Green/brown hair algae out of control

[plantscoralsfish20g]

Recently, I've been dealing with an ugly green/brown hair algae outbreak that I can't seem to control. No matter how much I scrub the rocks, a week later it comes back. I've tried lowering the lights and feeding less as well. Phosphates are ~0.25 and nitrate is 10 ppm. What should I do to control this?

 

[sean151]

What's your clean up crew setup? I find a handful of trochus will thoroughly get at the roots of gha each night. Slowly gaining back a portion of land each night. Addition of ceriths could also benefit depending on the specific needs of the tank/waste removal. I had a much worse breakout that I let exist for ~1yr. In parallel double check that your feeding routine is not leaving excessive waste hiding around the rockwork.

One other thing I will say I did, but in no way endorsing as the solution that fixed it for me, was a low addition of microbacter clean at night. It's not a magic bullet, but it did appear to slow my growth. Again, I'd start with looking through your inputs, outputs and waste management inside the tank before looking at additives as a solution.

 

[plantscoralsfish20g]

What's your clean up crew setup? I find a handful of trochus will thoroughly get at the roots of gha each night. Slowly gaining back a portion of land each night. Addition of ceriths could also benefit depending on the specific needs of the tank/waste removal. I had a much worse breakout that I let exist for ~1yr. In parallel double check that your feeding routine is not leaving excessive waste hiding around the rockwork.

One other thing I will say I did, but in no way endorsing as the solution that fixed it for me, was a low addition of microbacter clean at night. It's not a magic bullet, but it did appear to slow my growth. Again, I'd start with looking through your inputs, outputs and waste management inside the tank before looking at additives as a solution.

I have one nassarius snail and 4 blue hermit crabs. It's a 20G so I didn't think I needed that much but I'll look into trochus snails thanks

 

[Manpeckz]

I have one nassarius snail and 4 blue hermit crabs. It's a 20G so I didn't think I needed that much but I'll look into trochus snails thanks

I feel like adding a few more snails like astrea or mexican turbos(bigger) wouldnt be a bad idea.

Personally I have been fighting GHA that was completely covering rocks and the best method for me is during my water change take those REALLY bad rocks and scrub them in the bucket with the waste water, rather than in the tank. Or you could look into an internal micron filter to control the algae, once you have it suspended. A lot of the problem its easy to suspend or loosen up the algae but then its just in the water breaking down again.

Also, is that a yellow submarine Favia? nice.

 

[Wasabiroot]

Turbo snails like hair algae. No cleanup crew will go after the long wispy stuff blowing in the current - the short cropped stuff is easier for them to tackle. Just be careful with snail additions and start small at first. Snails are either eating or not moving, but it's easy to underestimate them. I'd try 3 or 4 large turbos and maybe 4 or 5 trochus (but that's my personal opinion). If you overdo it you'll have some starve.
Some turbo snails are from the gulf of Mexico and don't seem to do well at reef temperatures, so check their origin. I think my LFS stocks these as the big ones especially seem to struggle when nothing else I have does.

You will also be the best cleanup crew, haha.

Age of the tank, lighting, etc can all play a role. Algae is very good at eking out a living in just about any scenario.

What kind of water do you use? Rodi? Maybe your source water is high in nutrients somehow? If you use RODI, is your TDS very low to zero?

 

[plantscoralsfish20g]

Turbo snails like hair algae. No cleanup crew will go after the long wispy stuff blowing in the current - the short cropped stuff is easier for them to tackle. Just be careful with snail additions and start small at first. Snails are either eating or not moving, but it's easy to underestimate them. I'd try 3 or 4 large turbos and maybe 4 or 5 trochus (but that's my personal opinion). If you overdo it you'll have some starve.
Some turbo snails are from the gulf of Mexico and don't seem to do well at reef temperatures, so check their origin. I think my LFS stocks these as the big ones especially seem to struggle when nothing else I have does.

You will also be the best cleanup crew, haha.

Age of the tank, lighting, etc can all play a role. Algae is very good at eking out a living in just about any scenario.

What kind of water do you use? Rodi? Maybe your source water is high in nutrients somehow? If you use RODI, is your TDS very low to zero?

ya my tank is about 9 months old, lighting is a AI Prime 16HD. I do use RO and it reduces my tap from 50 to 2-3 ppm. One thing I think of is that I haven't turned on my protein skimmer for a few weeks because it doesn't work very well (it's a mini-Fluval one). I always have to adjust the bubbles and got lazy

 

[gbroadbridge]

If your RODI tds is above zero ppm, you have a problem.

 

[sean151]

Turbo snails like hair algae. No cleanup crew will go after the long wispy stuff blowing in the current - the short cropped stuff is easier for them to tackle. Just be careful with snail additions and start small at first. Snails are either eating or not moving, but it's easy to underestimate them. I'd try 3 or 4 large turbos and maybe 4 or 5 trochus (but that's my personal opinion). If you overdo it you'll have some starve.
Some turbo snails are from the gulf of Mexico and don't seem to do well at reef temperatures, so check their origin. I think my LFS stocks these as the big ones especially seem to struggle when nothing else I have does.

You will also be the best cleanup crew, haha.

Age of the tank, lighting, etc can all play a role. Algae is very good at eking out a living in just about any scenario.

What kind of water do you use? Rodi? Maybe your source water is high in nutrients somehow? If you use RODI, is your TDS very low to zero?

100% this. You will get through this. I had anywhere the light touched was minum 1" strands to mostly 2+" strands. Barebottom, all sides and rock. Manual removal will remove the nutrients from your tank (like many use chaeto for). Take it slow and if you need to do something quickly it should only be manual removal.