Green hair algae

[Austinp42]

I have a 50 gallon innovative marine and it’s been up and running for about 7 months now and I noticed when doing a water change yesterday that I’m starting to get some green hair algae was wondering how can I get the jump on it before it gets really bad.

 

[Tommy B]

Urchins do the most work on hair algae for me. tuxedo urchins are good, pincushions are voracious in my experience.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Beef up the clean up crew, make sure your not overfeeding and keep the nutrients in check, make sure all equipment is clean and functioning optimally.

 

[jpmazzone]

Can you post a picture of your tank? I have the same tank as you and mine was so overrun with GHA that I gave up and I am getting ready to start a second tank. I've researched the mistakes I made and may be able to offer some information that I learned. The shape of this tank presents some challenges to getting detritus in the water column so I am interested to see how you've set up your flow and how you export your nutrients. It would be helpful to know what your maintenance routine is and if you've recently made any large changes.

 

[higher99]

I have diatoms on my sandbed and my tank is about 2 months old at the moment. When should I expect a overun of GHA? I also suspect my nutrients are bottomed out since my zoas are not opening.

 

[jpmazzone]

New tanks like yours will experience "the uglies" as bacteria populations grow and balance each other out. The only way to really avoid that is to seed a new aquarium with really good live rock from a vendor like Tampa Bay Live Rock. You may not have an overrun of GHA but you should really test your parameters like phosphate and nitrate. I don't think Zoa's absolutely need higher nitrates to open up but they benefit from those higher nitrates to grow faster.

 

[bushdoc]

I agree with Tommy B, urchins are great, they work for both my 100 and 20 gallon tanks.

 

[MC Blowfish]

Urchins as well as turbo snails. Though if you're overran with GHA. You'll want to get in there and manually remove most of it.