hair algae out of control

[jimmypencil]

I’ve kept phosphate between .05-.1 and nitrate between 15-20 as I’ve seen negative results from corals when I go lower for months and I’ve only started to see hair algae take hold recently. I’ve seen negative results from corals when I go lower In nutrients and currently all my corals especially sps look great. The hair algae on the rocks is insane but the back wall and sand stay perfectly clean.


In my 50 gallon tank I have more than enough snails, crabs, a tomini tang, and a lawnmower Blenny.

What’s my best course of action? I’m open to keeping nutrients no higher than .05 po4 and 15 no3. Do I need to get a urchin? Am I missing something?

 

[shwareefer]

Are you sure it's not bryopsis? None of those things will eat it.

 

[jimmypencil]

Are you sure it's not bryopsis? None of those things will eat it.

Never even thought of that. Let me do some research. Can you tell from these pics?

 

[shwareefer]

Never even thought of that. Let me do some research. Can you tell from these pics?

I'm going to say yes. Search fluconazole. It's the answer.

 

[jimmypencil]

I'm going to say yes.

Gotcha, I’ll look into it but If you recommend any bryopsis remedies let me know.

 

[shwareefer]

I edited my post. fluconazole is the cure.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bryopsis-cure-my-battle-with-bryopsis-using-fluconazole.285096/

 

[yanni]

Looks more like turf algae. Does it break off easily without much effort? Or wiry, and needs a bit more effort to be pulled?

Either way, turf algae not much will eat, same with GHA, but fluzconazole is amazing. I've used it, had incredible results at 2x dose, no losses in livestock.

Any q's, please ask.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

I recently used fluzconazole and had major problems. My clown came down with a bacterial infection and my duncan and gonipora closed up so much I had to temporarily rehome them. Be prepared in case you have real issues to tackle.

 

[jimmypencil]

Looks more like turf algae. Does it break off easily without much effort? Or wiry, and needs a bit more effort to be pulled?

Either way, turf algae not much will eat, same with GHA, but fluzconazole is amazing. I've used it, had incredible results at 2x dose, no losses in livestock.

Any q's, please ask.

Thank you I’m going to look into this.

 

[jimmypencil]

I recently used fluzconazole and had major problems. My clown came down with a bacterial infection and my duncan and gonipora closed up so much I had to temporarily rehome them. Be prepared in case you have real issues to tackle.

Well great now I’m terrified!

 

[yanni]

Thank you I’m going to look into this.

I know others commented abt poor results, but overwhelming results are positive. It's an antifungal, so shouldn't cause bacterial infections. It can peeve off corals, but it general won't, what would close em up is rising po4 levels from algae die off. I ran GFO during treatment to remove the phos as it was put back into the water

 

[yanni]

If you have any q's, @ me here and I can run you through what I did for success

 

[yanni]

Went from pic 1, before treatment, to pic 2, probs 2 months post treatment. No reoccurrences

 

[exnisstech]

When I used flucanizole it did good on getting rid of gha but then cyano took over and was much worse than the gha. Rather than go to chemiclean and start cycle of adding chems I ended up doing a rip clean on the tank.

 

[yanni]

When I used flucanizole it did good on getting rid of gha but then cyano took over and was much worse than the gha. Rather than go to chemiclean and start cycle of adding chems I ended up doing a rip clean on the tank.

I had this as well. Just started dosed phyto and pods, large WCs, upped flow, and disappeared.

 

[Bruttall]

Reef Flux (Fluconazole) for the Bryopsis, it looks like little fern leaves, I am not sure you have Bryopsis, looks more like common GHA, but Reef Flux will eradicate both, along with any other GREEN Algae or Macro algae you have in the system. CAUTION, using this product removes the food source of a lot of snails and crabs.

For Cyano, Chemiclean works amazingly well to clear up the red slime if you follow directions on box, BUT IT DOES NOT SOLVE THE ISSUE THAT CREATES CYANO.

After cyano treatment, I added Chemi-Pure to my sump for more filtration with very good results, I am 8 or 9 weeks past cyano out break without a reoccurrence.

 

[Duzzy]

I’ve kept phosphate between .05-.1 and nitrate between 15-20 as I’ve seen negative results from corals when I go lower for months and I’ve only started to see hair algae take hold recently. I’ve seen negative results from corals when I go lower In nutrients and currently all my corals especially sps look great. The hair algae on the rocks is insane but the back wall and sand stay perfectly clean.


In my 50 gallon tank I have more than enough snails, crabs, a tomini tang, and a lawnmower Blenny.

What’s my best course of action? I’m open to keeping nutrients no higher than .05 po4 and 15 no3. Do I need to get a urchin? Am I missing something?

Do you have a refugium? I’d get an algae turf scrubber the advantage is massive

 

[SaracensRugby]

I used fluco twice on my gha in my 315 display, did nothing. If you look on BRS description, they say it does not work on all types of GHA. That was a $75 learning mistake on my part. Manually scrubbing, but may go to algae fix here soon.

 

[Pickle_soup]

In my opinion, when dealing with algae, the last thing I would want to do is add algaecide products. I think the risks surpass the benefits.

 

[SaracensRugby]

I don't disagree; that being said going armpit deep in a tank even with graspers, picking up heavy rocks, in a tank that is 36" wide is becoming a real pain. And I won't add sticks until I get this out of my system. The joys of this hobby.