Help!!@!
- Thread starter Lizzz
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Pluck as much hair algae off as much as possible , cover tank completely for three days of darkness. Once completed reduce feeding to once a day and lighting down to 4-5 a day until parameters have stabilized.
EHerbert
Active Member
As you can see by my tank, I like a lot of rock and I tend to crowd my coral. But I have seen systems with minimal rock that I envied. I kinda feel like more rock equals more filtration also. Plus, although they are not visible in the pic, I keep all sorts of crustaceans, as well. The downside is that there may be weeks that go by between sitings and if something dies I can't get to it because of the rockwork. I think the "rule" is 1 pound rock per gallon but find what's comfortable for you as every system is different. Good luck and happy reef.
You're not alone there. [emoji6]
I just talked with my tank maintenance guy yesterday, I've been having a problem with the same algae. He said that I should I have 2 dozen hemit crabs in my 40 gallon tank. They will eat a lot of this type of algae.
prsnlty
Jackie
1) Lights out doesn't kill HA, she only runs them at 4 hours anyway.
2)H202 treatments work best after removing the bulk of the HA off the rock. I have been doing this for nearly 25 years and this is the fastest way to remove it. Maybe not the easiest... however she needs snails too. She has none.
3) she needs to get her salinity right with RODI water, not saltwater. It is waaaay too high. Then go from there.
2)H202 treatments work best after removing the bulk of the HA off the rock. I have been doing this for nearly 25 years and this is the fastest way to remove it. Maybe not the easiest... however she needs snails too. She has none.
3) she needs to get her salinity right with RODI water, not saltwater. It is waaaay too high. Then go from there.
What your doing different is you dont have any coral to use phosphate , thus the algae grows instead.
And your not using any phosphate remover, like rowaphos, phosgaurd or phosban. Those things will remove the algae food.
And your not using any phosphate remover, like rowaphos, phosgaurd or phosban. Those things will remove the algae food.
+1...
Go with the advice @prsnlty is giving you... it's good!! Get rid of the GHA and get your params sorted, this will stop it growing back. A few snails will help to keep any algae at bay once you're on top of nitrate and phosphates.
By way of encouragement, I had huge algae issues in my 320g, along with cyano too... this is what it looked like, before and after... the difference in time is about 2 months.
You can get this beat, then you'll have a great base to start adding corals to.
Out of interest what lighting are you using? The wrong light spectrum can also contribute to GHA and corals not doing well...
prsnlty
Jackie
Thanks+1...
Go with the advice @prsnlty is giving you... it's good!! Get rid of the GHA and get your params sorted, this will stop it growing back. A few snails will help to keep any algae at bay once you're on top of nitrate and phosphates.
By way of encouragement, I had huge algae issues in my 320g, along with cyano too... this is what it looked like, before and after... the difference in time is about 2 months.
You can get this beat, then you'll have a great base to start adding corals to.
Out of interest what lighting are you using? The wrong light spectrum can also contribute to GHA and corals not doing well...
Nice looking tank! I learned the hard way about not using tap water long long ago with 150 gallon tank. Taught me a big lesson LOL mine was a forest of green. It was one of those nightmarish looking tanks that you see people putting up for sale because they can't deal with it anymore haha. But I found out about h202 and yanked those rocks scrubbed them and soaked them in five gallon buckets overnight in h202. Got a real good snail clean up crew and the rest is history. Hair algae comes into our systems for many reasons mine just happen to be by use of tap water .
Yup, my algae came from real high nitrate and phosphates (400ppm and 4ppm! and was carbon dosing and feeding the cyano!) I got the nutrients under control and them used h2o2 to deal with the algae and cyano... hasn't come back and that was about 4 or 5 months ago now.Thanks
Nice looking tank! I learned the hard way about not using tap water long long ago with 150 gallon tank. Taught me a big lesson LOL mine was a forest of green. It was one of those nightmarish looking tanks that you see people putting up for sale because they can't deal with it anymore haha. But I found out about h202 and yanked those rocks scrubbed them and soaked them in five gallon buckets overnight in h202. Got a real good snail clean up crew and the rest is history. Hair algae comes into our systems for many reasons mine just happen to be by use of tap water .
prsnlty
Jackie
Did you also soak them in a 5 gallon bucket with about three-and-a-half to four gallons of Rodi water and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide? You really need to do this if you haven't. You need snails also to eat the roots off the rocks so it doesn't come back. You also need to test your salinity and remove salt water and replace it with Rodi water until you get the salinity down to the proper level. Then you can do a water change with salt water and not before.
For a 14 gallon tank I would get one Mexican Turbo and 5 trochus snails and maybe a half a dozen astraea snails. No more Hermits. They become murderers of snails. I removed all the Hermits from my tanks except for the Scarlet legs. They're the only ones that are truly herbivores. Blue legs and any other color legs (besides red or Scarlet) are murderers because they're omnivores.
