Still Cannot Defeat Green Hair Algae

[Goats n Monkeys]

Several years ago I started this thread but none of the suggesttions worked. NONE. The last post suggested as a last ditch effort to start over so 15 months ago I replaced the entire setup with a 45 gallon Red Sea MAX E170, complete with skimmer. Replaced all of the rock except a tiny pieces that (what was left of) my corals were still attached. GHA exploded within 3 months so the LFS came out, drained the tank, doused all of the rock with hydrogen peroxide, and scrubbed it off. That actually worked for about 6 months but it's back and worse than ever. I have had two LFS crews (including the owners) and one free-lance maintenance guy come out and everyone is out of ideas. Nobody understands why I keep getting it and why it won't go away. 

 

Below is the entire list of everything done that's failed to work...

[Goats n Monkeys]

The following has been tried and failed:

• Weekly water changes (replacing 25%) and filter floss swaps

• Multiple large dosings of FluxRX

• Biweekly sand vacuuming 

• complete equipment cleaning every month 

• "Renting" sea hares, which used to get rid of GHA but it would come back in full within a week. Now the hares won’t touch it.

• Put in a Sochting Oxydator

• Bi-weekly additions of Vibrant from Underwater Creations

• Annual deep cleans, which doesn’t remove much gunk, and confirmed that water flow is consistent and strong

Other factors:

• All chems (nitrite, ammonia, ph, phosphate, alkalinity and calcium) test nearly perfect with both my tests, LFS spinner tests, and strips that the maintenance guy brought. Both LFS confirmed the water is fine.
• Salinity ranges around 1.024-1.027 and temp is 74 (though closer to 79 during summer). 
• I make my own water with very little PPM and Fritz salt but, no, it's not the r/o water because I used to buy from 3 different LFS in the last 4 years that I’ve had this problem. 
• Lighting spectrum only uses blue, purple and ultra violet and is only on 7 hours/day
• Livestock = one small clownfish and a small scopas tang (the latter purchased to eat algae to which he does not) and I feed them thawed brine shrimp very moderately every night- they finish within 45 seconds.
• My cleaners consist of 8-12 crabs and 3-4 snails (astria and turbo). I've tried adding up to 7 snails and it made no difference. 

 

 

[KC2020]

GHA is thriving on every live reef on the planet. It's part of the food chain. It's refuge and sustanance for many of the creatures we refer to as clean up crew. I've been diving on reefs where schools of hundreds of tangs feasted on it all day long but they never eliminate it. It was 6 inches long and waving in the tidal currents right beside everything else that was competing for life on the reef.

 

In a reef tank you can mange GHA with all of the techniques you list above, when done in rotation and constantly, but you're never going to defeat it. As a reef tank gets more established, say a year old, it starts to become easier to mange if you've worked at finding the balance between light schedule, feeding, skimming and running an algae scrubber or Refugium.

 

 

 

 

[KC2020]

And I'll add the same video that was posted in your original thread. CUC is everything AFTER you've manually removed GHA.

 

 

[Sprinter70]

Currently fighting a bit of GHA myself, have you used fluconazole (reef flux)?

[mcarroll]

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

The following has been tried and failed:

• Weekly water changes (replacing 25%) and filter floss swaps

 

Depending on tank conditions that can help or hurt.  If nutrients are already very low or undetectable, avoid doing water changes.

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

 

• Multiple large dosings of FluxRX

 

Sorry to hear you got into that.  Trendy, lazy, ecologically unsound....and as you discovered, in the end it often works about as well as doing nothing.  Gotta wonder at the folks spending all the energy promoting this "solution".

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

• Biweekly sand vacuuming

 

If the sand needs it (ie you're pulling crud out every time you do it) then that probably indicates a flow issue....which, if true, could be at the root of your problem.

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

• complete equipment cleaning every month 

 

As long as it needs cleaning that often...usually every six months to a year will do it though.

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

 

• "Renting" sea hares, which used to get rid of GHA but it would come back in full within a week. Now the hares won’t touch it.

 

It would have been interesting to see a couple of progress pictures of them cleaning up the tank and the algae growing back.

 

Can you post a pic of the current algae growth?  A full tank shot AND a nice closeup would be helpful...with daylights on, so colors are correct.  👍

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

• Put in a Sochting Oxydator

That's another one for the books.  🤷‍♂️   Sorry you got into another waste of time....again, I wonder about the folks that promote things like this.

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

• Bi-weekly additions of Vibrant from Underwater Creations

 

Algicide...apparently the same chem that's in Algae Fix.

 

Some folks have succeeded with Algae Fix (and with Vibrant), but it's still not a very reefy solution.

 

As with all "quick fixes", a re-bloom is likely once treatment stops.

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

 

• Annual deep cleans, which doesn’t remove much gunk, and confirmed that water flow is consistent and strong

Take it easy on the over-cleaning options...it's pretty easy to overdo it, which can cause an(other) algae bloom! 

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

Other factors:

• All chems (nitrite, ammonia, ph, phosphate, alkalinity and calcium) test nearly perfect with both my tests, LFS spinner tests, and strips that the maintenance guy brought. Both LFS confirmed the water is fine.

 

If you read back through lots of old threads, "fine" and "perfect" almost always indicate the opposite, statistically speaking.

 

Can you post your most recent test results along with some historical context for the numbers if any of them are significantly different from historical?

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

 

• Salinity ranges around 1.024-1.027 and temp is 74 (though closer to 79 during summer). 

 

 

I doubt it relates to the algae issue (very much) but that seems like a wide range of salinity readings.  Is your system on an automatic top off to continuously make up for evaporation?  (Or....why do you think salinity varies so much?)

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

• I make my own water with very little PPM and Fritz salt but, no, it's not the r/o water because I used to buy from 3 different LFS in the last 4 years that I’ve had this problem. 

 

Are you making the RODI water yourself?  Or are you buying RODI from a local source?

 

 

If you have some on hand, can you measure its TDS and post the results?

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

• Lighting spectrum only uses blue, purple and ultra violet and is only on 7 hours/day

 

 

IMO you could consider shutting off the non-Blue channels and supplementing with "just enough" white light during the day to make the tank look good to you.  

 

You should be able to run the lights 12 hours a day IF they support sunrise and sunset and you don't have the peak intensity set too high.  (Can you take some lux measurements?)

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

 

• Livestock = one small clownfish and a small scopas tang (the latter purchased to eat algae to which he does not) and I feed them thawed brine shrimp very moderately every night- they finish within 45 seconds.

 

Pass that Scopas on to a larger home at your earliest convenience.  Again, sorry you took the time on that solution...almost nothing we have access to eats mature stands of hair algae.  Gotta wonder about anyone who'd sell THAT fish into a 40 gallon-ish tank for THAT reason.

 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:47 PM, Goats n Monkeys said:

• My cleaners consist of 8-12 crabs and 3-4 snails (astria and turbo). I've tried adding up to 7 snails and it made no difference. 

 

That's not much of a cleanup crew for the tank size.  Also, there's way too many scavengers (hermits) and not enough algae eaters (astrea, Turbo, trochus, cerith, etc) in your mix.   From your feeding description, it sounds like you might only need 1-2 scavengers.  Replace the other 6-10 hermits with Turbo snails (or Astrea or Trochus).

 

Your Job:  

You will have to manually pull out the mature algae as in the video linked a post or two above.  

 

The Snails Job:

The snails will keep the areas clean that you work on.  If the algae grows back, that means there aren't enough snails for the quantity of space...add 2-4 more snails and re-clean any mature algae.  Repeat until the algae isn't growing back.

 

BTW, you should have plenty coralline algae and other "stuff" growing on your rocks in place of the hair algae.  If you don't, hair algae (or worse) WILL come back.

 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

can you put the algae under a microscope to id the exact species? idk what to suggest really but knowing precisely what it is could help with more tailored solutions 

Also, have you seeded with corraline or tried macroalgae, along with manual removal?

[TheKleinReef]

1ml/gallon of hydrogen peroxide daily till gone. boom done.

 

[Jimh61]

I by no means am an expert. I had it in my 20 gallon tank and I first lowered my white lights, manually removed as much as I could, added a ton of copepods, and feed the tank with phytoplankton at one ounce per gallon.  It took a while but it worked for me.  I have since got rid of that tank and started a 13 gallon tank, and I did everything from the start ( started with eco rock so no need to manually remove anything. Dipping every coral  in peroxide before adding has gotten rid of the ugly stage also making my own ro water has helped.