Green hair algae issue. Need advice

[frankrizzo787]

I have 2 tanks, a redsea Max Nano 20 cube and a redsea reefer 200. I'm experiencing hair algae I believe. What's the best way for me to identify what is growing and how to get rid of it?

The pics are of my nano 20 tank. My bigger tank isn't nearly as bad as this tank.

I was thinking about a small HOB refugium but wanted to get opinions before I do anything

N03 - 6.5
P04 - .05

 

[Spare time]

I would scrube and manually siphon as much off. Then, go ahead and add a bunch of turbo snails. A mix of snails is good to have. You could also add emerald crabs

 

[Jekyl]

Bolster CuC (I recommend reefcleaners.org), manage parameters and dose live phyto.

 

[Dom]

PO4 is more likely the problem. NO3 of 6.5 is not an issue.

Yes, a refugium to aid in nutrient export is a nice idea. But it has to be big enough to accommodate the tank size.

Are you doing 20% water changes on a weekly basis? Do you do them faithfully? If not, I would suggest you start there. Routine water changes along with manual removal will work wonders.

 

[Glenner’sreef]

Hi. So how clean are your tanks? Do you turkey baste or somehow blow off your rocks? Dirty rocks can attract nuisance algae. Sand/gravel vac? Water changes? Right sized skimmer? Algae Scrubber? How much flow in your tanks? Stagnant ponds are often what color? Your numbers look great. What about excess light? Sun through a window? No sign of a cleanup crew? Do as much as you possibly can to mess with this pest and you will ultimately win. Good luck.

 

[frankrizzo787]

PO4 is more likely the problem. NO3 of 6.5 is not an issue.

Yes, a refugium to aid in nutrient export is a nice idea. But it has to be big enough to accommodate the tank size.

Are you doing 20% water changes on a weekly basis? Do you do them faithfully? If not, I would suggest you start there. Routine water changes along with manual removal will work wonders.

Thanks for the reply Dom. The tank is about 3 months old. I was doing 5 gallon water changes every Sunday like clockwork, I stopped doing water changes about a month ago trying to get my nitrates and phosphates up. When I was doing water changes it was putting my nitrates at 0 and my phosphates at 0 and as I understood you don't want both of those levels at 0. So basically I stopped using filter floss and stopped water changes and started to feed more to get my nitrates at 10-15 and my phosphates up. Obviously something has backfired on me.

As far as clean up crew i have 1 lawnmower blenny, 8 hermits and a few astrea snails and turbo snails

What are your thoughts on how I should move forward?

 

[Bucs20fan]

Manual removal is always the best place to start. Do that and invest in some more turbo snails and astreas or trochus. After manual removal if you really want something to start treating it water wise you can dose hydrogen peroxide daily, 1ml per 10 gallons. Peroxide is broken down in about 4 hours and doesnt harm anything, But I think your best course is manual removal, more CUC and nutrient management.

 

[frankrizzo787]

Hi. So how clean are your tanks? Do you turkey baste or somehow blow off your rocks? Dirty rocks can attract nuisance algae. Sand/gravel vac? Water changes? Right sized skimmer? Algae Scrubber? How much flow in your tanks? Stagnant ponds are often what color? Your numbers look great. What about excess light? Sun through a window? No sign of a cleanup crew? Do as much as you possibly can to mess with this pest and you will ultimately win. Good luck.

I do vac the gravel when I do water changes but I stopped doing water changes (its been about 3 weeks since the last water change) due to my nitrates and phosphates being at 0. I have pretty good flow as there is no real dead spots in the tank. I have to scrape the glass everyday lately due to this algae growth plus it looks nasty on the rocks. This tank is a redsea max nano so I run the skimmer that came with it, i have no algae scrubber or refuge but I'm open to spend money and do whatever is needed to fix the issue

 

[frankrizzo787]

Bolster CuC (I recommend reefcleaners.org), manage parameters and dose live phyto.

Jekyl, What does dosing live Phyto do?

 

[Bucs20fan]

Live photo is just basically live plankton, they will eat excess nutrients and algaes. Similar to copepods but smaller and a great live food for corals

 

[frankrizzo787]

I would scrube and manually siphon as much off. Then, go ahead and add a bunch of turbo snails. A mix of snails is good to have. You could also add emerald crabs

I added an emerald crab and it wont touch the hair algae

 

[Bucs20fan]

With that much GHA your actual nitrates are likely much higher than 6.5, they are just being used up very fast by the algae. When you gain control of the algae you will likely see higher nitrate and phosphate.

 

[Bucs20fan]

I added an emerald crab and it wont touch the hair algae

Alot of the CUC wont eat it when its fully grown.

 

[frankrizzo787]

With that much GHA your actual nitrates are likely much higher than 6.5, they are just being used up very fast by the algae. When you gain control of the algae you will likely see higher nitrate and phosphate.

That makes sense, I'm going to do a water change tonight and get in the rocks and scrub them. Im learning so much about reef tanks its not even funny

 

[Bucs20fan]

Well the good news is GHA isnt an awful thing. Just needs to be controlled. Not a huge issue. Just dont ever let Nitrate fall to 0 for too long. Dose nitrates if you have to.

 

[WVNed]

Increase your flow and turn down your lights. There is a magic combination where your algae will grow slower than your CUC eats it and every thing else will be fine.

 

[frankrizzo787]

Increase your flow and turn down your lights. There is a magic combination where your algae will grow slower than your CUC eats it and every thing else will be fine.

I recently turned my lights down at 70% blue and 15% white, produces a par of around 70-100 throughout the tank. I had my whites at 50% before

 

[Johnz]

I have battled hair algae many times over the years, at least 6 or 7 times over the last decade. You will not defeat hair algae that has taken hold by reducing nutrients. It's too late for that. Below is my experience with different methods of removal.

Manual removal: This can help keep it in check, but you'll never keep up with it. Scrubbing the rocks will just spread it.

Hydrogen Peroxide: I've used it to spot treat areas in the tank with a small syringe, works ok for small sections but your tank is too far gone. Now if you can take those rocks out, treat with h2o2 and then put the rocks back after a quick rinse then that would work and be highly effective.

Clean up crew: Some people will disagree, but clean up crews are preventative only. I don't care how many snails or hermit crabs you buy, they're not gonna out pace that hair algae growth. A sea hare might work, but I've never had any luck with them. They seem to disappear before they put a dent in it. I did add a couple lettuce nudibranches one time that reproduced like crazy. I had a ton of the little guys and they did out pace the hair algae. Unfortunately as soon as they cleaned an area they let go of the rock and floated around until a pump got them. After a couple weeks I had no hair algae and no lettuce slugs either. I've never tried urchins, but I imagine you would need a ton of them.

Chemicals: When I just didn't have time to fuss with it, I would resort to Algaefix Marine. It works extremely well but it killed my snails. I learned to pull them out and put them in a bucket with an airstone and some nori before using it. No other bad effects. Chemicals are always risky but it's far better than an ugly tank or getting so fed up with the problem that you quit.

Either way, good luck!

 

[Reeferbadness]

Jekyl, What does dosing live Phyto do?

In my tank, live Phyto led to a spike in PO4 - anyone else experience this? Also - i stopped dosing Reef Roids - def led to higher PO4. Been stable at 0.02 for a couple of months now and algae is almost gone and acros/all corals are thriving.

 

[w8lifts]

This was major issue with my the ugly stage, microbacter 7 clean prevented it from growing more, turbo snails (very large tanks) eating helped, turned off all white lights and did random 48 hour lights out. Got it under control now. I tried vibrant and my sps was having non of that special formula.