Get rid of hair algae

[spidercrab]

I got my hair algae under control with a bunch of blue-legged hermits. Is that a possibility? They ripped it out from the roots.

Seems I also have dinos because it kills all the inverts that go in the tank. Fish were fine but wouldnt touch any algae.

 

[Fishurama]

You can try going lights out for 3 days or so, literally black the entire tank out with a moving blanket or similar. Albeit, might be risky for certain corals(don't know your stocking) Should kill most if not all and get you back to where your corals would have more free nutrients to take in.

 

[Mical]

If it's hair algae, run your MAG up to 1500-1600 for a couple of weeks, let it drop naturally from there and your hair algae will be history.

 

[Travis Stewart]

Yes the algae will consume the nitrates and phosphate. I went over a month without adding any food source to the tank it registered zero nitrate and phosphate for over a month. All of the corals began to bleach from starvation. The algae didnt grow but it also didnt die at all. Might try vibrant but the problem with this tank is that it is already nutrient starved. This tank has been coral only for almost a year now.

never heard of a coral bleaching from starvation...and there are many other reasons you can have a nutrient issue other than feeding.

 

[BZOFIQ]

If it's hair algae, run your MAG up to 1500-1600 for a couple of weeks, let it drop naturally from there and your hair algae will be history.

Is this safe for everything else? How quickly do you raise it to that level to be safe?

 

[Travis Stewart]

If it's hair algae, run your MAG up to 1500-1600 for a couple of weeks, let it drop naturally from there and your hair algae will be history.

never had any luck with this method

 

[spidercrab]

You can try going lights out for 3 days or so, literally black the entire tank out with a moving blanket or similar. Albeit, might be risky for certain corals(don't know your stocking) Should kill most if not all and get you back to where your corals would have more free nutrients to take in.

I tried this along with heavy heavy peroxide. A lot of the algae did bleach and die but there was still a lot left after 3 days.

 

[spidercrab]

If it's hair algae, run your MAG up to 1500-1600 for a couple of weeks, let it drop naturally from there and your hair algae will be history.

I run my mag at 1500-1600 for about the last 2-3 years.

 

[spidercrab]

never heard of a coral bleaching from starvation...and there are many other reasons you can have a nutrient issue other than feeding.

Low nutrients is one of the main cause of coral bleaching. Keep your phosphate undetectable for a few months and all of your SPS will be white or dead.

 

[spidercrab]

FLUCONAZOLE

Never thought I would go to this. But honestly I cant think of any other option at this point.

 

[spidercrab]

Fluconazole- Seems there are quite a few mixed reviews on this. 50/50 saying it worked wonders vs it killed every coral in my tank!

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I have never heard of it killing corals? I dosed it on my 300 gallon sps tank, not a single problem. Just my experience though.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ive had much success with liquid Vibrant and removal by hand.
Fluconasal also effective

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

First off 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates is asking for problems. But it’s possibly a false reading because hair alage exists based on those two factors and light. Now you could try a stage 2 uv steralizer which will absolutely kill hair alage and dinos because a stage 2 kills viruses, bacteria and parasites etc, FYI stage 2 use 184nm bulbs with a slower dwell time and much better cortex. Anyway I had a small problem with hair alage and I was ranting between 2-5 nitrates and .25 phosphates.

To make this short, I moved my tank and had to kinda jump start it again. Anyway, I used seed, (looks like a bottle of fuel but cslled seed.) I dosed that once a week and it literally wiped all of the hair alage out. The reason is, I was adding good bacteria which was able to out compete it because I added it once a week. It didn’t have a chance to kill the good bacteria off because I kept reinforcing it. I can’t promise it would work but it’s worth a shot. Getting some good bacteria will definitely compete with what you have.

 

[Mical]

I run my mag at 1500-1600 for about the last 2-3 years.

Maybe it's the ingredients then in Kent Tech M (that's what I used)

 

[ZoWhat]

If you find the Golden Answer, plz write a book and sell it on Amazon....you'll be an instant Multimillionaire.

I truly believe GHA spores just lay dormant in the micro cracks in the LR waiting on Nitrates to feed on.

GHA is like a fat brother in law that cant wait for all the food to be plated at a family cookout. Corals are like a picky 8yr niece who wont eat anything that's prepared except for a very very small portion of mac&cheese

Doing a NO3 test is a good indicator IMO..... but!!!! It may read "0" only after the GHA have had their feast of the NO3. No joke...

Never ending battle. If you SOLVE GHA once it gets ahold in your tank and you eliminate it....write a book bc it will become a New York Best Seller instantly

 

[ZoWhat]

I dumped in half a bottle already a few weeks ago its only a 30 gallon tank. I even mixed the algae with 50% H2O2 and it was fine.. Corals suffered immensely though.

@spidercrab

I recently found manually removing good chunks of "whatever your fighting" be it algae, whatever.....

Take those chunks and put different samples in different glass mason jars with your saltwater and put it all under a grow light.

Now.... start dosing H2O2, or vodka or whatever... in different jars individually to see what kills this "stuff" the quickest

I did this....and had a mason jar full of GHA... I added H2O2 and the GHA laughed at me and didnt lose color, nothing. No die off

 

[spidercrab]

@spidercrab

I recently found manually removing good chunks of "whatever your fighting" be it algae, whatever.....

Take those chunks and put different samples in different glass mason jars with your saltwater and put it all under a grow light.

Now.... start dosing H2O2, or vodka or whatever... in different jars individually to see what kills this "stuff" the quickest

I did this....and had a mason jar full of GHA... I added H2O2 and the GHA laughed at me and didnt lose color, nothing. No die off

yup the GHA didnt mind H2O2 at all.

 

[spidercrab]

New strategy... Im going to bombard the tank with nutrients and just deal with the hair algae manual removal it really doesnt hurt anything so I think this is probably the safest method. If I can keep nutrients up long enough for something to kill the dinos then ill be able to tackle the hair algae later with a clean up crew.

 

[MixedFruitBasket]

Only one sea hare species will decimate algae, hair, bypnosis, etc, and that's the Doabella sea hair, aka wedge sea hair, the ugly one that's all spiky looking.