Green Hair Algae

[Dcole12]

Good Morning,

I have had my tank up and running since October 19'. Everything has been going great and have been having no problems in my tank at all! I am just now starting to get some green hair algae. I heard everyones tank goes through a rough patch at some point in and time. Just want some suggestions on how I can control it from getting out of control!

 

[KTrevino]

Most common answers- Less feeding, Lower nitrates and phosphates (via water change, or GFO, or Anaerobic bacteria), Do a blackout (cover the tank). In addition to less feeding and lowering nutrients be aggressive and scrub the rocks with a toothbrush when doing water change and physically remove the algae. Good luck!

 

[NS Mike D]

Lowering nutrients is often part of the solution but can be disastrous if they are already low.
IMO, scrubbing rocks in the DT only helps to spread it. IMO, you want to remove the algae (which also removes the nutrients that it has locked up). There are several options, such as scrubbing along with a siphon to removing the rock and scrub, rinse and spray with H202.

 

[Mr Fishface]

My best advice is to remove without scrubbing the rocks when you can. I used to siphon mine out during water changes. I had a longer glass cleaner tool (long plastic handle with basically a fairly dull metal tip) that I would use to get algae off the glass or anything else smooth. I just used rubber tubing from a gravel vac for water changes (removed the large vacuum part from tube) as it would create a good suction force. Algae typically would pull off the rock pretty easy that way.