Killing off Hair algae

Treefer32 · May 9, 2019

I've got a variety of tufts of hair algae that look strong and healthy that I can't reach with my hands. A lot of the algae is dieing off the rocks. I had a phosphate and nitrate spike due to some fish deaths that I was unable to retrieve from the rocks. The corpses vanished into the rocks. You know what they say about dead fish?? Makes great lawn fertilizer! I have an algae scrubber that has been taking loads of phosphates and nitrates out of the water. A softball size every 3-4 days (it's finally slowing down on its growth). I think the worst is over. I'm doing a 2-3 day lights out period still feeding the 5 remaining fish, but leaving lights off.

I plan to do a 10% water change at the end of the lights out period this weekend. I've got around 20 corals, some SPS and some LPS. I'm sure the corals will be fine, but, my question is. Is 3 days enough to get healthy hair algae I can't reach to release, if my scrubber and skimmer are pulling out the excess nutrients generated from algae death or will I need to do a period of 5-7 days with lights on, then another 3 days of lights on. And keep on that rotation with water changes to eventually snuff out the patches of hair algae in the display?

I can't have much of a cleanup crew because my dragon wrasse and my yellow coris wrasse will flip them over and eat them.

I want to kill off the hair algae rather quickly because I'd like to get corals in place, but I'd like it to happen naturally as possible to know that things are stable. I have 400 gallons of water volume. So, there's also the possibility I just can't purify that much water fast enough. It could take the next year to cleans that much water?

brandon429 · May 9, 2019

how many total gallons is your system

Treefer32 · May 9, 2019

about 400 gallons total system volume (Sump an display).

ihavecrabs · May 9, 2019

How old is the system? If you have a picture, it would help too! You can tell a lot from the way the rock looks

Treefer32 · May 9, 2019

6 months old. The rock doesn't help because it was from a previous system that was placed in storage containers for 2 years and left out in an unheated garage and frozen at subzero temps and then warmed, and then frozen... I never bleached it or anything when I removed it from the old system. So, It's probably got some leaching to do also. I don't have recent pictures of the hair algae. But, I agree, pics would help.

jtl · May 9, 2019

Ime it takes a lot more than lights out to get rid of hair algae. At one time or another I have probably tried about everything including Vibrant (hate the stuff) and H2O2. In the end is was several months of watch nutrients and hand cleaning the corals weekly, sometimes even more frequently.

Treefer32 · May 9, 2019

Yup, that's what I'm afraid of. Some suggested Purigen or Chemipure. I'm afraid that would hurt the scrubber as well. I was hoping lights out with the scrubber growing algae it would outcompete the display growth. I have the scrubber LEDs on 24/ 7 at max capacity. I've gotten massive amounts of growth from it over the last 2 months. I'd hate to see my display if I didn't have that running 24 / 7.

jtl · May 9, 2019

Something that worked for me. If you can take out any of the corals, dip them in a 50/50 solution of H2O2 for just a couple of minutes. Kind of swoosh them around and then do a good rinse in tank water. You would be amazed at what comes off the rock. I just did this with a coral today that for what ever reason is giving me fits. It is the only one with hair algae in the entire tank and I have almost 100 corals. I once did a 10% dilution in the DT for a couple of weeks, adding a few cups every other day. It didn't help much and some of the corals were stressed. The solution doesn't stay in the water column very long so it is difficult to really know how much your are dosing. The good new is everything survived but I think it stunted growth and coloration for a while. My experience with Vibrant was not good, it works to a degree but it definitely set back my coloration for a long time.

Treefer32 · May 9, 2019

jtl said:
Something that worked for me. If you can take out any of the corals, dip them in a 50/50 solution of H2O2 for just a couple of minutes. Kind of swoosh them around and then do a good rinse in tank water. You would be amazed at what comes off the rock. I just did this with a coral today that for what ever reason is giving me fits. It is the only one with hair algae in the entire tank and I have almost 100 corals. I once did a 10% dilution in the DT for a couple of weeks, adding a few cups every other day. It didn't help much and some of the corals were stressed. The solution doesn't stay in the water column very long so it is difficult to really know how much your are dosing. The good new is everything survived but I think it stunted growth and coloration for a while. My experience with Vibrant was not good, it works to a degree but it definitely set back my coloration for a long time.

50 / 50 solution of H2O2 and salt water, tank water? or something else?

gabeb · May 9, 2019

Try increasing your hermit crab population. That eradicated all my hair algae.

chowwil · May 9, 2019

I have use reef flux for my hair algae problem along with tangs. eliminated 80% of the hair algae and the tangs took care of the other 20%.

ihavecrabs · May 9, 2019

I'm going to go against the grain here and just say that this is part of the stabilization process.. 6mo is still a very young tank and since you essentially started with dead rock it takes a lot longer. Once the system becomes more mature and as long as you have something in the tank that eats it, you'll rarely see it.

That and any manual removal you can do for now will help.

jtl · May 9, 2019

Treefer32 said:
50 / 50 solution of H2O2 and salt water, tank water? or something else?

50/50 with rodi and rinse with salt water.

Treefer32 · May 10, 2019

ihavecrabs said:
I'm going to go against the grain here and just say that this is part of the stabilization process.. 6mo is still a very young tank and since you essentially started with dead rock it takes a lot longer. Once the system becomes more mature and as long as you have something in the tank that eats it, you'll rarely see it.

That and any manual removal you can do for now will help.

The tang and rabbit fish, have specific hair algae tastes.. They won't touch the stuff on most of the rocks - except what's on one specific rock and my return and powerhead hit that rock, so they like to play in the streams trying to get the algae off the rock. They probably expend more energy eating the algae off the rock than they consume in calories...

It's fun to watch them try though.

I figured the fish deaths would help mature the rock in terms of bacteria and things like that more rapidly. But, you're probably right, it's another ugly algae phase.... I can't add much for corals until this dissipates... grr.

Several of the rocks are covered with dieing algae... Brown and gray stuff that's slowly falling off... Where's the dislike button for "ugly phases"