Getting rid of hair algae

[Bryan47]

I'm sure this has been talked about a lot but I wanted to post about my specific issue.

I have some light to moderate hair algae, very short, less than one inch. Here is a picture of it:

I have used steel brushes to take off what I can. I want to reduce and remove its main food sources. I want to get my phosphates down to 0. Although the API test shows 0 I know there must be minute amounts. I just ordered some GFO that I plan to run in a phosban 150 reactor. I also plan to add a 29G sumo with a proper refugium and macro algae.

Next would be reducing my light schedule. I run it for about 10-12 hours a day. I have 4 T5 54W bulbs 2 white and 2 actinic. I also have a strip of 1 W white and blue LEDs I run. What should I do if anything to reduce giving the algae too much light?

Next is going to be the actual removal of the algae. I have a lawnmower blenny and a clean up crew that should certainly be restocked. I've lost a fair amount of snails to them flipping upside down and me not catching it. I plan to add the following
10-15 blue leg hermits, 10-15 Astrea snails, and a bristle tooth tang in the way of a Desjardini Sailfin Tang.

I have two emerald crabs but may add another. What critters do you all recommend for tackling hair algae?

Any other advice will be gladly accepted and I really appreciate you taking the time to read this and I would appreciate any and all input!

 

[Joeganja]

i say reduce your lighting period to 8 hours. 10-12 is way too much. What size is your tank?

 

[Bryan47]

55 but in 3 weeks I'll be going to a 72 with a 29G sump

 

[Joeganja]

you can get a yellow tang to eat your algae and or a foxface rabbitfish but they are venemous. i reccomend looking into more reef cleaning invertebrates. with plenty of water changes. and if your hair algae is bad you can look into hydrogen peroxide for curing live rock with algae.

 

[kendavjac]

Had the same problem. this is caused by excess nutrients in your tank. Once you tackle that issue, your clean up crew will be able to keep up with it. I would get a hannah checker for the po4. No mention of your NO3, assume it stays really low then (0-5ppm). If not, you need to fix that also. I assume you are using rodi water with 0 tds. If not start now. If you feed heavy, then slow down your feeding. Only what the fish can eat in 1-2 minutes. I only feed once a day. If you feed your corals, then slow down or stop for a couple of weeks. Even if your test show you 0 po4, it is only showing you the "free" po4. the algae will take it up almost as fast as it is released from the food or rocks. If your tank has been set up for a while, it may take a while for the po4 to leach out of your system. You can try and kill the algae off with hydrogen peroxide, but it will come back if you still have nutrients that feed them. Until then, keep manually removing the algae and attacking the "fertilizer" that feeds it. Do a search of this forum, there are probably 50 threads that you can read up on the details of lowering nitrate and phosphate. Like all things in the tank: it takes a very short time to cause an issue, but a long to to fix it. It took me a couple of months.

 

[Bryan47]

Yes NO3 is around 5 and I keep it there. I feed every other day, frozen. I will reduce lighting schedule. Are you sure 8 hours is enough? Don't they get 10-12 hours in the ocean? I don't usually spot feed the corals, sometimes I will spot feed them the seachem reef plankton occasionally. I'll feed mysis and the megamarine mix. I try to suck it up in a syringe and feed slowly so they eat it before it all falls. Sometimes I worry the corals don't get enough food. Can't quite swing the $50 Hannah low range checker.

Any advice on best cuc critters for hair algae?

 

[glb]

I have nerite snails (I think that's their name, black snails with striped shells) and they eat it. My phosban reactor pretty much solved the problem for me.

 

[SantaMonicaHelp]

Here's a why the algae is happening in the first place:

Nutrient Export


What do all algae (and cyano too) need to survive? Nutrients. What are nutrients? Ammonia/ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and urea are the major ones. Which ones cause most of the algae in your tank? These same ones. Why can't you just remove these nutrients and eliminate all the algae in your tank? Because these nutrients are the result of the animals you keep.


So how do your animals "make" these nutrients? Well a large part the nutrients comes from pee (urea). Pee is very high in urea and ammonia, and these are a favorite food of algae and some bacteria. This is why your glass will always need cleaning; because the pee hits the glass before anything else, and algae on the glass consume the ammonia and urea immediately (using photosynthesis) and grow more. In the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton consume the ammonia and urea in open water, and seaweed consume it in shallow areas, but in a tank you don't have enough space or water volume for this, and, your other filters or animals often remove or kill the phytoplankton or seaweed anyway. So, the nutrients stay in your tank.


Then, the ammonia/ammonium hits your rocks, and the periphyton on the rocks consumes more ammonia and urea. Periphyton is both algae and animals, and is the reason your rocks change color after a few weeks from when they were new. Then the ammonia goes inside the rock, or hits your sand, and bacteria there convert it into nitrite and nitrate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.


Also let's not forget phosphate, which comes from solid organic food particles. When these particles are eaten by microbes and clean up crews, the organic phosphorus in them is converted into phosphate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.


So whenever you have algae or cyano "problems", you simply have not exported enough nutrients out of your tank compared to how much you have been feeding (note: live rock can absorb phosphate for up to a year, making it seem like there was never a problem. Then after a year, there is a problem).


So just increase your nutrient exports. You could also reduce feeding, and this has the same effect, but it's certainly not fun when you want to feed your animals

Hope this helps you figure out how to eliminates nutrients. And here a small suggestion: https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/equipment-lighting-hardware-aquarium-filtration/86207-lowest-cost-easiest-way-eliminate-green-hair-bubble-turf-slime-algae-your-aquarium-hopefully-permanently.html

-YK

 

[Bryan47]

Thank you