Bad Hair Algae Day...GFO? NOPOX?

[Steve McGlamery]

I have a 68 gallon tank and a 22 gallon sump that have been up and running for a couple of months. I have four fish and a few frags and a CUC in it at this point. I had a flare up of hair algae about a month in but the CUC pretty much cleared it up. Then a couple of weeks back it came back with a vengance while I was out of town for a week. I added a skimmer last week and it is doing its job.

All water parameters look good. Nitrates are near zero (pure yellow). Phosphates test "zero" on an APi test kit but I know the API phosphate kit is pretty useless for reefing. So what do I do? Get a good phosphate kit and go from there? I guess my thinking is that phosphate have to be high since nitrates are low and I have all this algae.

I have a bottle of NOPOX that I bought without knowing how it worked. Well I do now and if I understand what I've read, it might be a mistake to use it with the nitrates so low. Do I intentionally overfeed to drive up nitrates and use the NOPOX to drive them and the phosphates down? Or do I just bite the bullet and get a GFO reactor?

Can I put in my two cents???? I just solved a hair algae problem in my 120 gal mixed reef tank. It took 5 months to solve.I tried everything...Read books, R2R, LFS etc nothing worked. No3 5 ppm (Nyos) PO4 0.00 (Hanna). Only feed once a day. Manually removing the algae. Spent a lot of money on more CUC. Nothing worked. Then I relate really started to crashad somewhere to raise my Magnesium To 1800 ppm. (I never got it that high though). Started to raise the Magnesium. I started to remove the rocks that I could remove easily and washed them with 3% Hydrogen Peroxide. Got a big bottle with a squirt top and would squirt the rock down and let it set for about 4 minutes and put it back in the tank. Still manually removed as much as I could. Kept raising Magnesium. (it got to about 1500 pp when I stopped dosing).I was starting to win.... Then I decreased my photo period. Algae really started to crash. Kept up with the H2O2 treatments and the manual removal. I now have 99% of the Hair algae gone. But I keep asking the important question....What actually got rid of the hair algae? A combination of every thing or just one thing? If I had to guess....reducing the photo period had the biggest effect. I hope this helps.

 

[WallyB]

Believe me I know Green Hair Algae STRUGGLE, so when ever I see post about it I pop over.

If you tank is only two month old, then I would say your rocks are leaching out nutrients and phosphates and thus the Green Hair Algae on the rocks.
And while that GHA grows your test kit for Phosphate at least won't read correct. The Algae growing is using up the Phosphates.

If ALAGE is not Insanely out of Control, just keep pruning it. It SHOULD eventually slow down as it uses up whatever is feeding it. (unless you are over feeding your tank)
If Getting bad....and your setup allows you to take out the rocks, then take them out and scrub them of the Algae and rinse off with Salt water and put back.
Don't put back the water you used for rinsing in your Tank.

I wouldn't use any chemical since that could just give you other problems that could be worse.

I never tried NOPOX (bio/carbon source), which I understand can work on Nitrate and Phosphate reduction, but from what I research you need to be very regular and use a good skimmer to export the breakdown of Nitrate and Phosphates into a BioMass. Also your system will get hooked on it, so you'll have to ramp down to get off. (from what I read on peoples experiences)

Your Goal is to EXPORT whatever is in your setup that is Feeding the Algae, which mean either getting nutrients out of rocks (leaching), or feeding less Nutrient IMPORT.

As far as Clean up crew CONTROL, I pretty well tested every kind of creature on GHA in a test tank. Watching with a Time Lapse recording WEB CAM.

Seahares are the best, but they will die quickly once the Algae is gone. I heard that sometime Fish Store will rent a Sea Hare and once it polishes off your tank, you return it.
Next best are Cowrie Snails but only reef safe ones.
And then I would say Emerald Crabs are pretty good for fine Algae plucking work.
Everything else I tried (most snails) really don't eat GHA unless it's very short and fine on rocks.

Also whatever eats your Phosphate made algae will Poo out the Phosphates (pretty sure) so better to pluck and remove the algae, or scrub rocks.

So here is why I know Green Hair Algae (from a few years ago in 65 tank that was about 1 year old, and I over fed the Corals

When it got this bad, the only solution was removing all rocks and scrubbing them down.

I read this and it makes sense. Your rocks will soak up nutrients, nitrates, phosphates in a young tank. Kind of keeping things under control in the water. Then once they can't absorb anymore, the Algae will start growing. Algae will reduce your N&P in your water, and when it's low the rocks will start releasing the N&P which fuels the Algae.
I think that is what happened to me, since for a Long Time my Phosphate was 0.00, and especially when the Algae was Growing. And Algae won't grow with no Phosphates.

Oh...and Last but not Least....If you have control of you lighting REMOVE any RED LIGHT SOURCE since Algae Loves Red Light
(one reason people run the Algae Scrubbers on RED LEDS), and an Algae scrubber is another Option (Chemi Free Nitrate and Phosphate reduction/EXPORT).

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

First off, I want to thank everyone for the replies and advice. It's been very helpful. WallyB- My HA is as bad or worse than what you have in your picture.

Soooo...A new development. Yesterday I discovered that my Goby has Marine Velvet. I got a lot of good information from a foum search and will start another thread with details on that. I'll try to keep this thread to the HA problem. To treat the Velvet I have put all the fish in a Quarantine tank. Yay. I guess the good news is that I had to tear up my rock work to catch the fish so now there is no reason not to remove the rocks and scrub them down.

A question about lighting. I should decrease lighting to the minimum to keep my corals healthy, no? My corals at this point are basically frags because the tank is so new. I have an SB reef light so I can control white and blue separately. Should I cut way back on the white since algae likes the warm color spectrum? How many hours a day should I be running lights at all right now?

 

[WallyB]

First off, I want to thank everyone for the replies and advice. It's been very helpful. WallyB- My HA is as bad or worse than what you have in your picture.

Soooo...A new development. Yesterday I discovered that my Goby has Marine Velvet. I got a lot of good information from a foum search and will start another thread with details on that. I'll try to keep this thread to the HA problem. To treat the Velvet I have put all the fish in a Quarantine tank. Yay. I guess the good news is that I had to tear up my rock work to catch the fish so now there is no reason not to remove the rocks and scrub them down.

A question about lighting. I should decrease lighting to the minimum to keep my corals healthy, no? My corals at this point are basically frags because the tank is so new. I have an SB reef light so I can control white and blue separately. Should I cut way back on the white since algae likes the warm color spectrum? How many hours a day should I be running lights at all right now?

Hey, if you got Velvet, don't worry much about anything else like GHA and lighting level.
It kills fast and possibly kill all your fish so treating fish in QT is your Top Priority.
To speed up your fact finding on how to treat Velvet here is an thread that just got started, it may help you get a head start. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/please-help-asap-velvet-infected-fish.467242/#post-5190496
Yet, if you still want to make a choice on lighting, one thing I learned very recently is I had a new rock added to my tank. It started getting some ulgy brown Algae. The rest of the rocks were fine since mature.
I thought it would be a good idea to remove the rock and put it into a bucket, in darkness, with circulation and the odd water change. It went clean, but when I put the rock back about 4 weeks later, when exposed to full lighting again, it started having algae again. It eventually cleared up, but it just had to go thru the algae/leach cycle.
Since your frags will stay in tank, then drop your lights to 25% (after you scrub them and put back) to keep Frags alive for now. It will also let your rocks continue a slow algae cycle too which won't be as much work to keep pruning/cleaning.

 

[Dabcrusher]

What would a tiny amount of NOPOX be for 75 gallons? Less than 3ml?

If the nitrates are over 20 its 3 ml per 25 gallons until it get down but tou need a good skimmer once you get between 1and 10 use 2 per 25. Between1and .25 use 1 per 25 gal I have been using it since I got in the hobby cause I won a complete red sea kit. I still use carbon . It says not to use a refugium but I do for pods but my tank does pretty good

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Thought I would post an update. I did five things based on feedback I got from this thread and other sources of info.

1. Reduced the intensity of my lights to about as low as it will go. (The LED lights I have are probably overkill for a 68 gallon tank.)
2. Cut back on lighting duration.
3. I spent a LOT of time pulling algae by hand for a couple of weeks.
4. I started dosing NOPOX 2ml per day.
5. I tripled my CUC.

About a month later, I won't say the HA is gone but pretty close to it. I'm guessing it's never really "gone". In other words- if Im not careful, it will come back. What is left is too small to pull by hand. I appreciate all the advice.

 

[scurvy dawg]

Speaking as a Dino survivor, be careful that you do not reduce your nitrates and phosphates down to zero. GHA is a blessing over Dino’s.

 

[Cory]

Sea urchins really are the cure. Try to get multiple small ones. Hair algae grows on the reef but it gets eaten mainly by sea urchins.