Green hair getting out of control!

[Cytosol]

Hi all,

 

My JBJ28 is almost 2 years old now. Things have been going well with it for a while, but I am noticing that the green hair algae is really getting out of control and harder to keep down. 2 months ago I completely emptied everything out of the tank and cleaned the rocks with a toothbrush, removing 95% of it. Now, 2 months later, it is back with avengance. I am keeping on top of my 25% RODI water changes every 2 weeks, and not feeding too much. Phosphates and nitrates are immeasureable, and my chemistry is as great as it has always been. What am I doing wrong??

 

last weekend I started running some phos-zorb just incase there are any traces of phosphates. I also have a huge chunk of chaeto in my tank, and always run chemi-pure. I have about 25 hemit crabs and a variety of snails, but none of them even make a dent in the algae. Also, ever since last weekend, I reduced my lighting to about 5 hours a day, versus my previous 8. I see a very slight decrease in the hair algae amount, but not much. Should I keep doing this for a while? Would leaving the lights out for a long period of time (say, 3 days) kill it off?

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

*EDIT*

 

Here is a picture of what I am dealing with!

 

[2 f15hy 4u]

What's your temp?

[marinebiologist]

do you have turbo snails?

[Cytosol]

My temp is sitting around 26-27 celcius.. I had 4 turbo snails, and got 5 more last week, as well as an emerald. The emerald picks at the algae once in a while, but doesn't really make a dent on it.. and the snails just stick to cleaning the glass!

 

I am trying to manually pick off as much as I can which seems to help a bit, but it keeps coming back. Are there any other chemicals I should test for? i'm really out of ideas here.. The only thing I can think of is I have a 150W HQI bulb that is coming up to a year old. is it possible the spectrum has changed that quickly? It's a megachrome bulb, so its pretty high quality (I think it is around 16,000k)

[MikeTR]

what do you have for livestock and how often are you feeding? are you dosing any phyto or other small micron sized foods?

[jfarabaugh]

my .02 as I tried every type of cleanup crew snail, crabs, etc and they are all very hit and miss. If GHA a sea hare will wipe it out in a week.

 

Both will take time to eliminate. Check the age of you light bulbs.

 

if GHA

up the water changes using DI water

cut down of feeding

GFO in a reactor. BRS reactor for the win

Manual removal

Sea Hare for natural removal

 

If bryopsis

up the water changes using DI water

cut down of feeding

GFO in a reactor. BRS reactor for the win

up the Mag using Kent Tech M to between 1800-2000

Manual removal

lettuce nudibranch for natural removal

[sogreedy23]

my .02 as I tried every type of cleanup crew snail, crabs, etc and they are all very hit and miss. If GHA a sea hare will wipe it out in a week.

 

Both will take time to eliminate. Check the age of you light bulbs.

 

if GHA

up the water changes using DI water

cut down of feeding

GFO in a reactor. BRS reactor for the win

Manual removal

Sea Hare for natural removal

 

If bryopsis

up the water changes using DI water

cut down of feeding

GFO in a reactor. BRS reactor for the win

up the Mag using Kent Tech M to between 1800-2000

Manual removal

lettuce nudibranch for natural removal

 

This. Up the frequency of your WCs and run a gfo reactor. Continue to manually take it out, as much as you can and I'd swap out that bulb. My LFS offers like a seahare contract, bring it home, let it clean you up and then return it when its done for like $10. If you can do that, that'd be cool too! A lot of the time you won't show nitrate or phosphate readings because the algae is actively using a bunch of it up. Best of luck, but you should be able to knock it out no problem

[Bill Nye]

Did you clean your sandbed at all? Alot of tanks around the 2 year mark start to get this "old tank syndrome" because they have a shallow sand bed and never cleaned it. If this is the case I would start by siphoning/blowing it with a turkey baster during or before water change. If you have never done this only do sections at a time..I would say no more than 1/4.

[jae4571]

I was having the same issue as you.

 

+1 for cleaning your sand thoroughly.

+1 it's probably time for a new bulb.

 

Stick at it and good luck!

[Lawnman]

More water changes and some phosguard and it will disappear.

[Cytosol]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am suspecting I might be suffering from 'old tank syndrome' as I haven't cleaned my sand bed for probably 6 months. I do a bit of syphoning here and there, but I am suspecting this might be the cause.

 

My friend is lending me his 12G nano while he moves. I am thinking of adding all my livestock (fish/critters/corals) to that tank, then completely emptying and cleaning my 28G. I think I will do a 90% water change. Taking that into account, what would be the best way to clean the sand? Should I actually replace a bunch of it, or do you think it is cleanable?

 

I am thinking I will dump a bunch of clean SW into the empty tank (with just the sand) and then syphon & throw out the water.. Maybe do it a couple times to ensure it is completely clean. This will ensure that all the beneficial critters stay in the sand bed, but clean out most of the pollutants. How does this sound?

[Dustin11]

Perhaps you had something die in the tank that you can't find....

[Cytosol]

If I had some unknown source of phosphates / nitrates (dead animal / dirty sand bed / etc) wouldn't that show up with nitrate/phosphate tests? Both are reading nothing, which is why I am baffled that this is happening!

[Cytosol]

OH man, i'm such an idiot.. I think I figured out what my problem is!

 

I have been doing weekly water changes with RO/DI water, but it didn't occur to me that my filters may have needed to be replaced. I looked up the manual for my filter, and found that the primary and carbon filters need to be replaced every 3-4 months. This thing has been running for over 2 years without replacement.

 

Worse yet, the actual RO filter is supposed to last 2-3 years, but the membrane falls apart when any chlorine goes through it.. which would have absolutely been pumped through it because the first two filters were done. It was time to replace it when it turned gold/brown, which happened over a year ago.. So I have essentially been doing water changes with tap water for the last year. That explains a few things.

 

Luckily I purchased replacement filters when I bought the thing, so I am going to swap them out and do a 75% water change with the clean water.. Then do weekly water changes to ensure everything is clean.

 

This, along with manual removal of the algae and a sandbed bath should help fix things. Not to mention I finally got some wooden diffusers for my skimmer!

[Lawnman]

It sucks when you forget about things. Today I noticed a few things didn't look right in my tank.So I tested and everything was spot on. THEN I checked my refractometer OPPS it needed recalibrated. My tank was at 1.020 I am going to slowly bring it back up. Anywho crap like this happens to all of us.

[Cytosol]

It sucks when you forget about things. Today I noticed a few things didn't look right in my tank.So I tested and everything was spot on. THEN I checked my refractometer OPPS it needed recalibrated. My tank was at 1.020 I am going to slowly bring it back up. Anywho crap like this happens to all of us.

 

Crap, I havent checked mine in 2 years either! I should test that right now.. Good idea!

 

I just realized the filter that turned 'gold' was the DI portion of the unit. The membrane is at the top, and I don't have a replacement for that. They are like $50 each, and I cant find one locally anywhere! Oh well, i'm going to make a trip to the hardware store for some filtered water in the mean time.

[Cytosol]

Hi all..

 

Okay, I spent all of last Sunday making up 28G of fresh salt water, completely emptied the tank and cleaned my sandbed (rinsed with about 10G of sw).. Scrubbed each rock with a toothbrush and manually removed 95% of the algae. The only algae that was left was the stuff stuck in my polyp colonies, and that was very minimal.. The tank looked perfect for a few days, but the GHA has already started coming back pretty strong (as seen in the picture below).. I think in another few weeks, I will be back where I started. Man this stuff is invasive..

 

I am running fresh phosban & chemipure, my phosphates and nitrates are at 0, temperature at 26, and I don't even have any livestock in there except for crabs & snails (so I haven't fed anything).. Also a tennis ball sized lump of chaeto is sitting behind my lr. My lights only run for about 4 hours a day..

 

What the hell else can I do? I am going to do another 25% water change, but it seems like a waste since my current water is perfectly clean and doesnt measure anything for phosphates or nitrates. Is there anything else I should test for? Should I just keep on the water changes and hope it goes away? I'm pretty stumped here and am willing to try anything. I am looking into getting a sea hare, but the only place in town that rents them is currently out of stock.

 

Thanks!

 

 

PS: I just took this picture right after I turned my lights on, so that is why my colonies are all closed up.. They are usually wide open when the lights are on for a while.

 

[Trogdor447]

blow torch! i am fighting this myself right now and it is the furthest thing from fun with the tank

[anemone fan]

I had a similar problem with hair algae. I employed 5 "Mexican" (that is what they called em at the store) turbos and they ate like no tomorrow (I watched them) along with my help in manual removal. The thing is I didn't have any other algae so the turbos had to eat hair algae. Perhaps you step up the CUC, maybe getting all the algae will force the turbos to attack the hair algae. My tank was clean in 2 weeks of all hair algae.

[yeast]

This is bringing back memories (nightmares) of my battle with GHA that lasted probably close to a year.

 

The things that I did were:

 

- Stepped up water changes (changed more and more frequently)

- GFO

- Chaeto in a refugium

- Reduced the light period to 5 hours

- Changed my lightbulbs

- Put my corals from under the light to the bottom of the aquarium (you can maybe shade your light with something or raise it)

- Removed all my liverock

- Removed my sand

- Changed RO/DI filters

- Manual removal of as much of it as possible and 1 week without lights afterwards.

 

Only now is it almost all gone. Granted, it was in a frag tank so to go to an aquarium that is nearly completely bare and devoid of anything was easy. All I have is light, water flow. No sand, no live rocks, nothing but corals and coral racks. It's finally gone.

[Lawnman]

You said you were going to the hardware for some filtered water?What is filtered water?Rodi? Everytime I had GHA show up I would just toss a new bag of chemi pure elite in and step my water changes up to 3 times a week.The stuff would just vanish.

[cruiZe]

I did 3 days total lights out/ no food once. It really helped. Cardboard covering all sides of tank. Its tough to get the GHA out of the zoas, hermits might do it though if they are hungry enough.

[drummersreef]

Cytosol, I am in the same predicament myself. I am going to do a big water change (50 %) and plan on getting mexican turbo snails that will hopefully graze it. I know the feeling, you just want to get rid of your live rock and maybe some coral. Good luck. I think it will start going away.

[Cytosol]

I replaced all my filters, so I am running off of RO/DI now.. I run regular chemipure, but does the elite variety have something in it that helps more with GHA?

 

Some good news.. I went to the local fish store looking for Mexican Turbo Snails.. They didn't have any, but they had Zebra Turbo Snails. The ones they had in the tank were munching on a big ball of gha that was in there, so I figured they might work..

 

I put them in the tank (directly on my corals suffering from the GHA) and the second they touched them, they went to town eating away at it. One fell off my frag rack and went to town on my LR

 

This morning I took a look and it looks like they have cleaned at least 25% of the gha in my tank; possibly even more. I am amazed by how much they are eating, since the other turbo's I have in there won't even touch the stuff.

 

So I am very hopeful that the rate at which the snails eat the GHA is faster than it grows.. I might possibly try a few days without lights, and I will keep on top of my water changes.

 

If this all doesn't work, I think my only step is to replace my LR or something.. I hope everyone can learn a lesson from this. If you haven't had a GHA outbreak yet, make sure you nip it in the bud when you see ANY.. I let mine get out of control because of lazyness, and I am paying for it bigtime. Deal with it when it's small because when it gets out of control, it is absolute hell to deal with!

[Cytosol]

Yet another update.. My snails are doing a great job on the algae, but it's just growing too fast for them to keep up. I've decided to take extreme measures and turn my lights out until it's all gone. I have some frags in there that are next to death because of the GHA, so I will just leave them in there and hopefully they pull through after the GHA is all gone. They don't open up anymore anyways, so the lack of light won't matter much.

 

I am putting all the frags I can into my hospital tank (ones without any GHA on them) and then will shut down the lights for as long as it takes! I cant beleive how invasive this stuff is.. I still have no idea what's causing it or where it's coming from, but i'm out of ideas. If it comes back after lights out, I am considering throwing out all my LR, sand, and starting over.. Which is depressing.

 

Here is another pic of the tank, you can see how much more growth there is in spite of the snails: