Easiest way to get rid of green hair algae?

[Lalaallieu]

It’s starting to take over my corals. Had no issues until I added some frags a month and a half ago. Now I can’t get rid of it and even though I pick it off every water change it just comes back. I don’t have a phosphate kit but will be buying one. I use Walmart RO water in the gallon jugs. I pick it off and then scrub with a toothbrush but am afraid to scrub my corals with a toothbrush. I thought maybe vibrant might work? I know it makes corals unhappy sometimes and idk if it treats hair algae but I thought about researching it. My corals are still pretty happy. My calcium was 500. Alk was 9.3. Is that bad? My ammonia had a small spike. Somewhere between 0 and .25 using api. I use salifert for calcium and alk. I mainly used api during cycling. I had my two clowns die and on,y found one clown body. I have since tore the tank down to move it to another location and didn’t find said fish body. This is really the only issue I have at the moment. Obviously not a good looking one.

 

[Zbryant]

Vibrant definitely helped my tank with gha. A good clean up crew should take care of it as well. Urchins love it! It’s still a good idea to get your nutrient levels (nitrate and phosphate). Also, don’t go too overboard lowering the nutrients. You’ll pay to get the gha back if you end up with dinos!

 

[X-37B]

Vibrant worked on my tank. Started at 1/2 dose. Did not affect any corals.

 

[Zbryant]

Definitely go slow with vibrant. Rushing anything In reefing usually doesn’t end up how you’d like it.

 

[Lithoman]

Vibrant… follow the instructions..

 

[RJ F.]

If it's just gha I'd recommend fluconazole aka reeflux. I used it and it didnt effect my corals or livestock. I got nervous with vibrant because all the ppl saying it nuked their tank. I didnt want to add anything and a local reefer told me I wouldn't regret fluconazole

 

[LIreefguy]

Before you go crazy dosing anything. I would get yourself a proper test kit. API isn’t really for reef tank. You need a little better quality. I would use Salifer or Red Sea.
your tank shouldn’t be running any ammonia at this point. That might be a false positive since your corals seems ok

get the test kits
Nitrates
Phosphate
Alk.
to me these are the 3 most important.
go to marine depo or brs they both carry only good brands

also buy a few more cuc. I would do a few hermits or emerald crabs. They tend to eat the longer hair. Snails are better at keeping it from growing but once long only you or crabs can get it.

 

[jlts21]

I’m not familiar with Walmart RO water. Is it just RO or is it RODI? That could be a potential issue, again I’m not familiar with Walmart water as I have my own RODI system. Would definitely check phosphates and potentially run some GFO. Although don’t go overboard (use half the recommended amount or even less than that) as it can tank your phosphates which then brings dinos. Or a good clean up crew, will take some time but they’ll eventually get most of it

 

[Mal11224]

It will take some time and I’m a firm believer that every tank is different I’ve tried vibrant and it was not the most effective for me. The one thing that did work for me was fluconazole. It took about 3 weeks to get rid of with daily maintenance of pulling it out as much as I could. If I got it again, it is what I would use.

 

[RJ F.]

It will take some time and I’m a firm believer that every tank is different I’ve tried vibrant and it was not the most effective for me. The one thing that did work for me was fluconazole. It took about 3 weeks to get rid of with daily maintenance of pulling it out as much as I could. If I got it again, it is what I would use.

Yup it took about 2 full weeks for mine. I even under dosed just to be safe

 

[Nasir]

First find out why you have it. It could be the water, over feeding, or the lights. The easiest and cheapest would be to get a sea slug from your LFS.