Green Hair Algae???

[newt828]

I have recently had an outbreak of what I think is green hair algae. This is my first saltwater tank and has been up since June 2019. I have had this before and it went away after about a week. I am not sure what to do. It starts off with a bit of discoloration in the sandbed then comes up through the sand and onto the rocks then glass. My parameters and system are:

Red Sea Max E260 with standard sump equipment in the back

Alk - 11.0
Ammonia - 0.0
Calcium - 464
Mg - 1440
Nitrate - 0.0
Nitrite - 0.0
Ph - 8.0
Phosphate - .25
Salinity - 1.026

I am currently dosing No3PO4x at 3ml per day to work into it before upping the dose to the recomended amount. I have tried to remove as much by hand as possible but it seems that if I do this it makes the outbreak worse.

Lighting is 2 red sea 90LED that run for 5 1/2 hours a day at 15k and no more than 65% intensity.

I am currently running the system without lights to try and kill off the algae again if anyone has any advise it would be appreciated.

I curretly have 2 clown, 4 pajama cardinal and 1 fire goby with 1 rainbow anemone, 1 goniepora, 2 acan, 1 blasto, 1 scoly with a cuc of around 30 hermit, 1 emerald crab, 5 turbo, 5 nasarius.

The photo was taken around 4 days ago and has significantly increased the amount of alge in the tank

 

[andrewey]

Can you get a better picture? I don't see any hair algae in the picture. Moreover, why are you dosing so much Nopox if you have 0 nitrates? You risk causing much worse issues (e.g. dinos). Running the system in the dark will not be an effective stratedgy for dealing with the algae. Manual removal of hair algae should not make the process worse if done properly. Are you sure you are dealing with hair algae?

 

[newt828]

Can you get a better picture? I don't see any hair algae in the picture. Moreover, why are you dosing so much Nopox if you have 0 nitrates? You risk causing much worse issues (e.g. dinos). Running the system in the dark will not be an effective stratedgy for dealing with the algae. Manual removal of hair algae should not make the process worse if done properly. Are you sure you are dealing with hair algae?

I will try to get a better picture of it. I am only dosing 1/2 the recommended dose and only started on Monday so stopping wouldn't be an issue. I assume that this is green hair alge it is green and stringy. As far as manually removing it what suggestions do you have.

 

[andrewey]

I wouldn't be carbon dosing if your nitrate is truely zero. While I can't see it in the picture, if you had enough hair algae, it could consume your nitrates giving you a "false reading", but I still wouldn't carbon dose as you have no baseline to understand when your nitrates begin to drop to dial in your dose. Carbon dosing if done incorrectly can absolutely wreck a tank, so be careful that you understand the pitfalls

It's possible it's green hair algae, but other algae can fit that description including bryopsis, green turf algae, caulpera, etc. A better picture would be necessary not only for an ID, but to understand how widespread the infestation is.

As far as manual removal, assuming it's green hair algae, you have two options. If you can remove the rocks, you can always clean the algae off with a toothbrush and rinse/dip the rocks in sacraficial saltwater before putting them back in the tank (there are treatments with hydrogen peroxide, but I wouldn't jump to that now based on what I'm seeing). If you can't remove the rock, start a siphon to your sump/bucket, and manually pick as much of the algae off the rock with one hand while holding the hose next to your hand to suck up anything that is dislodged. The end of the siphon should run into a filter sock so you remove all the hair algae without any changes to the water.

There is some other advice I could give, but before we put the cart before the horse, it might be helpful to get some better pictures.

 

[newt828]

I wouldn't be carbon dosing if your nitrate is truely zero. While I can't see it in the picture, if you had enough hair algae, it could consume your nitrates giving you a "false reading", but I still wouldn't carbon dose as you have no baseline to understand when your nitrates begin to drop to dial in your dose. Carbon dosing if done incorrectly can absolutely wreck a tank, so be careful that you understand the pitfalls

It's possible it's green hair algae, but other algae can fit that description including bryopsis, green turf algae, caulpera, etc. A better picture would be necessary not only for an ID, but to understand how widespread the infestation is.

As far as manual removal, assuming it's green hair algae, you have two options. If you can remove the rocks, you can always clean the algae off with a toothbrush and rinse/dip the rocks in sacraficial saltwater before putting them back in the tank (there are treatments with hydrogen peroxide, but I wouldn't jump to that now based on what I'm seeing). If you can't remove the rock, start a siphon to your sump/bucket, and manually pick as much of the algae off the rock with one hand while holding the hose next to your hand to suck up anything that is dislodged. The end of the siphon should run into a filter sock so you remove all the hair algae without any changes to the water.

There is some other advice I could give, but before we put the cart before the horse, it might be helpful to get some better pictures.

Like I said earlier I have tried picking it off the best I can this is what has come back in the past few days. (Best pictures I can get)

 

[SPR1968]

Your phosphates are way to high at 0.25 and that’s probably the cause of the GHA as it will use it as a food source. The target is less then 0.03ppm so very low so you need to starve it out,

Theres no point dosing Nopox at zero nitrate, it won’t work and has a neglible effect on phosphate so I would stop dosing it or drop it to an absolute nominal amount.

You dont have many corals to worry about so start using rowaphos (GFO) if you can get it and that will solve your problems. You will need to change it frequently as you start has it becomes spent or it won’t work. Then just continue using it

If you can keep phosphate locked down you will avoid many issues you read about.

And increase your nitrates as fast as you can to around 5-10ppm either with extra fish or extra feeding as again you risk many issues at zero

 

[slayertx]

Do not cold stop NoP0x! slowly ramp down your usage. Nop0x does work and im going to trust your numbers as you gave actual numbers vs "the guy" that says my alk is 9,cal 450,mag 1300, sal 35ppt. I would stick with the nopox at a lower dose personally as gha just takes time to kill and it works. Just make sure you are wet skimming!

 

[SPR1968]

Do not cold stop NoP0x! slowly ramp down your usage. Nop0x does work and im going to trust your numbers as you gave actual numbers vs "the guy" that says my alk is 9,cal 450,mag 1300, sal 35ppt. I would stick with the nopox at a lower dose personally as gha just takes time to kill and it works. Just make sure you are wet skimming!

Without wishing to sound ‘challenging’, so please don’t take any offence, but how can Nopox work with zero nitrate ?

 

[newt828]

Do not cold stop NoP0x! slowly ramp down your usage. Nop0x does work and im going to trust your numbers as you gave actual numbers vs "the guy" that says my alk is 9,cal 450,mag 1300, sal 35ppt. I would stick with the nopox at a lower dose personally as gha just takes time to kill and it works. Just make sure you are wet skimming!

I test manually once every week and have an apex system and that is what the numbers came from so they are usually fairly similar

 

[slayertx]

.there is nitrates.... the gha and bacteria is already consuming it to the point it's not testing.. if he cold stops nopox the bacteria colony will die and he will have a super exposion of gha or a tank crash.

 

[newt828]

Without wishing to sound ‘challenging’, so please don’t take any offence, but how can Nopox work with zero nitrate ?

Well last week my nitrates were hovering around 5ppm, the 0 was from my test last night so not exactly sure if it was a bad test or what I plan on checking again this afternoon. As far as dosing the Nopox it was done from the advise of my LFS which is now out of business. This is my first salt water tank so I'm still pretty new to all this especially as things happen.

 

[newt828]

Well last week my nitrates were hovering around 5ppm, the 0 was from my test last night so not exactly sure if it was a bad test or what I plan on checking again this afternoon. As far as dosing the Nopox it was done from the advise of my LFS which is now out of business. This is my first salt water tank so I'm still pretty new to all this especially as things happen.

By the way I'm not easily offended I am a complete idiot when it comes to this so any help is appreciated

 

[andrewey]

.there is nitrates.... the gha and bacteria is already consuming it to the point it's not testing.. if he cold stops nopox the bacteria colony will die and he will have a super exposion of gha or a tank crash.

I don't know if you read his reply, but he only started dosing nopox 2 days ago... nothing will happen if he stops- guaranteed

 

[newt828]

I don't know if you read his reply, but he only started dosing nopox 2 days ago... nothing will happen if he stops- guaranteed

There has only been 6ml dosed total, it hasn't dosed today. I haven't been in the past so with no more than has been put in I think it will be fine.

 

[newt828]

I have recently had an outbreak of what I think is green hair algae. This is my first saltwater tank and has been up since June 2019. I have had this before and it went away after about a week. I am not sure what to do. It starts off with a bit of discoloration in the sandbed then comes up through the sand and onto the rocks then glass. My parameters and system are:

Red Sea Max E260 with standard sump equipment in the back

Alk - 11.0
Ammonia - 0.0
Calcium - 464
Mg - 1440
Nitrate - 0.0
Nitrite - 0.0
Ph - 8.0
Phosphate - .25
Salinity - 1.026

I am currently dosing No3PO4x at 3ml per day to work into it before upping the dose to the recomended amount. I have tried to remove as much by hand as possible but it seems that if I do this it makes the outbreak worse.

Lighting is 2 red sea 90LED that run for 5 1/2 hours a day at 15k and no more than 65% intensity.

I am currently running the system without lights to try and kill off the algae again if anyone has any advise it would be appreciated.

I curretly have 2 clown, 4 pajama cardinal and 1 fire goby with 1 rainbow anemone, 1 goniepora, 2 acan, 1 blasto, 1 scoly with a cuc of around 30 hermit, 1 emerald crab, 5 turbo, 5 nasarius.

The photo was taken around 4 days ago and has significantly increased the amount of alge in the tank

Okay it was a gross error in the testing the nitrate level (I missed up the test kits) is at 20ppm so yeah there is plenty of reason to dose the nopox now I believe. Thank you to everyone that helped.

 

[andrewey]

Just be careful with your dosing. It's easier to run a healthy tank at 20ppm then 2ppm . Obviously there's a middle ground, but make sure you have an end goal in site that balances your nitrate and phosphate levels without causing worse problems if you overshoot either.

 

[newt828]

Just be careful with your dosing. It's easier to run a healthy tank at 20ppm then 2ppm . Obviously there's a middle ground, but make sure you have an end goal in site that balances your nitrate and phosphate levels without causing worse problems if you overshoot either.

Thanks for the advise, I'm still green around the collar dealing with this stuff. Just trying to work out the kinks before I invest a ton of money into it.