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

[GeoSquid]

Not sure if Fluconazole has any effect on GHA. If it does, it may inhibit the growth and effectiveness of you Scrubber. Beware of quick fixes as the issues will most likely come back. I had a decent cyano outbreak about 8 mos ago. Anyway, I've had cyano quite a few times before and usually just wait it out like a normal algae succession. This time....I decided to try Chemiclean. It worked like a charm! Although - my monti caps died back quite a bit from it. Then, a few weeks later I got Dino's. I know it was caused by the chemiclean. It took me 5 months to beat dino's. I did find, however, dino's love to grow on turf scrubbers so my display wasn't that bad and I didn't lose any corals.

 

[mikedb]

Just a quick update:

On Tuesday evening, I removed as much hair algae as possible from the display. Depending on the location in the tank, the bryopsis content varied, but most of it seemed like some variant of bryopsis. I also removed all bryopsis and hair algae from the fuge. Since I am dosing Fluconazole, I removed my chaeto and put it in a bucket to try and keep it alive.

I then dosed 1500mg of Fluconazole. Since then, all livestock and coral seems OK, but my alkalinity consumption has dropped by about 15-20%. Nitrates briefly spiked to 2-5ppm (no surprise considering the amount of algae I removed), but appears to have stabilized at around 2ppm. A big change from having to dose about 30ml of NeoNitro per day, but that isn't a surprise given the amount of algae that was removed.

My small patches of cyano have grown significantly, and now populate about half of my sandbed. Hopefully that will resolve itself...

But a few areas of bryopsis are also starting to visibly die. I am looking forward to adding the Mexican Turbo Snails and algae scrubber on Tuesday- next week will be interesting!

 

[GeoSquid]

Some info on Fluconazole in relation to Algae Turf scrubbers. I would probably not even hook up the turf scrubber for some time after using this.

Fluconazole?

If I wanted to do a Fluconazole treatment to get rid of GHA/Briopsis I assume this would kill the ATS? Any suggestions on what I could do?

algaescrubber.net

 

[mikedb]

I thought it would be a good time to post an update- it has been 9 days since the manual removal of hair algae and the addition of fluconazole.

No surprise, the patches of Bryopsis are GONE. It really is remarkable. Unfortunately, the hair algae is growing back quickly. The fluconazole does not appear to be effective against the strain of hair algae in my tank.

I was planning to simply leave the fluconazole to sit for a few weeks, but when I was feeding the fish a few days ago, I saw some white out of the corner of my eye... oh no!

It isn't easy to see, but my teal torch lost a head out of nowhere in the past few days. That torch was actually my first, and I have had it for over 18 months, growing from a single head to 3. Oddly, it was the only torch seemingly unaffected the last time I ran fluconazole. This time, it seems to be the only one affected.

Obviously this isn't enough data to say that fluconazole is harmful to torch corals. But it is very suspicious that the only two times I have had any issues with my torch garden is when I have had fluconazole in my system. Food for thought. Regardless, I have re-added carbon and brought my skimmer online, and am doing nightly 2% water changes. The torch seems to have stabilized.

On Tuesday, 15 mexican turbo snails from reefcleaners were also added to the tank. Since they are nocturnal I can't really see them working, but there are a few patches of algae that have shrunken noticeably from a day or two ago, so I am hopeful!

I will be plumbing my algae scrubber this weekend- that project grew and I am now plumbing an entire manifold system in my sump. Once that is installed, I think it will be time to leave the tank alone and hope for some improvement!

 

[ThePurple12]

I think the algae scrubber will really work.

How big is the tank, though? Once all the GHA is gone there might be too many turbos and not enough food, and they'll starve to death. 17 is a lot of turbos.

Your tank is really beautiful, too bad this is happening.

Edit: just saw it's 140g. You might need to relocate a few turbos once it's over.

 

[vetteguy53081]

You are getting direct and indirect light from the windows. You have several things to do. . . . .
- stop that natural light from reaching your tank
- reduce white light intensity
- pull as much as you can by hand
- add some cleaners and occupants consisting of:

6 turbo snails
6 astrea snails
6 trochus snails
4 nerite snails
4 nassarius snails
1 pincushion urchin
1 dolabella sea hare
1 lawnmower blenny
2-3 female emerald crabs

MOST IMPORTANT - YOU HAVE TO STOP THAT WINDOW LIGHT FROM REACHING TANK EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO GET UNSIGHTLY AND COVER IT WITH BLACK CONSTRUCTION PAPER

 

[((FORDTECH))]

15 turbo is way way to many they will definitly die soon after most algae is gone. I have 2 in my 120 and they have run out of food to eat

 

[KellyCorals]

Risky but it sounds like it might be time to add a sea hare. You can buy them off line but remove them and rehome them when the job is done or supplement feed them with algae strips to keep them going. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Hermie]

Fluconazole is a fungicide, not an algaecide, so it kills algae as a secondary effect from killing fungi. So when you dose it, you are killing off your tanks microbial fungal communities, which means something has to take their place. It could be anything not reliant on fungal communities; dino, cyano, algae etc.

 

[Fish_Sticks]

At this point, the algea has taken a big slice of your bacterial role in consuming ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

One of the best ways to combat that, in this scenario, is to increase oxygenation, and manually remove as much as you can.

Bacteria will go nuts when you improve oxygenation, and then outcompete the co2 loving algea for dissolved ammonia and nitrite.

Nitrate can be consumed by anaerobic bacteria, so make sure theres some thick boi rocks in there to help consume that before the algae does.

Do you have any herbivores? Tangs, damsels, lawn mower blennys?

Lawn mower blennys wont touch the gha, but they do scrape the rock and inadvertently eat it while it's getting started as they eat the diatoms and detritus they prefer.

 

[Fish_Sticks]

Something else to note, if you use chems to melt the gha, it just breaks back down into dissolved nutrient.... same with adding any herbivores....
So it's really a catch 22 of needing to ramp up the bacteria substantially via oxygenation or getting more rock.

 

[KellyCorals]

Alright- here is my plan- thanks for all the help and suggestions so far!

1. Over the weekend while removing some algae, noticed it felt different (more 'crunchy' and harder to remove) and realized that the type of algae has almost completely switched to Bryopsis (purely bryopsis in a few places, and hair-algae-covered bryopsis in others). Tomorrow evening, I will be dosing the tank with fuconazole.
2. I didn't hear back from Turbo's Aquatics (in his defense, I only first reached out Friday afternoon), so I purchased a Clearwater 100 scrubber (15% off for black friday, at least!). I should have it up and running by Wednesday evening.
3. I ordered 15 mexican Turbo Snails (and 2 zebra turbo snails, for fun) from ReefCleaners. John is closed this week, so they will be introduced next Tuesday. I could probably find a source that ships quicker, but I have had such good experiences with John in the past (and have heard that these are routinely misidentified) that I am willing to wait.

And that is all for now. - I am going to give this strategy at least a month to show progress.

On a side note, two ~6"x6" patches of cyano have appeared in some lower-flow areas of the tank. However, I recently discovered that both of my Gyre XF350s appear to have failing rotor/bushing assemblies (after less than two years) and have therefore been working intermittently (mostly not working). I should have the repair parts by tomorrow night, so I am going to hold off on treatment until the pumps are up and running for awhile. Getting very close to replacing the Gyre's altogether.



Thanks for the suggestion. At this point I am going to limit the number of variables and will plan to use Microbacter in the event the plan doesn't show results over the coming weeks. After little success with Vibrant and WasteAway, I can't help but be a little skeptical about the bottled bacteria solutions. But it might be worth a shot!


To be fair, the Fluconazole did work, almost immediately killing any bryopsis. But it worked quite slowly on the hair algae, and I decided to abandon the second dose as soon as I started losing heads of . I certainly won't combine it with Vibrant again, although I am not 100% sure this was the cause... only my torch euphyllia had issues (all 6 colonies, two of which were lost entirely) and the rest of my coral seemed fine. My SPS did lose color though, and my alk consumption dropped by more than half. I can't fully explain it, other than to say I won't try that combination again!

I also lost a lot of corals after using flux RX even though it claimed to be reef safe. But it did knock down the hair algae almost 100% after 2 weeks of use. But you have a lot of corals there. I wouldn’t try anymore chemicals unless you ready to lose even more corals. I found that out the hard way on my tank. Phosban reactor also helped with my hair algae somewhat.

 

[mikedb]

I think the algae scrubber will really work.

How big is the tank, though? Once all the GHA is gone there might be too many turbos and not enough food, and they'll starve to death. 17 is a lot of turbos.

Your tank is really beautiful, too bad this is happening.

Edit: just saw it's 140g. You might need to relocate a few turbos once it's over.

Thanks for your concern about the Turbos. My wife and I are strong believers in ensuring that none of our livestock suffers if at all possible, and I completely realize that 17 is far too many under normal circumstances. I am active within my local reefing community and invertebrates tend to be hard to come by here; I will ensure they find good homes once the algae situation improves.

Thanks for kind words. After finally building my 'dream' tank, it sure is frustrating to have this happen- even the guy who helps maintain my tank is flummoxed, and he does this for a living...

You are getting direct and indirect light from the windows. You have several things to do. . . . .
- stop that natural light from reaching your tank
- reduce white light intensity
- pull as much as you can by hand
- add some cleaners and occupants consisting of:

6 turbo snails
6 astrea snails
6 trochus snails
4 nerite snails
4 nassarius snails
1 pincushion urchin
1 dolabella sea hare
1 lawnmower blenny
2-3 female emerald crabs

MOST IMPORTANT - YOU HAVE TO STOP THAT WINDOW LIGHT FROM REACHING TANK EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO GET UNSIGHTLY AND COVER IT WITH BLACK CONSTRUCTION PAPER

I think, perhaps, the pictures make it look worse than it seems. Two windows on one wall are about 10' away from the tank, and look out over a porch with an overhanging roof. The other window is only a few feed away, but northeast facing. All windows have smart shades that lower automatically during the sunny times of the day. I would be surprised if natural light were the issue. The reality is that I would sooner leave the algae as-is then blackout the windows in the main living area of my home.

I have been pulling as much as possible by hand every two weeks for the past several months.

Funny enough, that stocking list is quite similar to mine prior to the addition of the mexican turbos, except for the sea hare (and I have 5 more urchins, a foxface, and a purple tang).

 

[Fish_Sticks]

One last thing... the longterm goal would be to encourage coraline to take the gha/bryopsis' place... just something to think about.

 

[mikedb]

Risky but it sounds like it might be time to add a sea hare. You can buy them off line but remove them and rehome them when the job is done or supplement feed them with algae strips to keep them going. Just my 2 cents.

Thanks! I have been tempted to order a sea hare, and it will indeed be my next step if somehow the turbos don't work

Fluconazole is a fungicide, not an algaecide, so it kills algae as a secondary effect from killing fungi. So when you dose it, you are killing off your tanks microbial fungal communities, which means something has to take their place. It could be anything not reliant on fungal communities; dino, cyano, algae etc.

Interesting- I was aware fluconazole was a fungicide, but didn't realize that fungus comprised a significant portion of the biome in my tank.

One last thing... the longterm goal would be to encourage coraline to take the gha/bryopsis' place... just something to think about.

Unfortunately, I don't think that is going to happen in this tank anytime soon... my urchins seem to eat it as fast as it grows!

 

[ScottyD36]

I used target dosing of peroxide. It is time consuming but it showed results for me. I also had alot smaller tank. I also have found that Spiny StarAstrea snais and Pitho Crabs have been amazing at eating the hair algea.

 

[mikedb]

Just a quick update... things appear to be headed in the right direction! Over past few nights, my tang and foxface have begun eating algae off the rocks (which they almost never did before)- perhaps the dominant type of algae is changing, or they like the taste of dying algae? Regardless, there is noticeably less algae in the tank, but still a long way to go:

It still looks bad, but there are several areas that are noticeably better! Some amount of two factors is likely responsible:

1. Fluconazole- It unquestionably killed all bryopsis, nearly instantly. After the sudden death of one of my Torch heads, I added carbon, restarted my skimmer, and maintained ~1% daily water changes. I'm not sure how much fluconazole is still in the system, or whether it is making a difference at this point. My alk consumption has increased nearly halfway back to normal, so I assume the concentration is significantly lower.
2. Mexican turbo snails- I don't see much of them (they are nocturnal), with the exception of three empty shells from snails that died shortly after introduction. I assume the remaining 14 are eating lots, and could be the prime reason for my success so far. I originally placed one snail near a large concave area of rock that had been a problem area, and the algae was gone the next day- so they are clearly doing something!

And in other news, the algae scrubber is up and running! Some plumbing is still temporary and I'll need an extension cord for the short power cable that came with the scrubber, but it is at least operational! No algae yet, but with near-zero nitrates, some amount of fluconazole in the system, and algae overall on the decline, I expect it to take awhile.

 

[ReefingFamily]

Just a quick update... things appear to be headed in the right direction! Over past few nights, my tang and foxface have begun eating algae off the rocks (which they almost never did before)- perhaps the dominant type of algae is changing, or they like the taste of dying algae? Regardless, there is noticeably less algae in the tank, but still a long way to go:

It still looks bad, but there are several areas that are noticeably better! Some amount of two factors is likely responsible:

1. Fluconazole- It unquestionably killed all bryopsis, nearly instantly. After the sudden death of one of my Torch heads, I added carbon, restarted my skimmer, and maintained ~1% daily water changes. I'm not sure how much fluconazole is still in the system, or whether it is making a difference at this point. My alk consumption has increased nearly halfway back to normal, so I assume the concentration is significantly lower.
2. Mexican turbo snails- I don't see much of them (they are nocturnal), with the exception of three empty shells from snails that died shortly after introduction. I assume the remaining 14 are eating lots, and could be the prime reason for my success so far. I originally placed one snail near a large concave area of rock that had been a problem area, and the algae was gone the next day- so they are clearly doing something!

And in other news, the algae scrubber is up and running! Some plumbing is still temporary and I'll need an extension cord for the short power cable that came with the scrubber, but it is at least operational! No algae yet, but with near-zero nitrates, some amount of fluconazole in the system, and algae overall on the decline, I expect it to take awhile.

Over the years I have tried all the new "snake oil" options out there. In my experience, the scrubber with the use of miracle mud in the fuge area has always kept my tank clean and stable. Every time I get a new (meaning dumb) idea I resort back to this with the same results even on different tanks with different systems.

There has been so many great suggestions from others on this thread I am glad you came up with a system that seems to be off to a good start. Looking forward to seeing how things progress for you in the coming weeks.

 

[mikedb]

It's been a while since I have posted an update, so I figured I would follow up.

The short story is that the algae situation has improved substantially, but is not 100% yet. Still, the improvement is substantial:

Before on the left, after on the right, taken about a month apart:

While a few patches remain, they seem to be somewhat stable. I have not manually removed any algae in about two weeks.

At around the midpoint of these two pictures, the hair algae noticeably changed- instead of pulling off in small clumps (leaving some attached to the rock), it would come off in large mats. Here are the things that have changed between the first and second picture:

1. Addition of 15 mexican turbo snails: Tough to tell how well these guys have been working. I lost 3-4 soon after addition, but haven't seen any empty shells since. I have never witnessed them eating algae off my rockwork, but since they are nocturnal, they could be hard at work while I am sleeping.
2. Algae scrubber: much of the improvement happened before I finished installing my scrubber, but it is now generating a decent amount of hair algae that I remove on a weekly basis. I doubt this contributed much to the change, but hopefully it helps make the change permanent.
3. Fluconazole: I am leaning towards this being the most likely cause of the improvement. Even though there wasn't much change during the treatment period, I'm not sure if either of the other above items would have changed the nature of the remaining algae itself. I am reluctantly considering running a low dose of fluconazole on an ongoing basis.
4. A simultaneous cyano outbreak: right around when I implemented the above three strategies, I had a cyano outbreak on the sand, which I left alone for the first three weeks. Perhaps that shifted the nutrient consumption balance in my tank? Eventually my zoas started really suffering, so I treated the tank with Red Slime Remover, which worked overnight. Several days later the cyano returned, but only covering the existing hair algae. That situation has persisted for around two weeks, and while the green hair algae continues to grow in some places, it is covered by a red cyano slime.

While I have not reach perfection, and also don't have a smoking gun, I am much happier with the state of the tank! Here's hoping these gains are maintainable.

 

[Dan_P]

That should be plenty of snails. One thing with turbo's is that if they fall off the rocks upside down, they can't right themselves. Keep an eye on them and flip them over if they fall. I pick them up and place them right on the worst areas and watch them mow! I've always DIY'd my ATS's, but have looked at Turbo's and Santa Monica's products and they look well built. I tried to DIY a SM Surf4 model and didn't have much luck. The waterfall and horizontal I've the best luck with.

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.