Hair algae with good water?

[Howellfencing]

Hi all. I'm at my whits end. I have a 30 gallon tank with 2 clown fish and plenty of soft corals. The corals are doing great, the fish are doing great. All the corals are extending fully and the nutrients are perfect. I've been doing frequent water changes, but I'm still overwhelmed with hair algae. I took the water into Aquadome and they said the water is fine. I bought two urchins and they haven't done much. I bought some emerald crabs and they died within a week of putting them in (maybe the starved?). I even performed a 3 day black out to try and get it taken care of. My lighting is as follows:

Fluval A3995 Sea Marine/Reef 2.0 LED, 48-60"
https://www.amazon.com/Fluval-A3995...00WDC6VAG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

2 hour sunrise from 10 - 12

Daylight with pink 79%, cyan 100%, blue 100%, purple 85%, cold white 70%

2 hour sunset from 3 - 5

Someone please help. I've been fighting this for months.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Hi all. I'm at my whits end. I have a 30 gallon tank with 2 clown fish and plenty of soft corals. The corals are doing great, the fish are doing great. All the corals are extending fully and the nutrients are perfect. I've been doing frequent water changes, but I'm still overwhelmed with hair algae. I took the water into Aquadome and they said the water is fine. I bought two urchins and they haven't done much. I bought some emerald crabs and they died within a week of putting them in (maybe the starved?). I even performed a 3 day black out to try and get it taken care of. My lighting is as follows:

Fluval A3995 Sea Marine/Reef 2.0 LED, 48-60"
https://www.amazon.com/Fluval-A3995...00WDC6VAG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

2 hour sunrise from 10 - 12

Daylight with pink 79%, cyan 100%, blue 100%, purple 85%, cold white 70%

2 hour sunset from 3 - 5

Someone please help. I've been fighting this for months.

How old is your tank? Did you start with dry/dead rock?

 

[fishyfishyfishy]

I’m guessing they didn’t check your phosphates, however if they did and non showed up the hair algae is likely sucking it up and it won’t show. Are you using RO/DI water and are you checking the TDS before using it? Did you change food brands or even amounts started feeding coral?

 

[Chris Villalobos]

What nobody ever told me was once some types of GHA infest your tank you will not be able to starve them out. Manual removal may be your only hope.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/d...at-cannot-be-starved-out.346071/#post-4309959

 

[UCF Alum]

I’ve been battling it for months. Like,....6.
Phosphate at .03 or less
Nitrates are 5
Mag 1500
I run the SPS AB schedule on my Radions
Light feeding
Manually scrubbed for months which made it worse since it released all the spores.
All this did nothing.

What DID and has been working, slowly, is the combination of flucanoze and Vibrant. It’s been a slow process, but every time I clean the filter socks, there are clumps of GHA. I don’t have the typical case where it starts to die off, turn white and then dissipate into nothing. Mine literally breaks off from the root and ends up in the socks.

Forget the blackouts. Depending on the strain, it might be resistant. For example, I turned my refugium light off in the sump where there was a bunch of hair algae growing for two weeks and it did absolutely nothing to kill it off.

I have a strain straight from the devil himself. It’s killed off some SPS frags by sucking all the nutrients out of the water.

Another thing that I did was go on Amazon and purchase some 12% hydrogen peroxide (food grade), put it in a spray bottle, remove the rocks that I could from the tank and spray them down. I then let them sit for 10 minutes then dunked them in a bucket of fresh RO water before putting them back in the tank. After this it still took three days for the stuff to die off. What’s remaining in the tank has thinned our drastically. I believe it’s mostly in part to the flucanozole and Vibrant.
I was at my wits end with it. I too bought urchins. Unfortunately they will only eat the very short stuff.

The 175 is now looking a lot better.
Good luck and don’t give up! Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[UCF Alum]

One more thing.
Pink spectrum on your light? Or is it red.

Regardless, turn that color off if you can. GHA loves the reds. Also, turn down the cool white for awhile.
The Combination of those two creates a weed farm

 

[ZaneTer]

A sea hare should demolish it but a 30g will never be able to produce enough algae to keep it alive long term.

 

[vetteguy53081]

ALGAE BLENNY, TURBO SNAILS AND MARGARITA SNAILS GOOD COMBAT. but, YOU NEED TO GET TO ROOT OF EXISTANCE- LIGHTING, PHOSPHATES, AND FEEDING BEHAVIOR.
My first and typical question: Is the tank by chance at or near a window??

 

[Howellfencing]

How old is your tank? Did you start with dry/dead rock?

Sorry, I didn't receive any notifications anyone replied. The tank is about 7 month running. It's kind of near a window. However, there is no direct sunlight on it. Does ambient light affect it? I have a cardboard box blocking one angle where the sun has shifted since winter started.

 

[Howellfencing]

I’m guessing they didn’t check your phosphates, however if they did and non showed up the hair algae is likely sucking it up and it won’t show. Are you using RO/DI water and are you checking the TDS before using it? Did you change food brands or even amounts started feeding coral?

No, I feed very little. Too little I think, I lost a fish overcompensating the feed. I don't feed the coral really.

 

[Howellfencing]

Sorry, I didn't receive any notifications anyone replied. The tank is about 7 month running. It's kind of near a window. However, there is no direct sunlight on it. Does ambient light affect it? I have a cardboard box blocking one angle where the sun has shifted since winter started.

It IS by a window, but has only become an issue since the sun has shifted (I guess once it started getting colder). I placed a cardboard box by where the light is shining in, but it hasn't seemed to quell the issue.

 

[Howellfencing]

One more thing.
Pink spectrum on your light? Or is it red.

Regardless, turn that color off if you can. GHA loves the reds. Also, turn down the cool white for awhile.
The Combination of those two creates a weed farm

It's a pink spectrum. Will the coral grow without pink and white?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Scrub. Check your rodi. Buy more snails. Give the urchins time.

What foods are you feeding including dosings.

Post your nutrient parameters.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

It's a pink spectrum. Will the coral grow without pink and white?

It’s not the lights.

 

[vetteguy53081]

It IS by a window, but has only become an issue since the sun has shifted (I guess once it started getting colder). I placed a cardboard box by where the light is shining in, but it hasn't seemed to quell the issue.

Yes, sunlight - Direct and indirect will have an affect. Also, window location allows thermal changes, both cold and warm radiance to the tank.

 

[Dana Riddle]

A couple thoughts - Check your tap water for phosphate. Water systems are required by law to add chemicals (often sodium hexametaphosphate) if lead and/or copper exceed certain levels. Are you using a protein skimmer?

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...rk-skip-cycle-reassembly.525310/#post-5512377

 

[ZoWhat]

Three words that will solve your problem:

Start vodka dosing

Dont know how? Research this website, tons of articles

Vodka supercharges good bacteria that will overtake algae. i really dont understand why 100% of reefers are not vodka dosing

 

[Cory]

What kind of sea urchins? The best ones for hair algae are the long spine diadema ones. Tuxedo urchins are much slower ime at hair algae.