Help! Green Hair Algae bloom!

[Schgred]

I’ve scoured the internet trying to best figure out what’s going on with my tank.

I’ve had a Green Hair Algae bloom going on for a while. The tank is 9 months old. The coral is doing well, except the color on some of the acro frags is a bit pale.

Here were my parameters 2 weeks ago:
Calcium - 450
Alkalinity - 8.5
Magnesium - 1350
Nitrates - Zero (salifert)
Phosphates - 0.14 (Hanna)

I thought the higher phosphates could be the issue, so I started using RowaPhos. After using RowaPhos, the phosphates are down to 0.03 but the nitrates are still 0!

The GHA Is very bad. It is not briopsis, just GHA. I have talked to a handful of people, and tried these things:

- vibrant - didn’t touch
- turn the skimmer off to try to raise nitrates. After 3 days of that, nitrates stat zero. I was told about the Redfield ratio, so i figures I’d try to raise the nitrates to see if that would help
- turned off the refugium to also raise the nitrates.
- added an order from reef cleaners
- added a yellow tang to help eat the GHA

None of this has helped.

I could change my RODI filters, but the TDS meter is reading 0.

I could do a 3 day blackout, but that won’t solve the core issue will it?

im at a loss... help!

 

[Copingwithpods]

Tang won't help because the little he eats will just turn into more nutrients feeding more algae, surprised vibrant didn't work, how long did you treat the tank?

Best think to do (depending on how bad your outbreak is) is manual removal, increasing nutrients with manual removal so you aren't just feeding more algae.

 

[Schgred]

Tang won't help because the little he eats will just turn into more nutrients feeding more algae, surprised vibrant didn't work, how long did you treat the tank?

Best think to do (depending on how bad your outbreak is) is manual removal, increasing nutrients with manual removal so you aren't just feeding more algae.

I actually reached out to vibrant to get their opinion. They said start slow every other week. That did nothing, so they said every week. That did nothing, so they said twice a week. I’ve been doing it twice a week for 6 weeks and the hair algae keeps growing and I now have cyano...

And as for manual removal, I have been... but I cant remove enough fast enough. it just keeps growing.

 

[Murica]

I had a GHA outbreak which was incredibly difficult to get under control.. until i put in an oversized GHA algae reactor. I suggest using one, IME, it was very effective.

if you do go this route, I’d go DIY. The ones on the market are extremely over priced in my opinion

 

[Simply__J]

Following along in solidarity.

 

[tuesdayd]

I had a gha outbreak, and I tried Vibrant for a couple of months (along with manual removal) to no avail.

It was the addition of Fluconazole that eliminated it in a week.

Good luck.

 

[Schgred]

I had a gha outbreak, and I tried Vibrant for a couple of months (along with manual removal) to no avail.

It was the addition of Fluconazole that eliminated it in a week.

Good luck.

I have heard about fluconazole... I might need to try that.

As I think about this, I have two big questions:

1. How do I kill it all? Fluconazole, or blackout, or lawnmower blenny (though I understand the idea that a fish doesn't remove it from the system).

2. What is causing it? If I kill it with fluconazole, that just treats the symptom not the cause. Or can I not figure out the cause until it is dead?

Am I correct in understanding that given what my system is right now, I would have nitrates in the water if there was no algae, but that the algae is just binding up the nitrates causing it to be undetectable?

If I were to treat the issue of imbalance in the system by dosing nitrates to try to get the nitrates and phosphates in balance, would that just feed the algae that is already present or would that stop the algae outbreak?

 

[RedSea500MaxS]

Fighting algae for first time ever myself???

I am purchasing a Santa Monica Surf4 algae scrubber.

Did 25% water change yesterday...helped. Scrubbing and sucking this week....little at a time.

 

[Hausser]

I had a bad GHA on my tank and pretty much gone in 3 weeks. Here is what I did. One my red sea 650 peninsula.

I purchased 100 snails online.
Purchased a sea hair.
Purchased naso tank.
Purchased a lawn mower blenny.
added carbon in a bag to filter cup in sump where filter socks go.
Added GFO to bag and put in filter cup in sump where filter socks go.
Add a pond filter material to cover the area above socks.

I would wait for GHA to get long and then manually remove every few days as much as possible, I would also blow rocks off with Turkey Baster. My lawn mower blenny is so fat from eating hair algae I am surprised it can even swim.

 

[RedSea500MaxS]

Here is some info from a tank algae expert on using an algae scrubber and other devises on algae removal......This might help:

The order that nuisance algae are removed from your system is usually like
this:

The weaker photosynthesizing algae, which are any of the brown dusty types
like diatoms or dino's, go first because they don't pull nutrients out of
the water very well because they can't anchor strongly, and thus they can't
make use of strong water current (much less, turbulent air/water interfaces)
which remove the boundary layer barrier of water around the algae.

Next comes GHA, which has more of a translucent "antenna" to catch flow and
light; it can extract nutrients from the water longer, and anchor in high
flow and turbulent air/water interfaces better, and thus survive by
extracting nutrients even when nutrients are barely available (unless of
coarse, the GHA is being eaten by fish!) And since a lot of GHA attaches to
rock, as long as phosphate is flowing out of the rock, there will be GHA on
it.

Next come the tough ones that have stronger strategies to get nutrients:

Bubble, which concentrates very low levels of nutrients that are outside the
bubble, into to high levels of nutrients inside the bubble. Even if
nutrients go to "zero" outside the bubble, the bubble has some nutrients
stored inside it, and will take an abnormally long time to deplete them. But
the bubble will eventually go, if nutrients are kept low enough in the
water.

Bryopsis, which uses "roots" to extract nutrients deep in rock. Even when
nutrients in water are "zero", bryopsis can survive from nutrients in the
rock. So only after depleting the nutrients in the water for a long time, do
you deplete enough nutrients to kill bryopsis. But bryopsis too will go
eventually, if nutrients are kept low in the water. If there is phosphate
coming out of the rock, the situation can be really confusing because both
the bryopsis and GHA can appear to be increasing, even though you have been
testing "zero" nutrients for weeks!

And lastly, there is cyano which does not care about any of this; cyano can
"feed" on food paricles, so your clean up crew should be increased to
consume and stir up all the food particles on the substrate; water flow
along the substrate can be increased too, to help with this. This will also
stir up the food particles for the corals to eat!

 

[Schgred]

I had a bad GHA on my tank and pretty much gone in 3 weeks. Here is what I did. One my red sea 650 peninsula.

I purchased 100 snails online.
Purchased a sea hair.
Purchased naso tank.
Purchased a lawn mower blenny.
added carbon in a bag to filter cup in sump where filter socks go.
Added GFO to bag and put in filter cup in sump where filter socks go.
Add a pond filter material to cover the area above socks.

I would wait for GHA to get long and then manually remove every few days as much as possible, I would also blow rocks off with Turkey Baster. My lawn mower blenny is so fat from eating hair algae I am surprised it can even swim.

Wow... When you had the GHA did you test phosphates and nitrates? What were they when you had the algae and what are they now that the algae is gone?

 

[Schgred]

Here is some info from a tank algae expert on using an algae scrubber and other devises on algae removal......This might help:

The order that nuisance algae are removed from your system is usually like
this:

The weaker photosynthesizing algae, which are any of the brown dusty types
like diatoms or dino's, go first because they don't pull nutrients out of
the water very well because they can't anchor strongly, and thus they can't
make use of strong water current (much less, turbulent air/water interfaces)
which remove the boundary layer barrier of water around the algae.

Next comes GHA, which has more of a translucent "antenna" to catch flow and
light; it can extract nutrients from the water longer, and anchor in high
flow and turbulent air/water interfaces better, and thus survive by
extracting nutrients even when nutrients are barely available (unless of
coarse, the GHA is being eaten by fish!) And since a lot of GHA attaches to
rock, as long as phosphate is flowing out of the rock, there will be GHA on
it.

Next come the tough ones that have stronger strategies to get nutrients:

Bubble, which concentrates very low levels of nutrients that are outside the
bubble, into to high levels of nutrients inside the bubble. Even if
nutrients go to "zero" outside the bubble, the bubble has some nutrients
stored inside it, and will take an abnormally long time to deplete them. But
the bubble will eventually go, if nutrients are kept low enough in the
water.

Bryopsis, which uses "roots" to extract nutrients deep in rock. Even when
nutrients in water are "zero", bryopsis can survive from nutrients in the
rock. So only after depleting the nutrients in the water for a long time, do
you deplete enough nutrients to kill bryopsis. But bryopsis too will go
eventually, if nutrients are kept low in the water. If there is phosphate
coming out of the rock, the situation can be really confusing because both
the bryopsis and GHA can appear to be increasing, even though you have been
testing "zero" nutrients for weeks!

And lastly, there is cyano which does not care about any of this; cyano can
"feed" on food paricles, so your clean up crew should be increased to
consume and stir up all the food particles on the substrate; water flow
along the substrate can be increased too, to help with this. This will also
stir up the food particles for the corals to eat!

That is helpful. Thank you!

 

[Hausser]

Wow... When you had the GHA did you test phosphates and nitrates? What were they when you had the algae and what are they now that the algae is gone?

My phosphate showed zero. My nitrates show zero. I know for a fact that I had algae as I had GHA. I did not do a black out or anything like that. Every tank is different and it has worked for me. Yes I lost some snails but a bunch has survived, I have also pulled my carbon and GFO and waited 4 days to see if algae started growing again and it has not. I also dosed some nitrate today to see if it causes any issues like hair algae as I have some corals looking faded. My algae is not totally gone, it is brown and mostly gone.
I added a picture of 3 or 4 weeks ago.

 

[Schgred]

So often people post these kinds of posts without ever giving any follow up. I am pretty confident now that what we have been dealing with is not Green Hair Algae but Bryopsis.

9 days ago we added fluconazole that I got from the local vet to the tank (200mg per 10 gallons of tank water). This is actually killing the algae that I am now assuming is bryopsis. Since nothing was eating it, and keeping nutrients in check were not keeping the algae in check and now fluconazole is killing it, I am assuming we didn't know the enemy we were fighting! I'm going to wait a full 3 weeks before we do a water change. Our nitrates are now reading 3ppm and the phosphates are .03 so all the parameters are good and the stuff is dying.

Lesson I learned from this is that if you have a bad GHA outbreak, it may actually be bryopsis and not just GHA. That's probably why Vibrant didn't touch it either.