Hair Algae!!! Calgon! Take me away!!!

Striike · Feb 23, 2010

Sorry for the late response, I've been busy as of late. I thought of killing the lights, but was worried about a spike Nitrates/nitrites because of the loss of biological filtration. I take it you didn't have an issue with this? How long did you leave them off?

Phin · Feb 23, 2010

You will be fine. Turn these off for a few days. Keep running your filtration/skimmer and you shouldn't notice any issues.

scouncil · Feb 24, 2010

I didn't think about a spike in Nitrates/trites and I left my refugium lights on. I didn't check, but I didn't notice any bad results from it. I left them off for an entire 3 days. I've seen other threads that suggest leaving the lights off for a few days to rest the corals/fish or something. I can't remember the reason why......

Striike · Mar 1, 2010

I'll give it a go (the lights). I've got some snails coming in too, so if it works for you, hopefully it will work for me.

tperk9784 · Mar 1, 2010

Striike said:
Sorry for the late response, I've been busy as of late. I thought of killing the lights, but was worried about a spike Nitrates/nitrites because of the loss of biological filtration. I take it you didn't have an issue with this? How long did you leave them off?

Curious how killing the lights would cause you to lose biological filtration. I wasn't aware light had anything to do with it.

Tim

ironman · Mar 1, 2010

Im not gonna claim to be an expert, but your lights are part of the photosynthetic process which is used by your corals and the algae. when you cut off your lights you will cause some drastic changes in the water paramiters that are affected by photosynthesis. It would take along time of no light to really take your water parameters way out though. I dont think the actual loss of light would cause the nitrates, but along way down the chain of events it could be a side affect. Anyway all that to say I dont think there is any real biological affect in leaving off the lights for several days.

Susan ive been doing some reading on phosphates as I have been fighting them as well here lately. killing the algae using lights and other methods isnt a fix as we know, and your phosphates are still high. What i am finding that I believe is my problem and most likely yours as well is a large undertaking to fix. We have both tried the large water changes, medias and other stuff to pull out the phosphates and they come right back. We need to get together and talk about what ive been reading up on.

tperk9784 · Mar 2, 2010

ironman said:
Im not gonna claim to be an expert, but your lights are part of the photosynthetic process which is used by your corals and the algae. when you cut off your lights you will cause some drastic changes in the water paramiters that are affected by photosynthesis. It would take along time of no light to really take your water parameters way out though. I dont think the actual loss of light would cause the nitrates, but along way down the chain of events it could be a side affect. Anyway all that to say I dont think there is any real biological affect in leaving off the lights for several days.

Susan ive been doing some reading on phosphates as I have been fighting them as well here lately. killing the algae using lights and other methods isnt a fix as we know, and your phosphates are still high. What i am finding that I believe is my problem and most likely yours as well is a large undertaking to fix. We have both tried the large water changes, medias and other stuff to pull out the phosphates and they come right back. We need to get together and talk about what ive been reading up on.

From what I have read when the algae dies it just releases it's phosphates back into the water column. I would think this would make them more available to be removed by some other means. I have seen pictures of devices in sumps where people let the algae grow on it to remove excess nutrients from the water then just harvest the algae periodically to remove them from the system permanently. I'll see if I can find a link to one.

Tim

(3 weeks till my move.) Looking forward to meeting you guys in person :)

ironman · Mar 2, 2010

you have either algae scrubbers or refugiums. both cultivate algaes to remove organics and phosphates from the water.

tperk9784 · Mar 2, 2010

Yep Ironman that is it the turf algae scrubber. Thye sound like they might be worth giving a try.

Striike · Mar 3, 2010

@tperk9784 I started a thread on that, its called ATS system. ATS for Algae Turf Scrubber.

@ironman, I'd like to hear about your research as well. I have recently changed to a RO/DI unit, but phosphates remain a consistent .5.

The algae itself forms because of certain elements in the water, like phosphates, nitrates, or just plain organic material. My original concern was killing the lights in the system would in turn eliminate the photo-synthetic process in the algae residing in the aquarium, so they would stop processing these elements, and cause their levels to quickly rise. My original plan to battle this algae was to out compete it with macro algae I have in my sump, but this has not proved as effective as I like, or I'm just impatient. I've had my lights off for 2 days now, and my buffed up cleaning crew is going to town. Plus I've got a lawnmower blenny in quarantine to be added in a couple of weeks.

But none of this solves the root cause, the generation of phosphates and nitrates in the water. I was hoping my solution was an RO/DI filter, but I don't think it is now. My thinking, is if the algae grows because of the phosphates, it should in turn consume the phosphates. Mine have remained, so something else is generating phosphates besides the water.

Paul_N · Mar 3, 2010

Strike you mention you used tap water. I did the same when I had a FOWLR setup. I switched to reef but used the same sand and rocks. I got an RO/DI unti but was still having nitrate and phophate issues. What happened was that the phosphates built up in the sand and rock and continue to leach out slowly. I was doing the right thing by only putting RO/DI water in my tank but it took a while for the phosphates leach out of the rocks and sand and rid them from my system. It literally took me over 9 months to get it under control. IMHO an RO/DI unit is a must or at least use the distilled or filtered water from the stores. I went the route of building a denitrator which got my nitrates down from 180 to 50 but I couldn't get past there until I started dosing vodka. I got my Nitrates to zero and according to test kits my phophates were zero but I still had hair algae. I picked up a used Hanna phosphate meter and there I saw the truth that my phosphates were 2.0 even though 3 different brand test kits told me zero. I kept on the vodka routine and it slowly dropped and is now in the .03-.07 range depending on how heavy I feed. Not saying v dosing is the answer for you but whatever method you use stick with it cause it will take awhile to get the phosphates out of the sand and rock. Just my .02..

Striike · Mar 3, 2010

Hey Paul, great insight, thank you. Btw, dosing vodka? I got a bottle in the cabinet, I'll have to look into this concept. I think you hit another mark for me as well. When I first set this tank up, I used uncured live rock to cycle my system, so my levels were through the roof for a while. I'm quite confident I have plenty of residual amounts remaining in my rock and sand from this. I set up my system around 6 months ago.

Striike · Mar 3, 2010

Vodka Dosing by 'Genetics' and 'Stony_Corals' - Reefkeeping.com

Link for vodka dosing I came across. I'm not going to try this right now. Changing too much too quickly can be adverse in itself. For now, I'm sticking with the above mentioned ideas.

scouncil · Mar 4, 2010

Thanks for the discussion. We do need to get together and discuss our systems and what's working and what's not.

Striike · Mar 5, 2010

Hi, have some to report. Lights are now back on after a fierce rock scrubbing followed by 3 days of lights out. I added in a platoon of snails, and a lawnmower blenny. I performed a 50% water change, and I am only using RO/DI water for top off and salt mixing.

So far, I seem to be winning, but will be able to tell better as time progresses. I have 24 more snails coming soon, they were out of stock, so once all is in I hope I'll have enough to keep the hair at bay. In the mean time, I'm going to continue a weekly water change to try and continue to lower my phosphates.

I'm hoping I'll be able to make the March meeting, so we can discuss there if you'd like.

Phin · Mar 5, 2010

Awesome news!

Striike · May 5, 2010

I wanted to follow up on this thread, and hopefully offer something to others that ever have this fight.

As you may have guessed, I am officially claiming victory over the hair algae. I did several things to battle it, and I'll list them from 1 most effective down to least effective. My methods may or may not work for you, but it worked for me.

1. Changing from tap water to RO/DI water. After reading phosphates can contribute to hair algae, I bought a test kit, and my tap water was coming out at .5 phosphates. So each water change was adding more. It took a while after switching to RO/DI since my rocks and sand had lots of phosphates in them leaching back into the water. Constant water changes eventually removed all of it.
2. Cleaned out protein skimmer. I don't have a top of the line skimmer, but I noticed the bubbles were kind of week in the skimmer. I discovered after taking it apart, that the intake of the skimmer was 70% restricted. Once I fixed it, not only did the hair algae die off, but I lost my Cheato as well since it was running so good.
3. Lights off for 3 days. At the time I didn't have any corals in the tank, but from what I've read even if you do you can get away with a couple days without lights. After the 3 days I performed a 50% water change and hand scraped as much off the rocks as I could.
4. Re-adjusted the rock work and powerheads to ensure plenty of flow both around and between the rocks.
5. Added 40 snails and a lawnmower blenny to the tank. This didn't really do much. The lawnmower munches from time to time, but not really effective. The snails seemed more interested in the glass. I say this wasn't effective since I had a bunch of starved (dead) hair algae but almost none disappeared.

I'm now stuck with a bunch of dead hair algae on my rock work. I took a tooth brush, and a siphon leading to the sump through a foam filter, and scraped off some every other day. Starting to see some coraline growth under were the hair algae used to be. These steps worked for me, hopefully they will help someone else too.

fullmonti · May 5, 2010

I think the air intake of skimmers get clogged routinely, salt creep etc. I unplug my skimmer for a few mins every time I clean the cup/neck, if not within two weeks the bubbles get week as you observed.