Advice on hair algae with undetectable nutrients

[Duffer]

I almost guarantee your nutrients are not zero, gha is consuming your nutrients which is giving you a false reading..

 

[fluked]

A couple thoughts:
- Increase your CUC
- I've had success with Vibrant on a mature tank
- If you are still in your 1st year with the tank, this may be part of your maturing process as the nuisance algae sort of get ahold prior to the nicer competitors (coralline etc...)

Thanks,
I'm in the process of increasing my cuc now, prior to this outbreak all I had was ~ 6 hermit crabs 5 turbos, 2 trochus and the stomatellas, i've added a fair bit, (10 hermits, 6turbos, 1 strombus), my tang went in a few weeks ago, and the blenny is in qt. Does that sound adequate for my size tank?
I'll look into vibrant, but i dont think its very available here in Aus, i could be wrong however,

Tank is 8 months old. I am getting decent coralline growth, but it hasn't covered all surfaces yet.

 

[vetteguy53081]

An excess of available nutrients, particular the majors like phosphates and nitrates. Keep an eye on possible iron and potassium sources which may also help fuel hair algae. Hair algae spores and fragments are so abundant that keeping it out of the tank via quarantine is unlikely to be successful. Your best bet to preventing this algae from taking hold is to maintain a weekly water change regimen, maintain your filtration and perform manual/natural algae removal as it forms. Proper magnesium and alkalinity levels are thought to discourage the growth of many species of GHA. You want to reduce not increase nutrients.
Green Hair Algae or "GHA" is really a broad term that covers hundreds of species of green simple filamentous algae. These species tend to be simple, fine in texture, and have few distinguishable features. True species level identification requires a microscope. Green hair algae can be pulled out easily, and tooth brushed or scrubbed off the rock work. This is easier to do if the rock is outside of the tank. If it is growing from the sand sift it out with a net.
Once this is done, do add some: Florida Blue Leg hermits, Cerith snails, Chitons, Turbo grazers, Conchs, Emerald Crabs, Pin cushion urchins and a few margarita snails. It is readily accepted by many herbivores, but because it grows quickly it may persist even in a tank with a fair amount of cleaners.

 

[fluked]

An excess of available nutrients, particular the majors like phosphates and nitrates. Keep an eye on possible iron and potassium sources which may also help fuel hair algae. Hair algae spores and fragments are so abundant that keeping it out of the tank via quarantine is unlikely to be successful. Your best bet to preventing this algae from taking hold is to maintain a weekly water change regimen, maintain your filtration and perform manual/natural algae removal as it forms. Proper magnesium and alkalinity levels are thought to discourage the growth of many species of GHA. You want to reduce not increase nutrients.
Green Hair Algae or "GHA" is really a broad term that covers hundreds of species of green simple filamentous algae. These species tend to be simple, fine in texture, and have few distinguishable features. True species level identification requires a microscope. Green hair algae can be pulled out easily, and tooth brushed or scrubbed off the rock work. This is easier to do if the rock is outside of the tank. If it is growing from the sand sift it out with a net.
Once this is done, do add some: Florida Blue Leg hermits, Cerith snails, Chitons, Turbo grazers, Conchs, Emerald Crabs, Pin cushion urchins and a few margarita snails. It is readily accepted by many herbivores, but because it grows quickly it may persist even in a tank with a fair amount of cleaners.

Hi,

I have been doing weekly waterchanges, from between 10-15% I stopped while fighting dinos as that was generally recommended.

My alk is currently at 9.3dkh, mag is generally ~1350-1375, cal is a little high now at 480, but im working on dropping that down to 420-450, im using the red sea 3 part to manage these.
There's no additional source of iron/potassium I could think of.
The algae is generally more of a brown algae than a green, but as far as identifying it, is there any benefit to knowing exactly what species of hair algae it is? I assumed that the treatment is generally the same.

I'm in aus, so no blue leg hermits, cerith snails, chitons, emerald crabs or margarita snails to be found here. but the rest I now have.
I'm not worried about getting every last strand, if it grows behind rocks, or the back of the tank i'm fine with that, i just really want it so its not growing over corals.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi,

I have been doing weekly waterchanges, from between 10-15% I stopped while fighting dinos as that was generally recommended.

My alk is currently at 9.3dkh, mag is generally ~1350-1375, cal is a little high now at 480, but im working on dropping that down to 420-450, im using the red sea 3 part to manage these.
There's no additional source of iron/potassium I could think of.
The algae is generally more of a brown algae than a green, but as far as identifying it, is there any benefit to knowing exactly what species of hair algae it is? I assumed that the treatment is generally the same.

I'm in aus, so no blue leg hermits, cerith snails, chitons, emerald crabs or margarita snails to be found here. but the rest I now have.
I'm not worried about getting every last strand, if it grows behind rocks, or the back of the tank i'm fine with that, i just really want it so its not growing over corals.

Best reduction would be reducing white light intensity and adding 1.5ml per 10 gal of liquid bacteria during day and 1ml of peroxide during night per 10 gals for about a week. It should starve out the Hair algae

 

[fluked]

I almost guarantee your nutrients are not zero, gha is consuming your nutrients which is giving you a false reading..

Yeah i agree, thats why in the title i was saying they are undectable, i know there is nitrate and phos present, its just used up rapidly by the algae.

 

[fluked]

Best reduction would be reducing white light intensity and adding 1.5ml per 10 gal of liquid bacteria during day and 1ml of peroxide during night per 10 gals for about a week. It should starve out the Hair algae

Im only running blue lights as in, have been since i was battling dinos. Which bacteria do you suggest? I was using refresh and waste away to battle dinos, either of those sound good?
Peroxide is a good tip, thanks

 

[vetteguy53081]

Im only running blue lights as in, have been since i was battling dinos. Which bacteria do you suggest? I was using refresh and waste away to battle dinos, either of those sound good?
Peroxide is a good tip, thanks

Bacter 7 is excellent

 

[fluked]

Bacter 7 is excellent

Ill check around, but i dont think ive seen it here in aus either sadly.

 

[Dan_P]

Hi guys,
I have had 0 nitrate/phos for a while now (salifert kits). It lead to a pretty messy Dino outbreak, I'm pretty sure I have now beaten the dinos through a combo of Refresh/waste away, siphoning through a filter sock, running only blue lights and HEAVY feeding. I have a 56G tank, and went from feeding 1 cube daily before dinos, to now feeding 3 times a day.
So I still have 0 nitrate/phos, and my dinos have been replaced by a pretty heavy brown hair algae outbreak. I understand that the reason I'm having 0 nitrate/phos is because the algae is up taking it before it can be measured.

My main question is, should I reduce feeding as the hair algae is consuming excess nutrients, or should I try and dose to increase my nitrate/phos into detectable levels. Ultimately I would like to have ~5ppm nitrate, 0.03 phos.

As far as anecdotal, most of my corals don't seem to mine, 2 of my hammers are splitting, riccordea is spitting out babies, acro is encrusting. Some zoas/leathers are getting annoyed as the algae is growing over them, which I try to remove each night, and a birdsnest is slowly dying as algae grows up it.

And for cuc, I have increased it recently to try and help, ~ 16/18 hermit crabs, 13 turbos, 2 trochus, a few nessys, stomatelas (unsure how much as they were a hitchhiker and seem to be breeding) and I now have a small tomini tang (tang police i know, ive already discussed with several lfs that will do a trade in when it is to big, if I haven't upgraded my tank)

Any help would be appreciated!

Are you certain that you are dealing with an algae? Can you send a photo of it under white light?

 

[fluked]

Are you certain that you are dealing with an algae? Can you send a photo of it under white light?

Its actually green lol, never seen it under only whites.
Its short as i spent ages pulling it out last night.
Hope this helps

 

[Dan_P]

Its actually green lol, never seen it under only whites.
Its short as i spent ages pulling it out last night.
Hope this helps

Thanks for the photos! Thought you might have had something weird growing.

 

[fluked]

Thanks for the photos! Thought you might have had something weird growing.

Mo worries man, you think its hair algae?

 

[Dan_P]

Mo worries man, you think its hair algae?

It certainly looks like hair algae and since you are ripping it off, not merely blowing it off with a turkey baster, I would say it’s GHA or at least a filamentous algae and not cyanobacteria.

 

[fluked]

It certainly looks like hair algae and since you are ripping it off, not merely blowing it off with a turkey baster, I would say it’s GHA or at least a filamentous algae and not cyanobacteria.

Okay sweet, i do get the occasional patch of cyano but that just blows away and hasnt really been an issue before

 

[fluked]

Follow up: Still struggling with this issue, upgraded to a hanna ULR phosphate, Salifert was reading 0.03, hanna said 0.09, so i've reduced that down, (sits around 0.05 now, want to slowly lower it to 0.03, but would rather do that slowly) ran vibrant for over 3 months now at the heavy dosage, it had no impact at all on the gha. The only real positive improvement in the outbreak is coralline slowly spreading on the rocks. Weirdly enough, the 2 different dry rock brands i have, have totally different coralline and gha growth, the caribsea life rocks (unfortunately most of my tank) has very slow coralline growth, and very persistent gha growth (it's impossible to remove in some places its so well attached), the other rock (not sure of brand) has much more coralline growth, and much less (+ easier to remove) gha growth.

Also added more cuc (strombus snail) gold cowries (possible mvps) more trochus and turbos.
My tomini tang is still doing his thing, tried adding a lawnmower blenny but it preferred eating deshys and trachys so he's gone and i'm off blennies now.

Anyways, going to try fluconazole (reef flux) as this is a losing battle so far.

TLDR: vibrant didnt work. Not buying caribsea life rock again. trying reef flux.

 

[fluked]

Follow up:
2 weeks later after dosing fluconazole (reef flux), GHA is all but completely gone, there's a couple of patches behind the rock work that I couldn't get to with a siphon, but I'm not concerned about that.
I dosed 3 capsules (600mg) of fluconazole, which was about half the recommended dose, did a 15%ish water change just under 2 weeks after (gha was gone by this point), will do another 15% this weekend.
But genuinely amazed by how quickly this worked, I was prepared to run a few courses to deal with this issue.
nitrate + phosphate increased as the died off, nitrate went from ~ 0.1 to 2.5ppm,( a positive) phosphate went from 0.06 to 0.1 (I siphoned a but and swapped filter socks a few time to reduce nutrient rise).

TLDR: Fluc is amazing, couldn't be more impressed. nutrients rise but that's expected.

 

[Nikoliter]

Follow up:
2 weeks later after dosing fluconazole (reef flux), GHA is all but completely gone, there's a couple of patches behind the rock work that I couldn't get to with a siphon, but I'm not concerned about that.
I dosed 3 capsules (600mg) of fluconazole, which was about half the recommended dose, did a 15%ish water change just under 2 weeks after (gha was gone by this point), will do another 15% this weekend.
But genuinely amazed by how quickly this worked, I was prepared to run a few courses to deal with this issue.
nitrate + phosphate increased as the died off, nitrate went from ~ 0.1 to 2.5ppm,( a positive) phosphate went from 0.06 to 0.1 (I siphoned a but and swapped filter socks a few time to reduce nutrient rise).

TLDR: Fluc is amazing, couldn't be more impressed. nutrients rise but that's expected.

I have been reading your story and it is nearly identical to mine. I’ve been having a same
Issue for 8 months now, maybe longer. I have Hanna testers. Always zero. I have a biopellet reactor and solid skimmer. I think my issue is I overdid my tank with live rock and didn’t get a big enough clean up crew. Im still trying to add my to my crew and I started dosing to get my nitrates and phosphates up because my coral was struggling. I just dosed reef flux 2 weeks ago. I saw some pull back but I feel like it is coming back. Im going to try reef flux again next week. The other thing is that my tank was getting some sunlight in the morning which im trying to limit and I think that is helping now

 

[Nikoliter]

I have been reading your story and it is nearly identical to mine. I’ve been having a same
Issue for 8 months now, maybe longer. I have Hanna testers. Always zero. I have a biopellet reactor and solid skimmer. I think my issue is I overdid my tank with live rock and didn’t get a big enough clean up crew. Im still trying to add my to my crew and I started dosing to get my nitrates and phosphates up because my coral was struggling. I just dosed reef flux 2 weeks ago. I saw some pull back but I feel like it is coming back. Im going to try reef flux again next week. The other thing is that my tank was getting some sunlight in the morning which im trying to limit and I think that is helping now

I put 6 capsules in my 60 gallon tank, which I am
Going to redose next week, which is end of week 3.

 

[Spieg]

As already stated... Reduce feeding, pull algae by hand, increase your CUC (a long spine sea urchin will eat a lot of algae off your rocks).