Hair Algae tips?

[brodyquinthooper]

Have a 55l fish-only. I do a water change every week, parameters usually spot on. Bought an urchin but he isn't eating it at all. I am going to take the plunge to corals soon but I don't want them to get choked. Hair algae all over the back wall and live rock. Any tips?

 

[Big G]

Welcome to R2R!

Elbow grease: using a siphon hose, attach a toothbrush to the hose. Slowly scrub away the HA. Slower is better. You want the siphon to suck up as much as possible. If you can setup the siphon hose to return to the tank or sump with a filter sock attached on the end. This will allow you to endlessly work without siphoning out your tank water as waste.

 

[VKP01]

I second Big G’s technique!

If you’re still looking at using animals to eat it, Mexican turbo snails do super good IME. They’re great for clearing algae off rocks, and they work pretty fast too! They can bulldoze and knock loose frags and such around occasionally though.

 

[LilElroyJetson]

Agree with what was said above. I had a significant algae outbreak during the early stage, did manual removal that way, and upped my cleanup crew with trochus snails and turbo snails, and added a lawnmower blenny. Everything was cleared out in about 3 days and it has been kept in check ever since. Good luck! Keep us posted.

 

[User1]

Also wanted to chime in with regards to your water chemistry tests and their usual spot on comment. It may be a false reading because the GHA is consuming the nutrients. What I mean is that they are actually correct but not because of coral or biological consumption but rather consumption by the GHA. Sort of ironic in that is what we want to happen but not at the spread of GHA...

 

[Salty Lemon]

Lawnmower blennies earn their keep. Mine is nice and fat and takes care of any hair algae that shows up.

 

[brodyquinthooper]

Thanks so much guys! I'll try these suggestions out!

 

[sfin52]

nothing better than elbow grease combined with cuc. I would recommend upping cuc crew slowly. You want them to keep up but not starve. A fine line to walk

 

[brodyquinthooper]

CUC is 2 hermits, 3 nassarius snails, urchin and a peppermint shrimp if it helps

 

[sfin52]

I would look at a couple of cerith. Nas snails dont eat algea. I would wait to see what the urchin does. they dont stop eating algea. I added a seahare and 3 cerith snails and thats all I really need for a 75. The seahare does a bang up job.

 

[brodyquinthooper]

Thanks!

 

[sfin52]

removing the long stands of ha makes it easier for the cuc to get the base of algea. Some cuc can't or won't eat the longer stuff.

 

[brodyquinthooper]

Ah that explains it!

 

[jeffchapok]

Bring some RODI water to a boil and carefully squirt it onto the algae with a turkey baster. It'll immediately turn bright green and then die. It must be really tasty too, because my turbo and nerite snails and emerald crabs quickly scour those spots right down to the bare rock.

I've made this a part of my daily topoff routine, and within a few days over half of the GHA in my tank has been eradicated.

 

[RJinPV]

Bring some RODI water to a boil and carefully squirt it onto the algae with a turkey baster. It'll immediately turn bright green and then die. It must be really tasty too, because my turbo and nerite snails and emerald crabs quickly scour those spots right down to the bare rock.

I've made this a part of my daily topoff routine, and within a few days over half of the GHA in my tank has been eradicated.

I have never heard of this before and it sounds intriguing. What about collateral damage? How close can you get to something you want to keep alive and not damage it?

 

[RJinPV]

I like everyone on this thread. I have used all these methods, with some success, except for the boiling water thing and no success with sea hares. Been using a toothbrush on a siphon for a while, added some turbo snails about a month ago and added a lawn mower blenny this week. I tried sea hares a couple of times a few years ago and they both died within a couple of days. Even after a 1.5 hr drip acclamation.

I never thought any of the snails ate this stuff until a month ago I added some turbo snails to my new refugium (nutrient control is another thing you have to do) and watched them mow down all the GHA in a few days. So I added them to the display tank. Other threads suggested a lawn mower blenny, so I bought one. I can see him going in now and eating the areas I just shortened via toothbrush removal. Maybe the algae in my tank is seeing its last days.

Actually the other failure in my experience is the emerald crabs. I bought a bunch after my LFS gave me a hard sales pitch on them. I don't think they ate anything except maybe my snails.

 

[Fiesty]

Would u be willing to pay $20 or less to have it cleaned up with no work form yourself? If so, get a sea hare. The only problem with them is that they mow down the algea so fast that they will run out of food. When your tank gets all clean you will prob need to rehome or take back to fish store unless u want to feed it specifically.

I had a GHA problem awhile back and seemed like an impossible task to get cleaned up in a 93 gal tank. Tried pulling out manually for weeks to no avail and just damaged corals. Followed a suggestion about sea hare and problem was totally solved in about 5 days or less.

 

[RJinPV]

Would u be willing to pay $20 or less to have it cleaned up with no work form yourself? If so, get a sea hare. The only problem with them is that they mow down the algea so fast that they will run out of food. When your tank gets all clean you will prob need to rehome or take back to fish store unless u want to feed it specifically.

I had a GHA problem awhile back and seemed like an impossible task to get cleaned up in a 93 gal tank. Tried pulling out manually for weeks to no avail and just damaged corals. Followed a suggestion about sea hare and problem was totally solved in about 5 days or less.

I tried three of them from three different LFS sources. I did a drip acclimation each time and each one of them ate my algae for a day or two then disappeared and died. I was able to find each one before it nuked the tank but I got tired of killing them. Maybe I had sea hare kryptonite algae. I dunno. The tank was mature (>1 year old). Parameters were typical. Back then I was running salinity at around 1.023. I couldn't figure it out. Did you do anything special to keep them alive?

 

[brodyquinthooper]

Turbo snails seem like a good idea, they're cheap and always available at my LFS. Does anyone know if they would climb out of the tank? My lid has gaps.

 

[VKP01]

Turbo snails seem like a good idea, they're cheap and always available at my LFS. Does anyone know if they would climb out of the tank? My lid has gaps.

Mine never have. I’ll sometimes see them stick their face out to get algae above the water line, but I’ve never heard of them leaving the tank.