Battling Hair Algae for Over a Year- At a Loss!

[Mr.Hawkfish]

My 140G tank is nearly two years old now, and in some ways it is coming along great! I have good SPS and LPS coloration and growth, healthy livestock, and excellent parameter stability.

Unfortunately, there is one problem- LOTS Hair algae.

When I started the system (with CaribSea 'dead' rock), nutrients stayed at zero for the first several months- so low that corals struggled to grow, and the inevitable happened- dinoflagellates amphidinium. Dosing silicates solved that pretty easily, and to prevent it from happening again, I started dosing NO3 and PO4 and bought a ReefBot to monitor levels closely. Dosing a LOT of both NO3 and PO4, I got my nutrients up to detectable levels and all seemed good, for a few weeks. (This was almost exactly a year ago). Nutrients have NEVER exceeded 5ppm NO3 or 0.5ppm PO4

But then, the algae arrived- lots of it (click for higher res):

These photos were taken today, but pretty much represent how the tank has looked for the past year. I have tried the following since then:

• At first, I tried increasing my clean-up crew. I already had a One-spot foxface and Purple Tang, who don't seem very interested in eating algae off the rocks. I added 6 urchins who do a great job, but don't seem to keep up and cant get to all areas of the rock. 100+ astrea snails added over the last year (in batches of 20), who seem to slowly die and rarely spend time on the rocks. 300+ hermit crabs (added in batches of 50), which seem to slowly become food for my melanurus wrasse (although some crabs seem to be long lived- I recognize some I added many months ago). 250 cerith snails, which seem to be doing well but prefer the glass.
• I also tried a heavy dose of vibrant (their 'hair algae recipe'), which had no effect after several bottles and several months.
• Near the end of my vibrant dosing, I resorted to fluconazole, which immediately killed the byropsis and slowly killed off the hair algae. But once the treatment was over, the hair algae came right back. My corals were NOT happy with the combination of Fluconazole and Vibrant, with my SPS losing color and my Torch collection getting decimated- I lost over $1000 in euphyllia. This was a real low point, but fortunately I was able to save a few heads, which recovered after I added carbon, restarted UV, and did some large water changes.
• About a month later I tried the 'Dr Tims Hair Algae Recipe'. My tank tolerated it well and there was a minor reduction in algae, but it seemed to come right back after I stopped dosing after two months.
• For most of the spring and summer, I tried a 'let it be' approach... hoping that time would solve the problem. I stopped dosing nutrients- weirdly, my test results didn't change much.
• Later in the summer up to now, I tired regular manual removals and another addition of clean up crew. The algae just keeps growing back, even as a I remove at least a cereal bowl full every two weeks (in addition to what I remove from the fuge!)

I am now really at a loss. I am back to square one- with a combination of hair algae, bryopsis, dinos starting to grow again. Nutrients today are 0.1ppm PO4, 1ppm NO3... and yet the algae keeps growing. My corals don't seem to mind, but are getting absolutely covered.

Here is my latest Triron ICP Result: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/88756
And here is my latest Triton N-DOC result: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/n-doc/7049

Where do I go from here?

I would kill for hair algae right now! I’m battling bubble algae, it suuuucks

Goodluck man!

 

[mikedb]

I am a proud owner of 15 Mexican turbos since April. In that time, I had to right only two snails. I believe that snails fall and cannot right themselves frequently when they are weak from a starvation diet.

I came to that idea after seeing how much Mexican turbos can eat. My 15 new roughly 1 inch diameter snails completely stripped a 75 gal completely clean of all algae in 1 week. Then I realized that I had 15 eating machines to feed. So I started feeding them sheets of dry algae. I built feeder stations to minimize algae waste getting all over the aquarium. My 15 snails are now nearly two inches in diameter and eat one 8x8 inch sheet of algae per day.

Thanks for this message. I agree with you completely... I hadn't seen a single snail having an issue righting itself until just after your message, when the hair algae in my tank had been covered by cyano for several days.

I suspect the snails cannot eat algae in that state. I started noticing more empty shells around the tank, and over the weekend I noticed a few snails upside down (but still alive). I tried created a 'feeding station' consisting of nori tied to a rock, but the fish were much too fast for that.

Instead, I removed every snail I could find and put them in my frag tank. Even the close-to-death snails seemed to almost instantly recover, and the four I could find have almost finished a sheet of nori.

Thank you!

 

[loli2010]

Hello! Whats the situation? I have simillar problems and thinking about algae scrubber.

 

[mikedb]

Hello! Whats the situation? I have simillar problems and thinking about algae scrubber.

Thanks for following up! Things are vastly improved, but not quite perfect. There are specific areas of the tank (primarily low-flow areas) that have persistent algae that none of my clean up crew or fish seem to touch. However, the vast majority of the rockwork is completely algae free, and the corals aren't struggling to fight off algae like they were previously (alk consumption is back to normal too). My overflow is no longer getting clogged with free-floating bits of algae.

I think the algae scrubber deserves at least some credit, although I made so many changes that I can't be sure. It grows a lot of algae, so it certainly can't be hurting.

And unfortunately, I did spot a few branches of Bryopsis on one of my frag plugs, so it looks like I will have to add fluconazole again... I'll probably wait a few weeks until it becomes a problem.

Here are photos of the two remaining worst parts, taken about an hour ago:

 

[loli2010]

It looks so much better now, thanks for the info!

 

[codycolina707]

A sea hare would destroy it but if it dies or gets stressed could be problems

Meh I've had 2 die in my tank fighting gha neither did much when they died but brightwell razor did work my rocks are ultra clean from that stuff

 

[loli2010]

Meh I've had 2 die in my tank fighting gha neither did much when they died but brightwell razor did work my rocks are ultra clean from that stuff

Did it work right away? I see its a 6 day treatment. I might try it.

 

[Hermie]

Did it work right away? I see its a 6 day treatment. I might try it.

I have it in my Amazon cart now... when I get the extra money I'm going to try it. Brightwell recommends using their bacteria solution as well though, so that's an extra 30 bucks or so... So it may be longer than I'd like, maybe when the next Stimulus checks come I'll go for it and buy both as a combo. Microbacter Clean and Razor Marine.

 

[codycolina707]

Did it work right away? I see its a 6 day treatment. I might try it.

It took about 3 weeks to fully clear the rocks I did the 6 day treatment and dosed the "maintenance" for about another week every now and than I throw about 30 ml in the tank but thats to mostly help keep algae from building up on the glass

 

[loli2010]

It took about 3 weeks to fully clear the rocks I did the 6 day treatment and dosed the "maintenance" for about another week every now and than I throw about 30 ml in the tank but thats to mostly help keep algae from building up on the glass

Didi you notice any negative effects? Do you have acros in tank?
Just ordered razor+microbacter clean

 

[Felipe]

A product that I have been having a lot of success with is Vibrant. I used to work for a aquarium service company and I would say that I used Vibrant in about 90% of all my services. Gives a lot of stability and the bacteria competes against the algae for nutrients, reducing significantly algae issues of any kind. A plus is that its natural so you can't really overdose. Here it is https://amzn.to/3qDVyrY

 

[loli2010]

Just to confirm that it really works, after 2 weeks of use microbacter clean and razor marine 80% of algae is gone and still declining. I ordered new batch to proceed with maintenance dose.

 

[Hermie]

Just to confirm that it really works, after 2 weeks of use microbacter clean and razor marine 80% of algae is gone and still declining. I ordered new batch to proceed with maintenance dose.

I have a bottle of microbacter clean on order