacuumed almost the entire sand bed, especially in the areas i was never able to get to before and actually found some pretty dirty spots in the sand but all clean now. i think those nasty spots were leeching phosphates for the algae to feed on so now that its all clean, hopefully i will start to see some progress. i just wanted to know if any one had some other advice or if there is something i am missing. i am really trying to stay away from chemical aditives like algone and stuff. i want it gone but trying to do it as naturally as possible. please help.

[KevinStan]

Back in the days I had a problem with red hair algae also... I actually had really good luck using chemicals.... There was a natural ingredient one that I used and it was gone in two days.... I didn't have any livestock in there either though...

[SoCalDude]

Go to lfs and get phos tested. Do you have any snails/which kinds? How/how much do you feed? What else is in the tank?

[Bamato]

Do you have any livestock in the tank at the moment? I ask because by siphoning your entire sand bed you essentially removed any beneficial fauna that were living in there. And along with your rocks being disturbed and so forth, I would expect to see a small cycle in your tank. Which may or may not be a good thing. It might kill the GHA, or promote it's growth.....

Did you do a 100% water change as well?

[new-b-reefer]

Back in the days I had a problem with red hair algae also... I actually had really good luck using chemicals.... There was a natural ingredient one that I used and it was gone in two days.... I didn't have any livestock in there either though...

well at this point i will try almost anything. i wanted to shy away from aditives but i have tried everything i was told to try and it just wont go away. what product did you use? is it safe for live stock? i just want to see my pretty live rock again, its all covered in green hair. kinda weird. besides if its all natural product then it shouldnt be so hard on the fish. were there any drawbacks or side effects to using it. i used ick attack a while back and that is all natural but the side effect was a nasty slime algae bloom, its a good thing that my tiger wardy goby is a hard worker, he cleaned all the sand and the rocks of slime algae but unfortunately he doesnt seem to share the same interest in hair algae.

[SoCalDude]

Well, not knowing anything about your tank... I would just put in some turbos. Mine munch GHA like it is going out of style.

[new-b-reefer]

Do you have any livestock in the tank at the moment? I ask because by siphoning your entire sand bed you essentially removed any beneficial fauna that were living in there. And along with your rocks being disturbed and so forth, I would expect to see a small cycle in your tank. Which may or may not be a good thing. It might kill the GHA, or promote it's growth.....

Did you do a 100% water change as well?

i do have live stock. and when i said the entire sand bed, i embelished a bit, sorry, i just did the spots that i was never able to get before. i knew not to do the whole sand bed because i didnt want to take out all the good bacteria and stuff in the tank. its a 28 gallon nano cube so with the siphoning it only ended up being about a 30% water change. i would never do a 100% wc, dont want to risk throwing the biological filter off.
here is my stock:
FISH- 1 FIRE FISH GOBY
1 ENGINEER GOBY
1 YELLOW WATCHMAN GOBY
1 BABY FOX FACE (RECOMENDED FOR HAIR ALGAE GRAZING)
1 SIX LINE WRASSE
1 TIGER WARDY GOBY
1 RED CROWN ALGAE BLENNY

INVERTS- 2 NASSARIUS SNAILS
2 CERITH SNAILS
3 MARGARITA SNAILS
4 ASTREA SNAIL
ABOUT 13 HERMIT CRABS
1 EMERALD CRAB
1 CLEANER SHRIMP
1 BLUE TUXEDO URCHIN
AND VARIOUS CORALS: ZOOS, TORCH CORALS, GSP's
I SEEM TO HAVE BAD LUCK WITH TURBO SNAILS. THEY DONT DO MUCH IN MY TANK AND DIE AFTER ONLY A MONTH OR 2. I KNOW MY TANK IS PRETTY WELL STOCKED NEEDLESS TO SAY. I ACTUALLY TOOK OUT 2 OTHER FISH I HAD IN THERE TO CUT DOWN A BIT OF BIO LOAD. THEY WERE MY BABY BLUE TANG AND A YELLOW TAIL DAMSLE.

[got2envy]

What size tank is this? CUC seems small for the amount of bio load you have.

edit- oops just saw that it is a 28g
def the bio load is still high, I have 3 fish in my 29g
keep doing 20-30% water changes a week and def get a larger CUC especially snails, they <3 GHA
The fox face will def have to go at some point...lawnmower blennies will also eat GHA

This post has been edited by got2envy: Dec 18 2009, 11:02 AM

[duderubble]

7 fish in a 28? I think I identified your problem, also as for vacuuming out beneficial fauna-false. Turbo snails will help with the GHA, the red algae is something different so the chemical solutions won't work for you. But you are going to have to reduce your fish load and you should reduce your light schedule to 4 hrs a day until you get it under control.

[reeftankguy]

1 FIRE FISH GOBY
1 ENGINEER GOBY
1 YELLOW WATCHMAN GOBY
1 BABY FOX FACE (RECOMENDED FOR HAIR ALGAE GRAZING)
1 SIX LINE WRASSE
1 TIGER WARDY GOBY
1 RED CROWN ALGAE BLENNY

[new-b-reefer]

[quote name='reeftankguy' date='Dec 18 2009, 08:09 AM' post='2577659']

[/
yes, i know i will have to find another home for the fox face in the future but at least the foxfaces are not as active of swimmers as the blue tang was. hes is such a neat fish though. i have some time. and i know my biio load is high but other than the fox face, they are all small fish. so no chemicals will work. my lfs said the same thing, chemicals work for red stuff but not gha. so i will try another turbo snail or 2 and continue to keep up on my water changes. now about cutting the light down. i have teken it down to 7.5 hrs a day. if i cut it down to 4 hrs, is that enought photosythesis time for my corals. i thought they needed at least like 6 hrs. my tank was originally getting 10 to 11 hrs of light before i got a timer cause i would just turn it on when i woke up and didnt think about it. i learned real quick though and bought the light timer. nut would 4 hrs be safe for corals and also fish. i no the fish dont need the light but it will really mess with their daily light cycle and i dont want to stress them too much either. and lets face it, i like to see my fish. guilty!

[SoCalDude]

That is too many fish for that tank. You need to do more frequent water changes or reduce the bio-load. How much do you feed and how often?

[new-b-reefer]

That is too many fish for that tank. You need to do more frequent water changes or reduce the bio-load. How much do you feed and how often?

I will keep doing my water changes. I feed once a day and I try to just feed enough so each fish gets some. I am going to try to feed more sparingly and carefully. What doesn't get eaten my tiger goby usually cleans it all up but I still need to feed more carefully I think. Any feeding tips.

[duderubble]

A temporary light cycle reduction will not hurt the fish or the corals. But reduce the bio-load immediately and it probably wouldn't hurt to run chemi-pure elite to help reduce nitrate and phosphate. It will take a few weeks to make a difference, but it should help.

[lakshwadeep]

+1 to too many fish, and you have too many crabs with very few snails. However, no CUC is going to make a dent in your hair algae with that kind of bioload. Cutting the light will also not be very effective as hair algae is hardy. The engineer goby and fox face will get too big. Using the term "baby fox face" is no different than justifying keeping a tang.


A 100% water change won't "throw off the biological filter", if the water change water has the exact same parameters (specific gravity, temperature, etc.).


Also, it would be easier to read the first post if there were spaced out paragraphs.

[lakshwadeep]

+1 to too many fish, and you have too many crabs with very few snails. However, no CUC is going to make a dent in your hair algae with that kind of bioload. Cutting the light will also not be very effective as hair algae is hardy. The engineer goby and fox face will get too big. Using the term "baby fox face" is no different than justifying keeping a tang.


A 100% water change won't "throw off the biological filter", if the water change water has the exact same parameters (specific gravity, temperature, etc.).


Also, it would be easier to read the first post if there were spaced out paragraphs.

[new-b-reefer]

+1 to too many fish, and you have too many crabs with very few snails. However, no CUC is going to make a dent in your hair algae with that kind of bioload. Cutting the light will also not be very effective as hair algae is hardy. The engineer goby and fox face will get too big. Using the term "baby fox face" is no different than justifying keeping a tang.


A 100% water change won't "throw off the biological filter", if the water change water has the exact same parameters (specific gravity, temperature, etc.).


Also, it would be easier to read the first post if there were spaced out paragraphs.

ok, i understand. as far as nitrates go, i always test for them on a regular basis now and before the hair algae. i have tested with three different test and my nitrates are always at 0. im sure running the skimmer and having the chaeto in the fuge has alot to do with it. my water stays clean other than what im guessing is phosphates. i have no nitrates or nitrites or anything. and i know i have a heavy bio load but i just reduced it by 2 fish so that should help a bit. i hope.

[Whacked]

waaaaay too many fish and inappropriate fish for a nano. because the bioload is so high you will never make a dent in the GHA.
get rid of half your fish
cut back on feeding, if you use frozen, rinse with RODI first
put in a bag of chemi-pure elite
get more CUC
rip out as much as you can and water change
cut back on lighting hours
its gonna take a lot of time to bring the GHA down, but it is doable with out going all chemical warfare on it.

your nitrates are reading 0 because the GHA is absorbing it.

[Scott Riemer]

Has anyone mentioned you have too many fish?

[reeftankguy]

Has anyone mentioned you have too many fish?

Scott -----> <----- new-b-reefer