Green Hair Algae, go away!

ChonkyFireCoral · Jan 15, 2015

Hello, I have had a rather consistent issue with green hair algae in my 150gal drilled. Does anyone have any tips or trick to rid me of this pain? I have beautiful corals and live rock with tons of coralline algae and all that I need to do is get rid of the GHA and my tank will be perfect. I have a Euro-Reef protein skimmer in my sump that works great and pulls a ton out of the water, to where it is almost full every bi-monthly water change. I have 3 5ft ReefBrite XHO LEDs (2 actinics and one 50/50). I run the actinics for 9-10 hours, which may be too long. I used to have my 50/50 come on as well in the middle of the day but have stopped in hopes algae would go away. I have 10 fish and around 20-30 different Hermits. My Nitrates/Nitrates and Phosphates all read zero. I have read that Phosphates can read falsely though because the algae is holding onto it. I recently bought some Korallin PO4 Minus in hopes that it could starve out the algae. I have used it twice in two weeks now and while my water and tank look great after, the hair still prevails. In the past I have taken out the live rock and scrubbed it and gotten rid of a lot that way, but it mainly is on my base rock now which I cannot remove, as I have about 200+lbs of rock on top of it. Any suggestions as well for good brushed to use in the tank? My nylon brush doesn't seem to do much as it is too flexible and didn't know about using a wire brush in the tank. Any assistance you can provide would be of great help! This is the last thing keeping me from being super happy with my tank. Thank you !!!

The-Russ · Jan 15, 2015

150 gal? That does not seem like a very large clean up crew. You may want to consider getting a better/bigger crew with snails. I assume you use RODI water when you do a water change, if not start and get a TDS meter to make sure your water is clean? Algae is a direct response to something living in your tank (Phosphates, Nitrates...) that is bad. it will not live if there is no food.

First thing you need to do is make sure the water you are using to do water changes is perfect. If it is not, then fix that. next you need to give the algae a hair cut. Get a bowl of clean water, tap I fine, reach in your tank, pull the Algae, set it in another bowl, rinse your hands to remove all residue, and pull more. once you have done this, you can get a small pipe/tube brush an scrub/roll it on the left over algae. then remove the algae from the brush, rinse the brush and you hands and do it again. you want to try to NOT leave any floaters as they will just make more so a net my be needed to get the particles that float. Also make sure you skimmer is CLEAN.

mrsandman · Jan 16, 2015

I had the same problem as you. I blacked out my tank for 3 days by taping black trash bags all over. Everything kept running except for lights. At the end of the 3 days the rock was spotless. It's been 6 months since and I still have zero hair algae in my tank.

brandon429 · Jan 17, 2015

what have you decided to do about the algae

tanks pic

Reefnjunkie · Jan 17, 2015

I would add a few hundred snails and manually remove what you can-algae will be gone guaranteed (IME at least)
Astrea
Trochus
Turbos

EDIT: at least 100 to start with-and unless things are glued down expect those Turbos to move things around, that's why they are listed last-but they down GHA like crazy.
Maybe add a sea hare as another option.

Reefing Madness · Jan 17, 2015

I agree with the Sea Hare, they will demolish Hair Algae.

rmiles54 · Jan 17, 2015

mrsandman said:
I had the same problem as you. I blacked out my tank for 3 days by taping black trash bags all over. Everything kept running except for lights. At the end of the 3 days the rock was spotless. It's been 6 months since and I still have zero hair algae in my tank.

Was your tank full of coral? If so what types and what kind of reaction did they see? Any die off, bleaching, ect?

PCygni · Jan 17, 2015

A few months ago I started to do 20% water changes 3 to 4 times a month. What algae I had (hair, bubble, etc.) melted away, my sps corals have exploded in both growth and color, water clarity has noticeably improved, and even my fish look fatter and healthier. The WC's seemed to do everything my carbon and gfo reactors and skimmer (etc.) couldn't do alone. I was a bit Leary of carbon dosing so I made a commitment to roll up me sleeves and put some elbow grease into my tank. So far it's been easy to keep up with the water changes, seeing the changes I have been seeing. It didn't happen overnight, I had to stick with it; but I am getting more satisfaction out of my tank than ever. I know there are a thousand ways to skin a cat in this hobby, and I'm not saying what I am doing is 'right' or even necessary, all I know is what has (finally!) worked for me.

mrsandman · Jan 17, 2015

rmiles54 said:
Was your tank full of coral? If so what types and what kind of reaction did they see? Any die off, bleaching, ect?

Tank was only about 7 months old but I had about 2 dozen frags. Everything came out fine. No die off or bleaching because of the blackout. Only thing that died was the hair algae. I was actually very surprised in the outcome. Rocks came out spotless with only a few strands here and there that the turbos destroyed within minutes. After the blackout my snails started dying because they didn't have enough food and I had to start feeding them nori.

Here is a video of my tank before the blackout. It was quite disgusting and I was getting pretty frustrated. All of my rocks were covered with this hair. Scrubbing with a toothbrush was only temporary and it grew faster than my snails could eat it. Phosphates tested 0 with a Hanna checker.

http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-ptND3/i-RJwKfj8

Patrick Cox · Jan 19, 2015

Good timing for this thread. I am battling GHA as well. About 3 weeks ago I started running a small amount of GFO and then 2 weeks ago I started dosing Prodibio. Some of the GHA is turning tan color so I think that means it is starving but I am still not any where near where I would like to be with removal. I read about doing a blackout but that makes me nervous with my corals. I do have some snails but probably not enough as they don't seem to be doing much either. They mainly work on the glass. Looking forward to other thoughts on the subject!

basher04 · Jan 19, 2015

How long has your tank been running? This is normal for newer tanks. Increase your water changes and start running a gfo like RowaPhos in a reactor and clean out as much of the algae as you can. Adding more hermit crabs or even emerald crabs will help out as well. But definitely do more water changes than 1 a month. And add that gfo.

darrell7456 · Jan 19, 2015

sea hare will do the trick

5Bucks · Jan 19, 2015

Got to export nutrients. Bigger water changes with known good water, GFO in a reactor. I don't think GFO in a sock helps that much. Reduce feeding.

I had a big outbreak end of summer due to neglect - was out of town many weeks. My strategy that cleared it up in 60 days: 1. Remove and scrub rocks that I could, brush suck strain out stuff I couldn't. 2. Weekly 20% water changes for 6 weeks with known 0 TDS RO/DI water. 3. Built a DIY GFO reactor

rmiles54 · Jan 19, 2015

I too am afraid of the blackout method! I have GHA in random spots throughout the tank! It's all well attached to the rock work, to the point i can't pluck it off! I have for the last couple weeks, reduced lighting by an hour on both sides of the cycle, cut feeding to once a day and believe me you can tell the fish are used to more food, started phos reactor, and increased amount of water change. All of this and the GHA hasn't stopped growing but did reduce the rate it was spreading. After a lot of thought and reading I've decided to give API Algaefix Marine a try. Directions are simple and safe for all reef life, add 1ml per 10 gallons every 3 days. Most reviews stated that by the 3rd treatment the algae if not detached could be easily removed by brush or siphon. I added my first dose last night and will update in 9 days after the 3rd treatment unless results happen sooner good or bad!

brandon429 · Jan 19, 2015

Hey Patrick whats up

remember that time four years ago we beat your red gelidium

how in the heck did that fare out 4 yrs later

your before and after pics have been viewed by a hundred thousand people man.
B

rmiles54 · Jan 19, 2015

The first pic shows growth on rock work. Second is on a dead section of a an SPS I rescued. The third is how it's starting to pop up in little crevices around the rock structure. Forth pic is tank shot showing that nothing is currently overtaken by the GHA. I'm hoping this will allow me to get a handle on it before it does. I sure hope it's as safe as they say!

brandon429 · Jan 19, 2015

your tank is at the critical stage, nice catch. no mass invasion

all totally invaded tanks started at this point, and what guaranteed them total eutrophication was leaving the algae in the system and blaming it all on phosphates. simply kill that algae, and it cannot win, ever, regardless of po4

time to kill!

Austinr30 · Jan 19, 2015

Sea hare and control phosphate. Be gone very quickly.

FinzAquatics · Jan 20, 2015

Not sure if I missed it in the above posts, but does this tank get ANY direct/indirect sunlight what so ever.... Even the slightest bit for a small period of time can be responsible for a GHA outbreak..

I battled it for months.. Did everything... One day I noticed it got direct sunlight between 3-6pm... I put a black background on the side of the tank that got the light and problem solved with 2 weeks.