Green hair algae

aiden.

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Can you put hydrogen peroxide in the tank
Is it safe? Because I have an outbreak and it’s not going away. Or?
 

JZ199

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There are a lot safer methods to help combat GHA... How old is your tank, what's your lighting set up, parameters, filtration, live stock/tank size, any clean up crew?
 

ZoWhat

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Can you put hydrogen peroxide in the tank
Is it safe? Because I have an outbreak and it’s not going away. Or?
Oh my gosh... you need to do deep dive research into "how to control nitrates and phosphates" for you to be successful

Read read read read past articles on that subject for like a month to educate yourself
 
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aiden.

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There are a lot safer methods to help combat GHA... How old is your tank, what's your lighting set up, parameters, filtration, live stock/tank size, any clean up crew?
Tank is 8 months 36 gallon bow front with 30 gallons of water I have a coralife led coral light nitrate is at 10-15 ppm , ammonia is at 0 ppm, nitrite is at 0 ppm, height range ph is 8.2-8.4 ppm, running on a Fluval 407 canister filter I have a sailfin tang small, royal gramma, melanaurus wrasse, 3 chromis, 2 clowns, midas Blenny and a black cap jaw-fish and snails no corals. I do have an air pump on it because my fish keep passing out if I don’t have it on. That’s could also be another reason for the GHA outbreak. Also running a UV sterilizer. Tank temp is 72 degrees at night to 75 degrees during the day.
 

Yates273

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Tank is 8 months 36 gallon bow front with 30 gallons of water I have a coralife led coral light nitrate is at 10-15 ppm , ammonia is at 0 ppm, nitrite is at 0 ppm, height range ph is 8.2-8.4 ppm, running on a Fluval 407 canister filter I have a sailfin tang small, royal gramma, melanaurus wrasse, 3 chromis, 2 clowns, midas Blenny and a black cap jaw-fish and snails no corals. I do have an air pump on it because my fish keep passing out if I don’t have it on. That’s could also be another reason for the GHA outbreak. Also running a UV sterilizer. Tank temp is 72 degrees at night to 75 degrees during the day.
Uh oh. Your tank is waaay overloaded with fish. You need a bigger tank first of all. As for GHA try the natural methods first. Don’t just dump something in your tank. A clean tank takes a long time and when I say clean I mean you’re still going to have some algae but it won’t be overrun with the nuisance algae. Take a step back before you dump peroxide in and begin by weekly water changes as well as manual removal. The natural approach is def. Better. I fought GHA for 7 -8 months. It does get discouraging, but you can do it. I do have to admit I finally decided to try Vibrant for a month and I can happily say after such a long time my tank is GHA free, but I tried everything from snails to sea hares to manual removal which included vacuuming and several fish that had no interest. Good luck in whatever you choose to do, but you def need a larger tank for all those fish.
 

mnl119

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Uh oh. Your tank is waaay overloaded with fish.
Maybe it's just me, but most of the fish listed are pretty small to say that it's overloaded. His nitrates are only 10-15 ppm. It's been a while since I had a tank that small though, so take this with a grain of salt (pun intended).

Anyway, hair algae is mostly associated with high phosphates. The original poster does not say what his levels are at, but I'm guessing they need to be reduced.

Are water changes being done with RODI water? Most tap water contains trace amounts of phosphates/nitrates. I would recommend increased water changes with RODI water and see if that helps. May take a few months.
 

fish farmer

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If you are having to run an air stone to keep your fish from passing out.....you have to many fish or not enough aeration. I assume no skimmer, which would aerate and also help in removing waste before it turns into algae. Since you have many mouths to feed I'm assuming you are feeding a lot which may be contributing to the algae. You need to work on a good export method to combat the algae.
 

vetteguy53081

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Tank is 8 months 36 gallon bow front with 30 gallons of water I have a coralife led coral light nitrate is at 10-15 ppm , ammonia is at 0 ppm, nitrite is at 0 ppm, height range ph is 8.2-8.4 ppm, running on a Fluval 407 canister filter I have a sailfin tang small, royal gramma, melanaurus wrasse, 3 chromis, 2 clowns, midas Blenny and a black cap jaw-fish and snails no corals. I do have an air pump on it because my fish keep passing out if I don’t have it on. That’s could also be another reason for the GHA outbreak. Also running a UV sterilizer. Tank temp is 72 degrees at night to 75 degrees during the day.
This I can tell is not a reef ready tank and has no sump.
Are you regularly servicing this canister unit? If you dont clean it every 2-3 weeks, you are quickly building nitrates which will feed this algae.
Additionally is the tank at or near a window?

Corallife light is literally all white and likely supporting the algae growth. How many hours a day is this light on ?
Are you using tap water from the faucet or RODI water ?
What is your phosphate level ?

Please answer questions before starting this below to find and prevent the cause.


I would place it in a container of tank water and pull off as much as you can and scrub the rest with a firm toothbrush and some 3% hydrogen peroxide.
Return to tank, reduce white light intensity and number of hours of white lighting and add some snails such as :
Astrea
cerith
turbo grazer
trochus

A Pencil urchin

8-10 Caribbean blue leg hermits
 
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Seansea

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Fish shouldnt be passing out. that hair algae is making plenty of oxygen. Lol. And eating the nitrates and phosphates. And keeping his ph high. To be honest while it looks gross thats actually good for your fish. Need to remove the top stuff cuz the stuff underneath dies then you got big probs. Get a algae scrubber especially with this fish only tank. Make that hair algae grow elsewhere besides your tank and you and your fish will be happy.
 

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Maybe it's just me, but most of the fish listed are pretty small to say that it's overloaded. His nitrates are only 10-15 ppm. It's been a while since I had a tank that small though, so take this with a grain of salt (pun intended).

Anyway, hair algae is mostly associated with high phosphates. The original poster does not say what his levels are at, but I'm guessing they need to be reduced.

Are water changes being done with RODI water? Most tap water contains trace amounts of phosphates/nitrates. I would recommend increased water changes with RODI water and see if that helps. May take a few months.
Their nitrates are not likely 10-15ppm. That's 10-15ppm after the massive amount of GHA in the tank sucks most of it up. I'd imagine it's 10x that if you sucked/scraped out all of the GHA at once.

Best bet here is to manually remove and work on controlling nutrients.

1. Run PhosGuard or GFO (as long as you don't go to zero)
2. Scrape out all of the GHA from the glass and flat surfaces
3. Take the rocks out one by one. Use paper towels to grab and rip off all of the GHA--paper towel works well because you can get it pulled out in clumps close to the root.
4. Take a spray bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide and spray it over the surface of the rocks--don't soak the rocks; let it sit for a minute or two then back in the tank--you'll see lots of bubbles.
5. In your case, I'd add a bit of bottled bacteria just because those rocks don't look like live rock that's well-populated with diverse bacteria (that, or I can't see the rocks well enough to see if they are dry or live).
6. Get a protein skimmer and get that thing running.
7. Research stronger filters, because that tank has a lot of fish and thus lots of fish waste to remove.
8. Turbo snails, dwarf ceriths (for the tight spaces) and a tuxedo urchin... once you take all of the GHA down to the rocks, they will keep it from overgrowing again.
 

joeman829

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How big are the fish? If the fish aren’t that big, then you may have a crowded tank, but not a massive bio load like some are saying.
 

mnl119

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Their nitrates are not likely 10-15ppm. That's 10-15ppm after the massive amount of GHA in the tank sucks most of it up. I'd imagine it's 10x that if you sucked/scraped out all of the GHA at once.

Best bet here is to manually remove and work on controlling nutrients.

1. Run PhosGuard or GFO (as long as you don't go to zero)
2. Scrape out all of the GHA from the glass and flat surfaces
3. Take the rocks out one by one. Use paper towels to grab and rip off all of the GHA--paper towel works well because you can get it pulled out in clumps close to the root.
4. Take a spray bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide and spray it over the surface of the rocks--don't soak the rocks; let it sit for a minute or two then back in the tank--you'll see lots of bubbles.
5. In your case, I'd add a bit of bottled bacteria just because those rocks don't look like live rock that's well-populated with diverse bacteria (that, or I can't see the rocks well enough to see if they are dry or live).
6. Get a protein skimmer and get that thing running.
7. Research stronger filters, because that tank has a lot of fish and thus lots of fish waste to remove.
8. Turbo snails, dwarf ceriths (for the tight spaces) and a tuxedo urchin... once you take all of the GHA down to the rocks, they will keep it from overgrowing again.
What you are describing will likely kill off the cycle causing ammonia to spike. I've used the bacteria bottles... I've never had them work immediately in a crowded tank.
 

JoJosReef

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What you are describing will likely kill off the cycle causing ammonia to spike. I've used the bacteria bottles... I've never had them work immediately in a crowded tank.
They've had the tank for 8 months... but I actually see your point, because it doesn't look like there's any bioballs or live rock in a separate "sump"-like area to house a bacterial population.

Perhaps one rock at a time?

I don't think CUC will bother with that long GHA, and the risk of controlling nutrients to kill off GHA is overcontrolling them and then ending up with dinos. Maybe worth advising OP to strap in and get ready for a long slog?
 

Cyanohater

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Tank is 8 months 36 gallon bow front with 30 gallons of water I have a coralife led coral light nitrate is at 10-15 ppm , ammonia is at 0 ppm, nitrite is at 0 ppm, height range ph is 8.2-8.4 ppm, running on a Fluval 407 canister filter I have a sailfin tang small, royal gramma, melanaurus wrasse, 3 chromis, 2 clowns, midas Blenny and a black cap jaw-fish and snails no corals. I do have an air pump on it because my fish keep passing out if I don’t have it on. That’s could also be another reason for the GHA outbreak. Also running a UV sterilizer. Tank temp is 72 degrees at night to 75 degrees during the day.
tank is massively overcrowded that's why fish keep passing out and probably the cause of the gha
 

mnl119

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They've had the tank for 8 months... but I actually see your point, because it doesn't look like there's any bioballs or live rock in a separate "sump"-like area to house a bacterial population.

Perhaps one rock at a time?

I don't think CUC will bother with that long GHA, and the risk of controlling nutrients to kill off GHA is overcontrolling them and then ending up with dinos. Maybe worth advising OP to strap in and get ready for a long slog?
I've been battling for about 5 months now. Finally got it under control... never had much in the way of nitrates (always less than 5 ppm) but phosphates got kinda high (or were when I originally set up the tank... just never measured til the hair algae appeared). I went to weekly 15-20% water (RODI) changes and saw significant die off/recession after a couple months. My tank is a 125 gallon with maybe 20 in the sump. I don't have near the bio load of the original poster though.

I did resort to scrubbing some of the rocks, but one at a time, as you've suggested. This helped.
 

vetteguy53081

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Tank is 8 months 36 gallon bow front with 30 gallons of water I have a coralife led coral light nitrate is at 10-15 ppm , ammonia is at 0 ppm, nitrite is at 0 ppm, height range ph is 8.2-8.4 ppm, running on a Fluval 407 canister filter I have a sailfin tang small, royal gramma, melanaurus wrasse, 3 chromis, 2 clowns, midas Blenny and a black cap jaw-fish and snails no corals. I do have an air pump on it because my fish keep passing out if I don’t have it on. That’s could also be another reason for the GHA outbreak. Also running a UV sterilizer. Tank temp is 72 degrees at night to 75 degrees during the day.
With this much algae your readings Have to be higher than you show. Are you by chance using API test kits?
Your temperature needs to come up to at least 77 degrees.
Once again:
Are you regularly servicing this canister unit? If you dont clean it every 2-3 weeks, you are quickly building nitrates which will feed this algae.
Additionally is the tank at or near a window?


Corallife light is literally all white and likely supporting the algae growth. How many hours a day is this light on ?
Are you using tap water from the faucet or RODI water ?
What is your phosphate level ?
 

vetteguy53081

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Don't think I've ever seen a fish "pass out". What's this like? Do they come back to life?
I think his description is in regard to amount of algae in tank and low dissolved oxygen and air stone perking them up supports the low oxygen.
 

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