Help with hair algae

[Cmack59]

Yea you dont have many fish. Get a foxface and a yellow tang or some other grazing tang. Get like 3 or so sea urchins 10+ turbos.. Sea urchins the pink pin cushions you find in petco for like 10$ will eat the algae to the rock.. youll see white trails on your rocks lol. Snails again will eat it too but you gatta get it all down in size. Hense tooth brushing the rocks until they can control it. Foxface.tang will take awhile to acclimate before they start eating the algae.. but my foxface when i had long hair algae ate it like spagettie.

Now i cant get algae to grow fast enough so i have to give my urchins seaweed by grabbing em and putting them on a sheet..

I wish we couldn’t grow algae - we will look into additional fish

 

[Cmack59]

I agree with the CUC idea, but most of them won't eat GHA once it gets too long. So pull out what you can by hand. I like to start a small hose siphoning, then pinch the GHA between the end of the hose and my finger to pull it off. Let go and SWOOSH, out it goes.

Then the CUC will attack whatever remains attached to the rock. For the algae it tight spots that you can't reach, turn off all circulation and hit it with a shot of boiling RODI water from a turkey baster. Just be careful not to get too close to anything you don't want to kill, two inches or so is perfectly safe. When the GHA turns bright green, you'll know you got it. And my CUC go crazy over cooked GHA. Even my clown pick at it.

Boiling water works on aiptasia too. When I've used it, they are gone instantly and I've never had any return.

All this said, your tank doesn't really look too bad to me. Keep in mind that algae is a natural component of reefs in nature. I don't obsess over it until it starts to encroach on corals and affect their growth.

DH brought home 10 feet of latex tubing with a nice diameter - it is awesome took 3 hours and got rid off 75% of the long clumping algae and some of it came away in mats - was even able to clean up most of the corals too - thanks so much for the idea

 

[Cmack59]

Your dosing level is in line with the manufacturer recommend amount. I would keep dosing at this level but manage food input more strictly and see what happens with your nutrients. If they still aren't shifting downwards after a week or two, you could bump up the dose by 50%. Do you have a low range PO4 test kit? In many cases managing PO4 levels can have better results than focusing on NO3.

I have taken over feeding the tanks so they will be getting about half of what DH was feeding and have cut back on coral supplements from 3x per week to just once - thank you

 

[Cmack59]

I would hazard against removing your rock. I am very much an "ecosystem services" minded guy and that rock is doing you a whole lot more than just growing algae. Swap it out and you'll probably have dino's take the place of the algae, then have the algae come back after you best the dinos.

I would tackle this by significantly ramping up your CUC, for a 90 check into this. WAY cheaper than going through your LFS. Let them go to town for ~3 weeks then reassess. An urchin may be the next move after, maybe conchs, perhaps an algae blenny, it all depends.

After reading everybody’s very helpful advice - we are going to order the CUC as you recommended - I have cleaned 75

 

[Cmack59]

Thank you for the info on the CUC will be ordering next week - our rock is supposed to be in tomorrow thru Monday and I don’t want to worry about squashing someone - we are going to take your advice and leave the base of our reef intact and fill in/build over and around it - I also took Reeffragger’s advice and my DH got a piece of latex tubing w/a nice opening and spent 3 hours yesterday cleaning about 75% of the algae off the rocks - you guys have been awesome

 

[kyleinpdx]

Thank you for the info on the CUC will be ordering next week - our rock is supposed to be in tomorrow thru Monday and I don’t want to worry about squashing someone - we are going to take your advice and leave the base of our reef intact and fill in/build over and around it - I also took Reeffragger’s advice and my DH got a piece of latex tubing w/a nice opening and spent 3 hours yesterday cleaning about 75% of the algae off the rocks - you guys have been awesome

Love it. I honestly do think its the best move in the long run. Our reefs are such complex systems that changing just one input can have wide ranging effects on the whole system. It'll take a little while (measured in weeks more than likely) to get this road block behind you, but you'll get there. Its all part of the "fun" right? Good luck!

 

[Cmack59]

Love it. I honestly do think its the best move in the long run. Our reefs are such complex systems that changing just one input can have wide ranging effects on the whole system. It'll take a little while (measured in weeks more than likely) to get this road block behind you, but you'll get there. Its all part of the "fun" right? Good luck!

Thanks again - is there a spot in the forum that tells you how to detach corals if we have to? Some are on frags but some seemed to have morphed onto the rock - please see pics below - thanks again

 

[Cmack59]

Besides I have no idea what they are an

Thanks again - is there a spot in the forum that tells you how to detach corals if we have to? Some are on frags but some seemed to have morphed onto the rock - please see pics below - thanks again

And sorry I have no idea what any of them are anymore - lost the paper we had it on

 

[kyleinpdx]

You can check the aquascaping forum, but theres no magic bullet that I know of. I'm dealing with a similar thing, upgraded systems, now I have rocks with tons of corals that need to somehow fit into the new rockwork to get the right light, flow, etc. Its always a struggle. There are options, and I'm sure some of the old timers will have more advice but, I have done:

• built up the rock by placing the new rock underneath
• chiseled off hard corals, cut off softies
• busted up the encrusted rock to better fit the new rockwork if I cant/dont want to remove the corals

I'd try to make it all fit as is, but if you cant do that the green star polyp and those green palys will probably come off with a razor blade/credit card/spudger/small screw driver, something to get under them and pry em off. The plating montipora will break off no problem (and probably into pieces) but that blue sps (I cant tell what it is) will be difficult.

 

[Tastee]

I had a year long battle with GHA in my first tank. It first got a strong foothold due to over-feeding but even after I got that and overall nutrient levels under control it still kept going strong. Once you have a decent population it’s somewhat self sustaining - it binds up a lot of nutrients particularly NO3. I actually caused myself more problems by dropping NO3 and PO4 too low, hurt my corals but not the GHA.

For me a combination of 3 things got me over it. 1. Dosing Fluconazole. 2. Adding some Money Cowries. 3. Stopping NoPoX dosing and allowing nutrients to rise. The first helped break the back of the GHA colony. The second were far more effective harvesters of the GHA than anything else I had in my CUC. The third is non-intuitive but what it did was allow other animals, particularly the corals, to thrive and out-compete the GHA for nutrients.

I am now dosing a small amount of NoPoX again to maintain nutrient levels where I am happy with them, but carefully. The GHA is always there, it’s just getting the tank into a happy balance so it doesn’t find an ecological niche to exploit and thrive in. My YT and LMB are continually pecking at any little strand they can find - they obviously like the tasty new growth but not so much when it grows and gets bigger.

 

[Cmack59]

DH brought home 10 feet of latex tubing with a nice diameter - it is awesome took 3 hours and got rid off 75% of the long clumping algae and some of it came away in mats - was even able to clean up most of the corals too - thanks so much for the idea

Cross your fingers for us tomorrow is the reef rebuild will post pictures when done!

 

[joe2]

I would caution against using fish against hair algae as its hit or miss no matter what tang or fox face you get...then if they don't eat it they are now adding to your bio load. The most reliable hair algae eaters I've found are emerald crabs...but even these are hit and miss so you have to get a fair number of them as they have their own preferred foods and not all like hair algae. Failing this, Vibrant has sometimes helped in a fair number of cases...it definitely slows algae growth and I've used it.

 

[Cmack59]

Thank you for your advice - today we are doing a rebuild on our reef - most (not all) of the rock with algae will be removed today and replaced - we also ordered the CUC recommended by kyleinpdx - they will be arriving next week - wish us luck!!!!!