Help with green hair algae?

[charliedarling]

With such a small aquarium, you need to do a complete cleanup : RIP clean. Less than 2 hours work. Live rock with coral can be treated in a 10% solution of 3% h202 for 10 minutes, outside of tank. Remove all sand and flush with fresh water.

As a final thought, consider an Oxygenator system which uses hydrogen peroxide to manage system nuisance algae.

Will this kill/affect my decorative Macroalgae? I have 10+ species.

I did a complete clean of the tank (scrubbed all the rock and siphoned all the sand) within the last month. It all grew back. Last week I did hours of scrubbing and maintenance again. I don’t want to have to continually do hours and hours of scrubbing every week - if that’s the solution I suppose I can keep doing so but there must be some other solution?

 

[Subsea]

If all of that grew back in 30 days, you have a serious invasion, Remove all of the sandbed into a 5G bucket and flush sand clean with fresh water. I would sanitize tank with a h202 rinse.

H202 is lethal to macroalgae. European reefers use a passive hydrogen peroxide system called Oxygenator. It may have an application here.8

 

[charliedarling]

If all of that grew back in 30 days, you have a serious invasion, Remove all of the sandbed into a 5G bucket and flush sand clean with fresh water. I would sanitize tank with a h202 rinse.

H202 is lethal to macroalgae. European reefers use a passive hydrogen peroxide system called Oxygenator. It may have an application here.8

Thanks.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m trying *not* to kill the decorative Macroalgae, only the pest Macroalgae. While this seems like a great method for coral only tanks, seems like it would decimate all my decorative species I’m trying to grow.

 

[Reefjnky]

I have a nano Macroalgae tank with a growing hair algae problem. Any tips?

Lawnmower blenny.its amazing what they can do.. it will starve when the GHA is gone so have a plan for it later

 

[charliedarling]

Lawnmower blenny.its amazing what they can do.. it will starve when the GHA is gone so have a plan for it later

Thanks!!! I’ll look into it.

 

[Wayofthereef]

Thanks -

Nitrates are 2.5ppm
Phosphate is .04ppm

I dose 1ml (about 2.5ppm worth) of neo nitro daily. Otherwise my macros go pale and start dying. Nitrates will bottom out in a few days if I don’t dose. I have 6 or 7 small corals in there and tried turning my lights down and the macros hated it, two days and a lot of them melted.

I dont know how old or established the tank is but there are a few methods I took and thats dosing B-ionic nitrate to fet it up to at least 15ppm and brightwell neophos to get the phosphate up closer to .1ppm... and hold.. it will get annoying but do this while testing daily for 2 or 3 weeks may knock it down. I slowly rose everything in my system currently and even the algea that grew on the glass slowed to a crawl.

My levels
DKH 10 - 11
CAL 400-450
MAG 1400 - 1450
PH 8.1 TO 8.4
PHOSPHATE .2 TO .3 PPM
NITRATE 20 - 30 PPM

 

[charliedarling]

I dont know how old or established the tank is but there are a few methods I took and thats dosing B-ionic nitrate to fet it up to at least 15ppm and brightwell neophos to get the phosphate up closer to .1ppm... and hold.. it will get annoying but do this while testing daily for 2 or 3 weeks may knock it down. I slowly rose everything in my system currently and even the algea that grew on the glass slowed to a crawl.

My levels
DKH 10 - 11
CAL 400-450
MAG 1400 - 1450
PH 8.1 TO 8.4
PHOSPHATE .2 TO .3 PPM
NITRATE 20 - 30 PPM

Thanks, I may try this. I dose brightwell’s neonitro daily (I may increase dose, tank consumption is about 2.5ppm daily), so I dose about that concentration daily to keep it stable. I can increase to get those levels up. I’m worried it will make the nuisance algae even worse tho.

As far as phosphate goes it has been stable for ~2 months at 0.04, I dose neophos weekly. I’ve had mixed advice on phosphate levels, some say run GFO to get it as low as possible, some say increase it. At this point I’m gonna try to bottom it out and if that doesn’t work maybe increase?

At this point just grasping for straws..

 

[Wayofthereef]

Thanks, I may try this. I dose brightwell’s neonitro daily (I may increase dose, tank consumption is about 2.5ppm daily), so I dose about that concentration daily to keep it stable. I can increase to get those levels up. I’m worried it will make the nuisance algae even worse tho.

As far as phosphate goes it has been stable for ~2 months at 0.04, I dose neophos weekly. I’ve had mixed advice on phosphate levels, some say run GFO to get it as low as possible, some say increase it. At this point I’m gonna try to bottom it out and if that doesn’t work maybe increase?

At this point just grasping for straws..

If you have corals you will basically starve them out lowering it to zero.. I cant remember for the life of me what I dosed when I had that problem. But it all turned white and died off. But there's like zero algea in my system with my levels but I will say its a very thin line that requires constant monitoring.

 

[charliedarling]

If you have corals you will basically starve them out lowering it to zero.. I cant remember for the life of me what I dosed when I had that problem. But it all turned white and died off. But there's like zero algea in my system with my levels but I will say its a very thin line that requires constant monitoring.

Very nice… thanks for your advice! I will try