Don't understand why I have hair aslgae.

[jp_75]

Looks like many people have hair algea problem right now... (including me!)

 

[Best Fish-Jake]

You could also add some livestock to help mow some of that down.. depending on tank size, you could add a kole/ bristletooth tang.. otherwise turbo & margarita snails as well as small hermits eat up HA.

 

[Brian W]

Are you using 0 TDS RO/DI water?
How many fish do you have and how much do you feed?

0 yrs. 4 fish (2 clowns, 1 six line, 1 blue damsel) 1 small chunk of led reef frenzy per day for the fish food. Sometimes every other day.

I have 3 tanks and I feed the same amount to each tank. The 2 other tanks do not have a speck if algae.

 

[Brian W]

Did a 20 gallon water change. Scrubbed the he'll out if the rocks with the algae on it. Going to start GFO once I do ish my return plumbing with my manifold. Soon....Soon.

 

[NanoCrazed]

A couple of urchins and you'll have a virtuous cycle. GHA sucking up the nitrates and phosphates...and the urchin sucks up the algae.

I personally like a bit of algae in my tanks. More natural look, imo

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Has anyone else pointed out the need for better clean up crew.

 

[Best Fish-Jake]

Has anyone else pointed out the need for better clean up crew.

I kinda did [emoji12]

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I kinda did [emoji12]

Yes you did.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Looks like many people have hair algea problem right now... (including me!)

And chrysto and slime algae and diatoms and a few other things. The thing most cases have in common is a really poor and non diverse CUC.

 

[saltyhog]

And chrysto and slime algae and diatoms and a few other things. The thing most cases have in common is a really poor and non diverse CUC.

Interested in hearing more about this. What type of clean up crew would be good for a 72x24 tank. I have 4 conchs, 6 adult banded trochus (and a scad of babies), 4 turbos (including a monster one), I had a bunch of cerith snails but they have mostly been eliminated by my wrasses. I also have a tuxedo urchin and a few scarlet hermits.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I do like to judge a bit by eye rather than the apperantly huge packages most stores will reccomend.
But here's a good list of the types. And what they eat.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/choosing-cleanup-crew-critters.258695/#post-3063945
It's kinda like dosing imo. See meore algae add more CUC.

 

[NanoCrazed]

Interested in hearing more about this. What type of clean up crew would be good for a 72x24 tank. I have 4 conchs, 6 adult banded trochus (and a scad of babies), 4 turbos (including a monster one), I had a bunch of cerith snails but they have mostly been eliminated by my wrasses. I also have a tuxedo urchin and a few scarlet hermits.

No nerites? They are a standard must have in my Fw and SW tanks. Nassarius are nice ones to have as well to turn the sand in addition to conchs.

I also like the pink mithrax (emerald) and zebra hermits. The scarlets and blues are useless... ornamental at best.

 

[saltyhog]

I had nerites but did not like them at all. They left the tank at times and were always getting turned over and couldn't right themselves. They didn't last long with the Halichoeres wrasses I have.

 

[NanoCrazed]

I had nerites but did not like them at all. They left the tank at times and were always getting turned over and couldn't right themselves. They didn't last long with the Halichoeres wrasses I have.

That's fair... great cleaners... terrible in the self help dept. as are astreas

 

[Hans-Werner]

Hair algae usually get their phosphates from the rocks, gravel and sand they grow on so they don´t need need phosphate in the water. It is more the nitrate in the water that gets them growing.
With the phosphate it´s even vice versa. If you have some phosphates in the water it helps to deplete the nitrates (by growth of corals, bacteria, coralline algae etc.) and stop hair algae growth.

 

[Brian W]

Has anyone else pointed out the need for better clean up crew.

for some reason every time I buy a clean up crew, Trochus, Turbo, Astrea, hermit crabs, emerald crabs, they seem to work ok for a couple weeks at most but then I notice the snail are all eaten by the hermits, the bigger turbo snails barely cling on to life and the emerald crab lasts about a month and then I find him dead. I had 1 peppermint shrimp before for a good 3-4 months but he was never seen again. Ive pretty much given up on clean up crews for the most part. I have a few Astrea snails, 1 turbo, 1 hermit and 1 stomatella right now.

 

[Brian W]

Hair algae usually get their phosphates from the rocks, gravel and sand they grow on so they don´t need need phosphate in the water. It is more the nitrate in the water that gets them growing.
With the phosphate it´s even vice versa. If you have some phosphates in the water it helps to deplete the nitrates (by growth of corals, bacteria, coralline algae etc.) and stop hair algae growth.

my phosphates read 0. did a test with my hanna checker and my salifert test kit.
My nitrates read 2.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

for some reason every time I buy a clean up crew, Trochus, Turbo, Astrea, hermit crabs, emerald crabs, they seem to work ok for a couple weeks at most but then I notice the snail are all eaten by the hermits, the bigger turbo snails barely cling on to life and the emerald crab lasts about a month and then I find him dead. I had 1 peppermint shrimp before for a good 3-4 months but he was never seen again. Ive pretty much given up on clean up crews for the most part. I have a few Astrea snails, 1 turbo, 1 hermit and 1 stomatella right now.

Ageed. I have more snails than crabs. An I do only buy small turbos. Emeralds are hit and miss and for me always a miss. I don't buy them period.
The difficulty becomes the choices after CUC.
Some may reccomend fish.

You can commit to better living through chemistry. And go the VIbrant route and use a constant herbicide but there are consequences to that too.

Nutrint reduction only can only do so much imo IME

 

[Brian W]

You could also add some livestock to help mow some of that down.. depending on tank size, you could add a kole/ bristletooth tang.. otherwise turbo & margarita snails as well as small hermits eat up HA.

I was thinking of adding a lawnmower blenny. My tank is only 40 gallons with 10 gallons in the sump.

Ageed. I have more snails than crabs. An I do only buy small turbos. Emeralds are hit and miss and for me always a miss. I don't buy them period.
The difficulty becomes the choices after CUC.
Some may reccomend fish.

You can commit to better living through chemistry. And go the VIbrant route and use a constant herbicide but there are consequences to that too.

Nutrint reduction only can only do so much imo IME

I am going to ditch the hermits and emerals and maybe try more trochus. I used vibrant for a few months....only thing it did for me was keep my glass cleaner than normal. Ive had good luck with GFO as well. Wish my tank was big enough for a yellow tang. I hear they are always grazing on algae.

 

[brandon429]

the number of tanks we've collected before and after pics of this exact same condition being fixed by an external cleaning with peroxide is about 550.
fair option to consider among many others. sure is lots of pics on the claim, happy posters. the algae you have is ideal for it. not all algae are ideal, that low level growth sure is.

kill it, be free of it in two days, post update pics, then install the cleanup crew only as preventers. we never rely on anything other than force and will to be algae free in our cure threads. all forms of nutrient control, clean up crews, lighting changes, dosers, are for growback control and never for removal. that's the secret to an algae free aquarium from day 1, we live by that mode and produce lots of searchable pico and nano reefs using the method.


if we take time to farm out a few times early on, the work ceases with maturity and that's where the nutrients-only proponents got it wrong, they had far more tanks persist with invasion despite nutrients so low the corals struggled. it does work, sometimes, but our method works about 95% of the time w no coral harm. fast too, 48 hours turnaround, what you've been wanting gone for weeks.

algae are adapted to growing in very low nutrient conditions, so your params wont matter much though one possible and common control angle is to put nutrients into restriction mode to starve algae. we don't have to do that in our nano reefs to be permanently free of algae you show...we just kill it a few times then its gone forever, plated out by coralline in the tanks I owned. to purposefully let it take over all substrate as it would in the wild sans grazers is the most common take in reefing, but its not the best mode. We cured 550 tanks who followed that mode and collected them across probably only 2 or three threads. 550 being a general guess lol but darn close.

Your rocks are doing what ocean rocks do, something has to feed tangs turtles parrotfish urchins snails etc, algae belongs on a reef. there's a school of thought that says leave it in your tank anyway since its natural, and then you have our mode of being free of it by Wednesday all just a big mix of options.

the best trick in being able to generate cure threads with actual rolling tank corrections is to have algae problem tanks set their parameters to what coral respond best to, and ensure the tank is algae free independently of nutrients. That's literally how the ocean is setup, in ideal spots.