Hair Algae Battle

[ThatFishGuy]

The water born phosphates tested at zero? Ok. GHA is feeding off of something. My guess is it is gobbling them up as quick as they can. The source.... either from the rock or from feeding... or both... once it goes away.... the GHA will waste away. If you remove all of the GHA now.... I bet in short order your phosphate will test out much higher.... Essentially.... your tank is acting as an algae scrubber.... LOL!

The trick would be to take it from your tank to a reactor away from your tank. Reactors work really good because the light is on typically 24x7. Since algae loves phosphates and light.... It will grow faster in a reactor and out compete the algae in your tank.

For smaller tanks... I think the Santa Monica scrubbers work fine. Again... if you have the room in your sump.... great. I used one on a tank.... I had some success... These Algae Scrubbers like from 302 Aquatics and Clear Water Aquatics.... I have a 302... work great. The Chaeto Reactors work great.... It is up to you on what you are willing to a) spend, give up in sump real estate, c) noise. The Santa Monica I used was pretty loud. My 302 isn't much better.... but that is because I run a ton of water through it. I think the Chaeto Reactors are nearly silent.

Alright thanks! I will look into getting a reactor or a scrubber

 

[ThatFishGuy]

Alright thanks! I will look into getting a reactor or a scrubber

Here are a few pictures of the tank as well as my sump.
It looks a little cleaner than normal because i scrubbed off a bit with my most recent water change

 

[ThatFishGuy]

Alright thanks! I will look into getting a reactor or a scrubber

Here are a few pictures of the tank as well as my sump.
It looks a little cleaner than normal because i scrubbed off a bit with my most recent water change

 

[ThatFishGuy]

Alright thanks! I will look into getting a reactor or a scrubber

Here are a few pictures of the tank as well as my sump. The tank looks a little cleaner because i scrubbed off some with my most recent water change

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Here are a few pictures of the tank as well as my sump.
It looks a little cleaner than normal because i scrubbed off a bit with my most recent water change

Man that looks like Derbesia to me. If you want to beat it you will probably need to scrub with h2o2 like brandon429 suggested. No clean up crew will touch it and you won't be able to starve it out. If you can't pull the rocks out then drain the water and scrub them. Hopefully you can eradicate it from your tank and not let it in again.

 

[brandon429]

that lull period in between initial cleaning (1st time ever done, how many methods respond to a one off) and the slow growback is where you apply everything ever written about algae control.

when they fail you repeat step 1 what Chris said

the ultra efficient repeat less.

Me/about once a year I zap some targets and nail the sandbed clean. maybe twice a year on the sb because my system is easily cleaned.


**this peroxide method never has to be your complete method. Time it just right, for its intended powers.


Also

anyone who used peroxide on algae and got growback skipped the rasping step. Im not saying people want to rasp a whole tank...Im saying they wait so long to begin decisive action that the number one thing that works is the last thing they'll consider. a test rock always shows whether that's true or not.

The kinds of rock in this tank will respond to just wetting I bet.

 

[brandon429]

I just logged in and saw your pictures/setup here is the biology imo:


your algae signifies nothing bad in the tank, so to be algae free w be abnormal, that's why its hard to effect.


tanks that have perfect water params, and lack of grazers, get the growth you have when they aren't all purple and coral fleshed with bio-excluding living organisms


you have white reflective new real estate in the tank.

don't react with your whole water system to algae that is suppsed to be there, for the phase your tank is in.


you have a 100% chance of responding long term to the method, even if you don't scrape. that's not particularly porous rock, a mere dousing of peroxide is dead algae within 40 hrs.

make your water params what corals want, for the rest of reefing.

never respond to algae with full systemic changes to nutrients if they're ideal nutrients for corals and corals are growing, nature simply uses animals. till we get lucky with that last part, the cheat du joure has been logged

**I do not think your tank is aged enough to need a sandbed rework

workloading has been reduced via pics.

Your sump is clean

the interstices of the setup and the corners of the tank and walls are scum free

organic low tank


have good verified topoff water I bet already so. then trust that your nutrients are good, and be a cheat grazer. total win predicted.

purples and dark pigmentation and tons of calcification, the classic ten yr old reef tank, reflects less and absorbs more light. yours is heavy on reflection, algae is selected for a while, don't do nutrient reactions. I don't even own nutrient test kits, I just keep a nice bed and killed the algae 7 yrs ago.

 

[brandon429]

also
the # reference for your system on this entire board is our poster John M. Cole

His tank is like yours in every way it even looks the same the sump looks the same he's a powerful link here because he took his system through the various maturations with new rock like that, sandbed then no sandbed, various feeding regimens and offsets for nutrients, he's ran the 75 gallon to its max and upgraded. He's got highly updated recommends for larger tanks...my whole method is geared for pico reefs who can rip clean an entire tank in ten mins. the biology is the same even on 500 gallons, just more work.


he'll have really good corners to cut to save time and work too. I don't claim our method is the best or anything but incredibly predictable in outcome and safe for corals cuz we're not applying to corals.

 

[ThatFishGuy]

also
the # reference for your system on this entire board is our poster John M. Cole

His tank is like yours in every way it even looks the same the sump looks the same he's a powerful link here because he took his system through the various maturations with new rock like that, sandbed then no sandbed, various feeding regimens and offsets for nutrients, he's ran the 75 gallon to its max and upgraded. He's got highly updated recommends for larger tanks...my whole method is geared for pico reefs who can rip clean an entire tank in ten mins. the biology is the same even on 500 gallons, just more work.


he'll have really good corners to cut to save time and work too. I don't claim our method is the best or anything but incredibly predictable in outcome and safe for corals cuz we're not applying to corals.

So what everone is saying is it is not hair algae, its a different kinda of hair like algae? So know what so i do? My tank is also about a year old as well.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

So what everone is saying is it is not hair algae, its a different kinda of hair like algae? So know what so i do? My tank is also about a year old as well.

Derbesia is a hairlike algae but it is pretty terrible once it gets established. Algae predators won't eat it and it will survive in 0 NO3 0 PO4 tanks.

green hair algae

 

[brandon429]

TFG
I do not practice ID in my tank correction threads. ID doesn't matter to my actions is my take.... Two things I don't check is ID and nutrient readings bc they cause hesitation

 

[ThatFishGuy]

TFG
I do not practice ID in my tank correction threads. ID doesn't matter to my actions is my take.... Two things I don't check is ID and nutrient readings bc they cause hesitation

So do you suggest i do the peroxide method or get an algae scrubber/reactor?

 

[brandon429]

Those are all part of the preventatives, not the remover actions. Our actions are what you do first, all other forms of algae control come after, as preventative, when the system has been forced clean. Using that order makes my approach conflict with no other method, mine is what you do when problem algae is in the display only if you want it gone. If you want to have it further to see if the preventatives will also remove the algae, many try that mode and it works. It doesn't work for others we can see when they didn't start with a clean tank.

To be invaded is a choice, it's fixable still by tomorrow still. If the algae is nbd then it's ok to keep it.

Chris above is mentioning it could be a mean strain. For many, that would mean take action time. Algae scrubber isn't taking action, when you hook up a scrubber the first thing you do is wait more time. They're for long term prevention when tuned correctly

 

[ThatFishGuy]

Those are all part of the preventatives, not the remover actions. Our actions are what you do first, all other forms of algae control come after, as preventative, when the system has been forced clean. Using that order makes my approach conflict with no other method, mine is what you do when problem algae is in the display only if you want it gone. If you want to have it further to see if the preventatives will also remove the algae, many try that mode and it works. It doesn't work for others we can see when they didn't start with a clean tank.

To be invaded is a choice, it's fixable still by tomorrow still. If the algae is nbd then it's ok to keep it.

Chris above is mentioning it could be a mean strain. For many, that would mean take action time. Algae scrubber isn't taking action, when you hook up a scrubber the first thing you do is wait more time. They're for long term prevention when tuned correctly

Well, i was meaning to use your peroxide method to clean the whole take and put a scrubber/reactor on the tank after the peroxide to prevent it from coming back?

 

[brandon429]

Yes it's good plan because the algae scrubber threads are huge with people posting good results.

Another thing you get to adventure with is whether or not any other form of control is needed at all, it may not be.

all I ever had to do to be algae free was use known good topoff water, I use zero tds distilled water, others use ro/di same ends, and spend the early months of the tank (12 yrs ago) lightly guiding and killing out the expected algae vs letting it seed in as most will do. As I planted corals that took up space, and grew coralline which rejects algae, my targeting worked stopped and removing sandbed waste is what I do a couple times a year


Some systems require only a few kills and no fancy devices or tricks to be algae free, you might not even have bad growback peroxide is so good among many tanks. Test rocks w show if this is the case

 

[ThatFishGuy]

Yes it's good plan because the algae scrubber threads are huge with people posting good results.

Another thing you get to adventure with is whether or not any other form of control is needed at all, it may not be.

all I ever had to do to be algae free was use known good topoff water, I use zero tds distilled water, others use ro/di same ends, and spend the early months of the tank (12 yrs ago) lightly guiding and killing out the expected algae vs letting it seed in as most will do. As I planted corals that took up space, and grew coralline which rejects algae, my targeting worked stopped and removing sandbed waste is what I do a couple times a year


Some systems require only a few kills and no fancy devices or tricks to be algae free, you might not even have bad growback peroxide is so good among many tanks. Test rocks w show if this is the case

Alright, i will do peroxide and do a DIY algae reactor. Should i scrub the test rock clean then douse in peroxide or, i read in another thread you were in, take a syringe with 3% peroxide and drip a few drops onto the spot, let sit for a few minutes, rinse and put back into the tank?

 

[brandon429]

pick any one n run the experiment begins!