Green hair constantly

[Salty_josh1]

So this I dont know if I am posting this in the right spot but here we go. This is my second reef tank so I still feel like a beginner but I also feel pretty good with the livestock I have or know I am going to get. Let me get this out of the way; my tank and the water parameters.

 

JBJ 30 rimless tank

Jabao WP 10 (on low setting)

aquatic 115 protein skimmer

aquatop reactor MR20

kessil 350W

around 30lbs of now live rock and another 5 in back chamber.

 

In my reactor I have phosphate remover, carbon, and nitrate remover. I think the brand is SeaChem.

In media basket I have some carbon, filter floss, and some small little LR peices.

 

The tank is 5 months old I cycled for 2 months being very patient but I cycled with dry rock so thats why I waited so long.

 

I use catalina ocean water (1.026) in my tank and do a 4 gallon water change every wednesday. I keep the temp around 78F. I do NOT dose anything in the tank. I do use two of the little (I think #28) white blocks of automatic replenisher on Sundays. I never have any ammonium, nitrate, or nitrite in my tank and I use the master test kit from API.

 

The problem I am having in green hair algae. FML I just can not get rid of it! I hand pick it out every two days so my tank does not get over ran! I have not idea what to do to get it to go away. I know its still a pretty new tank but when will this stop? I only added one coral (Monti) because I want this problem to be solved before I really get livestock in. I have 3 fishes, a clown, purple dottyback, and a pipe fish (I added 20oz of pods) I also have a med sized rbta that is doing great and I got the clown to host it which protects it from the dottyback. I used frozen food but strain it with RODI. I use a ATO in my tank too with RODI water only from the LFS. Any recommendations as to what I can do to get the green hair to go away? Or do I have to just keep picking away until the tank matures? BTW I plan on having this a mixed SPS ans LPS tank. Also please comment on my set up, should I be doing anything else?

 

 

[william_payne1]

Put some urchins in there let em have a feast! You could cut your lighting back, you did not state what length your light cycle is. A uv filter will help, as will scrubbing all of it off the rocks and suck it out with a water change. You could put a hob filter on there and run it while you scrub away and when the water is clear again remove it and wash everything. I'm sure there are better ways but those have worked for me, I would not suggest using algefix, although you may have luck with it. Got a pic of it? Oh! I would pull the live rock out of the back but that's just me it was the worst thing I could have done in bc29 but yours may be different, remember every tank is different, you have to just work through it by trial and error sometimes. Good luck!

[Salty_josh1]

William, thank you for your advise! I was not planning on using chemicals. Not for a problem small as this lol With the sea urchin your suggest putting him in there till the problem is solved? I thought they were not reef friendly and could eat fish.

 

Here are some pictures, sorry for the lack of quality, I had to change the settings on my phone for 1mb and I had to turn off the blues because it wasn't taking a good picture. Also what problems did you run across with rock in the back? I have it back there for filtration and to help cuture pods. I put a pic up of the back too, pretty roomy. Enough for me to get my hands in there. I just took these pictures too and clean the HG this morning so it looks better than normal lol but its still there.

[william_payne1]

My urchin is a beast and tears up the rock scape but when they are small they aren't bad, try a small tuxedo urchin, the rocks in the back chamber keep my phosphates high kept causing hair algae to grow... I don't see any hair alge in your photos, let it grow. Your tank is super clean give like 2-3months to grow in

[J-Ranko]

What's your cleanup crew? I don't see any mentioned in the OP. A cycle of algae is common in the beginning--almost always some diatoms and green hair algae, but they should go away after a month or two. A clean up crew of various snails and hermit crabs will speed up this process.

[ndrobey]

Sea hares are gentle on the landscape and are lawnmowers.

[Salty_josh1]

William:

I checked out some urchins, is it hard to get them out of the tank if you want to remove him after the job is completed depending how he is affecting the rock work? Also does the color matter? I saw red and blue tux.

 

J-Ranko:

For my cuc I added them a month in to my two month cycle. Nothing too crazy, I think I did 20 hermits, 8 Nassarius snails, and 8 margarita snails. I still have a good amount left at least 13 hermits (one upgraded to an empty shell I had in there) I have only seen about 5 Nassarius at one time when I feed at night and I think I only lost one margarita snail but they are hard to find. The cuc I picked up from the LFS for the tank were all small snails and crabs. I had an emerald crab in my previous reef and he or should I say she worked great until it ran out of food and then mowed my GSP. It took me two days to get the emerald crab out of the tank even bought some seaweed to draw him out. I do not want to go down that road again lol.

 

Ndrobey:

What sea hares have you tried/ worked for you? There is so many. I will probably get one.

 

 

- Thank you guys again for all of the feed back, I always like to keep an open mind when it comes to my reef and Im always willing to try new things. After all it really is our own science experiment.

[william_payne1]

William:

I checked out some urchins, is it hard to get them out of the tank if you want to remove him after the job is completed depending how he is affecting the rock work? Also does the color matter? I saw red and blue tux.

 

J-Ranko:

For my cuc I added them a month in to my two month cycle. Nothing too crazy, I think I did 20 hermits, 8 Nassarius snails, and 8 margarita snails. I still have a good amount left at least 13 hermits (one upgraded to an empty shell I had in there) I have only seen about 5 Nassarius at one time when I feed at night and I think I only lost one margarita snail but they are hard to find. The cuc I picked up from the LFS for the tank were all small snails and crabs. I had an emerald crab in my previous reef and he or should I say she worked great until it ran out of food and then mowed my GSP. It took me two days to get the emerald crab out of the tank even bought some seaweed to draw him out. I do not want to go down that road again lol.

 

Ndrobey:

What sea hares have you tried/ worked for you? There is so many. I will probably get one.

 

 

- Thank you guys again for all of the feed back, I always like to keep an open mind when it comes to my reef and Im always willing to try new things. After all it really is our own science experiment.

 

color doesn't matter its up to what you like, but as stated by another member, Nudibranchs are cool looking and eat hair algae as well if worried about the spines, but honestly i wouldn't put one in until your tank is a bit more established, you don't have that much algae growing yet. click the link in my sig and check the last picture shows my 50g with hair algae and my halloween urchin

[ndrobey]

William:

I checked out some urchins, is it hard to get them out of the tank if you want to remove him after the job is completed depending how he is affecting the rock work? Also does the color matter? I saw red and blue tux.

 

J-Ranko:

For my cuc I added them a month in to my two month cycle. Nothing too crazy, I think I did 20 hermits, 8 Nassarius snails, and 8 margarita snails. I still have a good amount left at least 13 hermits (one upgraded to an empty shell I had in there) I have only seen about 5 Nassarius at one time when I feed at night and I think I only lost one margarita snail but they are hard to find. The cuc I picked up from the LFS for the tank were all small snails and crabs. I had an emerald crab in my previous reef and he or should I say she worked great until it ran out of food and then mowed my GSP. It took me two days to get the emerald crab out of the tank even bought some seaweed to draw him out. I do not want to go down that road again lol.

 

Ndrobey:

What sea hares have you tried/ worked for you? There is so many. I will probably get one.

 

 

- Thank you guys again for all of the feed back, I always like to keep an open mind when it comes to my reef and Im always willing to try new things. After all it really is our own science experiment.

Any sea hare will do. You should probably get a small one, as they can get big. LiveAquaria.com has them.

[Salty_josh1]

William:

Wow your urchin is pretty big. Great looking reef btw! I will wait for the tank to mature quite a bit then I will more than likely give one a try. They look pretty cool as well. I have also been looking into the Nudibranchs. Not only do they look really good but I have read quite a bit about them. The word Nudibranch has a sour taste in my mouth though. In my old reef I had a problem with zoa eating Nudibranchs. That is when I learned my lession about dipping corals. They were like impossible to get rid of. I know the Nudibranch you are talking about are much bigger, still just thinking back on my past history with them lol I will give one a try though. For all of these suggestions do you recommend letting the tank go crazy with the HA then just put something in like a Nudibranch, urchin, and or sea hare? So stop manually cleaning the HA?

 

Ndrobey:

I check on there and they only have one to choose from and it under "Expert Only" I do not feel like an Expert lol sould I be worried about the purple dye they release or should my reactor be good enough to remove the toxins?

[Clown79]

I don't see any hair algae in the pics.

 

 

If you have hair algae there must be nitrates and phosphates. Your tests may be reading zero but thats because they are being used up by the algae.

 

Phos tests are harder to get a true reading on. As I have learned, most tests read high range phos and not low range.

 

 

There should be no ammonia or nitrites at this point in there. 2 mnths after cycling I stop testing ammonia and nitrite-unless there are signs of an issue.

 

What is your routine for maintenance and feeding?

[Tamberav]

With a large scape like that and rocks in the back, you will probably have problems trapping debris. either now or in the future.

 

I would do an urchin before a sea hare, they are short lived once the algae is gone.

 

Keep in mind the tuxedo will eat coralline too.

[Polarcollision]

not enough hair algae to justify a sea hare, but a pin cushion urchin would do the job.

 

Sure that's hair algae? Looks more like bryopsis or turf algae to me. Tough to tell in the pic. You could just toss the rocks that have it growing--probably easier in the long run.

[Salty_josh1]

Clown79:

I even took a water sample to the LFS and they said everything looks spot on. Phos is very hard to test for me. Something just hit me though, in my last nano I had it in a dark hall way in my home with no windows at all and I never remember having an algae problem. This current set up is in my living room kind of close to window across the whole west side of my home. Big windows that are like 10 ft tall. I woke up this morning and my home was very sunny. The tank is getting a lot of ambient light. My maintenance and feeding is in good practice. Like I mentioned above, I do a 4 gallon water change wednesday with catalina ocean water, then I use two automatic replenisher on sundays. They are the small ones #28. The directions call for one block per 10 gallons. I only use two. Feeding, I use a frozen mix of mysis, brine, and zooplankton. I rinse first of course. I feed the rbta twice a week and use the same mix for my fish but add krill and squid. I only feed once a day at night and its a generous portion. Mostly all the food it scooped up from the dotty back.

 

Tamberav:

Thanks for letting me know that! The top of my rocks and power head are starting to grow some coralline

 

Polarcollision:

This picture was take a few hours after I put in about 2 hours of hand picking the rocks lol I have since stopped cleaning the rocks and was going to try an urchin or sea hare or just let it do its thing and maybe it will just go away but doubt it. I might also beef up the cuc with some new stuff. I can take a picture this afternoon when I get home from work. It is starting to build up again :/ It drives me crazy, I work so hard to keep it clean and it comes back in like two days full force. Also changing the rocks has come across my mind a few times. I would like to take all of it out and just drop one big rock like 20lbs lol but it seems like a risky move. Might go into a mini cycle and kill my little fishes.

 

I think the sun light blasting throughout my living room in the mornings my be the cause of my problem.

[jimmyree]

Clown79:

I even took a water sample to the LFS and they said everything looks spot on. Phos is very hard to test for me. Something just hit me though, in my last nano I had it in a dark hall way in my home with no windows at all and I never remember having an algae problem. This current set up is in my living room kind of close to window across the whole west side of my home. Big windows that are like 10 ft tall. I woke up this morning and my home was very sunny. The tank is getting a lot of ambient light. My maintenance and feeding is in good practice. Like I mentioned above, I do a 4 gallon water change wednesday with catalina ocean water, then I use two automatic replenisher on sundays. They are the small ones #28. The directions call for one block per 10 gallons. I only use two. Feeding, I use a frozen mix of mysis, brine, and zooplankton. I rinse first of course. I feed the rbta twice a week and use the same mix for my fish but add krill and squid. I only feed once a day at night and its a generous portion. Mostly all the food it scooped up from the dotty back.

 

Tamberav:

Thanks for letting me know that! The top of my rocks and power head are starting to grow some coralline

 

Polarcollision:

This picture was take a few hours after I put in about 2 hours of hand picking the rocks lol I have since stopped cleaning the rocks and was going to try an urchin or sea hare or just let it do its thing and maybe it will just go away but doubt it. I might also beef up the cuc with some new stuff. I can take a picture this afternoon when I get home from work. It is starting to build up again :/ It drives me crazy, I work so hard to keep it clean and it comes back in like two days full force. Also changing the rocks has come across my mind a few times. I would like to take all of it out and just drop one big rock like 20lbs lol but it seems like a risky move. Might go into a mini cycle and kill my little fishes.

 

I think the sun light blasting throughout my living room in the mornings my be the cause of my problem.

Bingo, any natural light on your tank will fuel GHA as if you were feeding it on purpose. Also I found as I put more stuff in my tank, Zoas and a couple of softies they start out competing the algae for the nutrients in your tank. But most definitely you need to get that tank out of the sunlight.

[Salty_josh1]

Now I am trying to think of a solution. I could put up some window curtains but I would rather not. Or I could put that black wrap on the left side of the tank that is exposed to the light but that might look tacky. Or I could just move the whole tank which would be a pain. Has anyone had this issue before? What worked best for you? Also with the window curtains I feel like I would still get some light. My window are huge! and there is so many of them lol it would cost me like 200 bucks to put curtains up and I dont even like curtains. Here in AZ the sun just melts them. Black curtains turn grey in like 6 months after 365 days of sunlight at 120F in the summer.

+1 on the corals I have been patiently waiting

[todcp]

The back wall of my Red Sea 130c was covered in hair algae. Some on the live rock as well. Nitrite, nitrate and phosphate all zero. Stevens LED light kit at 55%.

I purchased a starry blenny that ate all the hair algae in a week. And it was a lot of hair algae. What a pig. Interesting fish. The store said he was in stock for a month and eating flake food but so far has no interest in anything but the tank algae.

[Salty_josh1]

todcp:

That is awesome! Those are pretty cool little fish, I might pick one up if I can get a small one. If I do add one it would be my last fish because of bioload. I will have to look into it to see if he can live with my purple dottyback. I wanted to get a Banggai Cardinalfish in the future but I think the dottyback would kill him. Have you had a problem with the blenny running out of food?

I do have a lot of nori at home which would work out pretty well if he ran out of food

[todcp]

todcp:

That is awesome! Those are pretty cool little fish, I might pick one up if I can get a small one. If I do add one it would be my last fish because of bioload. I will have to look into it to see if he can live with my purple dottyback. I wanted to get a Banggai Cardinalfish in the future but I think the dottyback would kill him. Have you had a problem with the blenny running out of food?

I do have a lot of nori at home which would work out pretty well if he ran out of food

 

The reason I asked by store about how long the Starry Blenny was there and what the Starry was eating was to be as sure as possible that the Starry would be willing to eat normal food. The store said he was eating well and the same food as he was feeding the others. Flake and Mysis,. So far he is not touching the food I give my two clowns and the cleaner shrimp but some algae remains. I debated the Starry vs the much smaller, tiny, Tail Spot Blenny. Now that I have seen how much algae the Starry is capable of eating I would have gone for the Tail Spot in my tank that is only 27 gallons. I will take the Starry back and exchange for the Tail Spot if he shows signs of losing weight and does not eat the regular food. He is very shy so far and bothers nothing. I have read they would not be good with a similar looking fish or Blenny. A fun fish to look at and to watch. Perches all over the tank.

[Salty_josh1]

Todcp:

What about a lawnmower blenny?

[wow.such.chris]

When it comes to ridding a tank of algae just google/search N-R for the user brandon429. His advice is sound and the methods he uses, both old and new, are proven. It shouldn't be long before he chimes in here anyhow.

[Tamberav]

There are some articles showcasing sps tanks utilizing natural sunlight. I don't buy the sun = algae. Both my tanks are in front of windows without algae issue. I consider the sun a bonus.

 

Try taking a turkey blaster to the rock and see if you have any excessive debris blow off. Is the rock in the back chambers being cleaned? Or can it be cleaned? Somewhere nutrients must be feeding the algae. Tests show nothing because the algae is using what comes available.

 

Are you feeding the mandarin frozen food? The amount of frozen food they require in a young tank could surely grow algae.

[jimmyree]

Get it out of the sun, or your gonna battle algae forever.

[todcp]

Todcp:

What about a lawnmower blenny?

 

Yes. Lawnmower and Starry are very similar. Again for a small tank I would probably get the smaller Tail Spot Blenny. The Starry ate all my hair algae very quickly. Lawnmower Blenny is similar size; 5-5.5 inches. Tail Spot is half that size.

[Salty_josh1]

Tamberav:

I can easily clean the rocks in the back camber but I havent. Sould I be? I can take the rocks out too, everyone seems to think it is a bad idea. As far as the mandarin she does eat frozen and I add pods to the tank once a week. I turn off all the pumps and use a very large turkey baster that reaches to the bottom. I only do this 3 to 4 times a week. It is not easy to do, I have to sit in front of the tank and wait for 15 mins for her to come out of hiding and hopefully dont scare her away. This fish is a pain to care for and I never see her. She does like soaking up the sunlight in the mornings. All in all the mandarin looks very healthy. She was very skinny when I got her two months ago and now she plump more so towards the middle to back. I would take this fish out and trade her in but it would be impossible to get her out without moving all the rocks out. Plus if I take her back to the store she would probably die from starvation. Super cool fish just really shy and a lot of work and kind of gets pricey buying pods. I have already started making plans for a cuture tank. When I turn the pumps back on the remaining food floats around the tank and the other fish scoop it up. I make sure not to add other food.

 

So I did a water change today and cleaned the glass. I did pick a few of the longer pieces of algae and left the rest hopefully just letting it run its course. Still have not made any changes to the tank or added anything.