Hair algae... its driving me nuts.

[Ling_Thing]

I battled this for months and tried everything, my last resort was api algaefix and it’s literally magic in a bottle. Took about a week to 10 days and it’s all dead now.

 

[Coralmaniac21]

You know i looked at that stuff yesturday.. DO you have corals ? Did it hurt them ?

 

[Leadfooted]

I had just a tiny bit of hair algae lol! Here’s what I did.








Afterwards..Water changes, reduced lighting periods post clean up, sea hare, emralds, snails, hermits all played a key role.

 

[Leadfooted]

If you take the rock work out like I did be mindful of and corals on the rock work that can contain toxins. If so just take proper precautions. I had some nasty Palys on mind so we used lots of protection. All
Rocks got a serious scrubbing, we never used nor have I used any chemicals to eradicate nuisance algae’s.

 

[Hillbillyreefer]

If you take the rock work out like I did be mindful of and corals on the rock work that can contain toxins. If so just take proper precautions. I had some nasty Palys on mind so we used lots of protection. All
Rocks got a serious scrubbing, we never used nor have I used any chemicals to irradiate nuisance algae’s.

“Irradiate”. Thanks for the morning smile .

I’ve been carbon dosing for about a month, the GHA is weakening slowly. The chaeto in the sump is growing rapidly. Last week I started small doses of H2O2 into the system and scrubbed a few test rocks with 3% peroxide. Mag is also being kept at about 1600”. The scrubbed rocks are showing no regrowth of the algae.

Right now plans are being made for a rescape, all the rock will be scrubbed down with peroxide when that happens. Hopefully that will be the end of this particular PITA problem.

 

[Ling_Thing]

You know i looked at that stuff yesturday.. DO you have corals ? Did it hurt them ?

Yes full of sps and acropora no problems at all and I didn’t have to go through breakin my tank down and scrubbing my rocks thank god.

 

[golfer88]

Get a urchin

 

[Coralmaniac21]

Well i gave everything a good scrub vacuumed a bit filters picked up most of the floating hair.. seems my korelia powerheads do a good job at catching it lol had to clean it off em hah..

Tank looks good now.. but i dunno how lomg until it all grows back... maybe i should get more snails and a 2nd sea urchin. I just dont want ALL myalgae gone and have my lawnmower blenny die from no food.

See the white on the rock in 2nd pic by the brain coral and candycanes.. thats from my pincushion urchin.. but he only come out at night which sucks.. but he scrapes the rocks clean... onky downside is ill probably never have coraline lol

 

[WendellG]

I have this green.brown hair algae in my tank and it keep growing on my rock and corsl skeletons... I have a bubble coral who receeded badly and its actually coming back now but hair algae is growing on the skeleton near thr bubbles and i have to use a tooth brush on it to clean the septa spikes... but i dont wanna keep doing that and iriates the bubbles..

My rockwork ssme thing hair algae all over. It comes off easy with a tooth brush.. but just come back later... snail ignore it.. sea urchin eats it but he tends to stay on the same rocks leaving others covered..

Phosphates used to be .50 but they are now near 0 nitrates are 0-20 depending on how much i feed but it goes down later.. what csn i do besides keep scrubbing and picking the algae off.

Also what are tjese clear.white tube things growing all over my rocks.. is this a sponge ??

Add a lawnmower Blenny and a couple Emerald craps., it took care of mine almost overnight

 

[Tastee]

I just read that REEF FLUX FLUCONAZOLE is Not effective against hair or other turf style algae.

Previously known as Algae Buster, Reef Flux is an aquarium fluconazole treatment that is effective against fungal fish infections. To avoid unintended nutrient spikes it should not be used in tanks with refugiums that have Caulerpa and Bryopsis.

I saw the same information and it confused me as it seemed to contradict other things I had read. When I dug into it a little further however it made more sense. Fluconazole is effective against certain strains of hair algae. Bryopsis is one of the types of hair algae it is effective against. Bryopsis is a type of hair algae.

So if your hair algae is one of those types it should work. I am running it currently and it seems to be working for me, so I must have a type it does work on.

Turf algae definitely appears to be one of the variants it does not work on.

My understanding is that Fluconazole was originally developed as a fungal treatment (for humans) but it has now been discovered that it also has a very similar effect on certain hair algaes. The manufacturers are clearly cagey about telling you how effective it is as it depends on the strain you have.

 

[DHill6]

Newer Tonga Branch loaded with GHA, I tried pulling some out, of course it came back overnight. My sea urchin is picky and slow. I added 5 orange chestnut snails, one went after it right away. The others took awhile, now they are taking care of it. Tan chestnuts, there were two, didn't go after it at all and eventually died, no clue why.

 

[Zakery Murray]

If its a big enough tank you could add one of the smaller urchins they will get all green and fuzzy when they walk over it.

 

[OceansideAqua]

Go to your LFS and grab a bunch of red leg hermits and place them in the areas that are mostly covered with algae. Give it time and they will keep up with it. Its a simple fix don't let anyone scare you. Have a great day.

 

[Wendybright]

I am so over GHA!!!! I cut my lights, I cut my feeding, I bought a seahare, first one died, 2nd one did awesome job so I returned him. Now its coming back again. Turbo snails don't work either. I am at my whit's end with it. my water parameters are where they need to be.

 

[Neo Jeo]

People need to be careful with seahares. Last time when I was 16 I had one. It got stuck on a power head and it inked purple in my tank. Most of my corals and fish died even after water changes and carbon added.

 

[Johnnynle]

4-5 months is a pretty “young” tank... going through the uglies.. keep doing what you’re doing and it’ll straighten itself out [emoji1360]

 

[Coralmaniac21]

I am so over GHA!!!! I cut my lights, I cut my feeding, I bought a seahare, first one died, 2nd one did awesome job so I returned him. Now its coming back again. Turbo snails don't work either. I am at my whit's end with it. my water parameters are where they need to be.

Try a pin cushion seaurchin or depending how big your tank is a couple of them. Mine eats it all but he stays on one or two rocks.. im thinking of getting another 1 or 2 urchins because of this...

 

[theMeat]

People need to be careful with seahares. Last time when I was 16 I had one. It got stuck on a power head and it inked purple in my tank. Most of my corals and fish died even after water changes and carbon added.

Weird. I just had one sucked up and shredded into circ pump and no ink, no dying anything, except the sea hare

 

[Neo Jeo]

Weird. I just had one sucked up and shredded into circ pump and no ink, no dying anything, except the sea hare

Mine was stuck on a power head then I turned it off. It started to fall off and my cleaner shrimp bugged it. The back of sea hare opened and purple ink poured out..... Within 10-15min things were dieing.

 

[Johnnynle]

Mine was stuck on a power head then I turned it off. It started to fall off and my cleaner shrimp bugged it. The back of sea hare opened and purple ink poured out..... Within 10-15min things were dieing.

That sucks, but not common. Especially in a large enough tank. Sea hare ink isn’t especially toxic though some species of sea hare may be more so than others