Hair Algae: The Best Way, The MANY Ways, To Get Rid Of It....

[CrazyCatLady]

We used to have a sea hare (Simon) who was a CHAMP at cleaning up the GHA. He was so good at his job that he ran out of things to eat, so we traded him at the LFS for some rock. I miss that little booger.

 

[saltyhog]

I am blessed to have a Gold Rim tang that literally eats any kind of algae. My overflow is full of GHA, aiptasia and bubble algae. My display has none! I did have to get a couple of emerald crabs to eat the bubble algae in the tiny crevices the tang can't get to. My filefish takes care of the aiptasia. I may have him spend some time in the overflow. ;Smuggrin

He even eats chaeto if it finds it's way in to the tank.....looks like a kid eating spaghetti!

My overflow just now.

My DT just now.

A picture of my algae control specialist.

 

[kemble9]

Had hair algae growth a few months ago.. it took over my tank. I covered the tank for 3 days to avoid any light coming into the tank. This helped dramatically. I then would scrape and siphon during water changes. I added a powder brown tang and a larger clean up crew as well. After about 1-2 months of fighting it, my tank looks great!

 

[MnFish1]

Hair Algae: The Best Way To Get Rid Of It Is?

Hydrogen peroxide, Lawn Mower Blenny, Manual Removal, Rock Scrubbing, Lowered Phosphates, Tank Blackouts, Urchins, Fluconazole, Granular Ferric Oxide (GFO), UV Sterilizer, Refugium, Algae Scrubber, Clean Up Crew, Lighting Change, Sea Hare, Vibrant etc.

Wait, WHAT?!

There are many reasons as to why you might get an outbreak of hair algae in your tank and along with that many ways that you can also eliminate it. But today let's NOT talk about why you have had a hair algae outbreak but the best ways and methods, you have found, that work best to get rid of it!

What have you found to be the best thing (or combo of things) that finally got rid of your hair algae outbreak?

Before and After by @bwomac44

IMHO - there is no one solution. @brandon429 has had much success taking out rocks and scrubbing/H2O2-ing them. and replacing. I think the biggest 'help' is covering potential 'hair algae' growing places with coral or rock or something else is the best solution. The places I see hair algae - on here - and in my tank - are places where coral is not growing. There is an open rock - something is going to grow. There are many tanks here that are 99 percent open rock - and IMHO - hair algae, Dinos, etc will grow there. 'Nature finds a way'. Find something to outcompete - some like a refugium (I gave up on that). Hopefully this helps

 

[MERKEY]

Time
Fish
Scrubber

Nothing magical.....

Wish it was easier

 

[brandon429]

I truly believe one day they'll invent a doser that beats dinos but they'll never beat gha by and large


its as selected for in our reefs as corals, same niche/eons of prep and practice. that being said I really enjoy watching those who are not playing around with it lol re Cook's recent surgical run:

Build Thread - Cook's 105 Planet Aquariums Crystaline Reef - 48x20

These are images from this evening. I have done nothing other than protein skim and feed the tank since the cleaning. I will be doing a water change this weekend. There is some algae stubble in a couple of areas. The sand has some diatom blooming as well. I added new rinsed sand along with...

www.reef2reef.com

he was certainly not joking around that day. algae/got the boot

for today the best we can do to help in suppression is blue up the lights, less whites, and have a clean sandbed and jetted out detritus-free rocks. we think that's GHA feed

hard work to attain that condition agreed

its the price of not reefing in the ocean, we're bound to store up some wastes and a plant is bound to capitalize on that.

 

[GoReefin]

Should make a thread like this for briopsis... as far as green hair algae a good clean up crew has kept it in check for me.

 

[Waters]

Only invert I have used that has tackled long hair algae is a Sea Hare. Other than that, just manual removal so it is short enough that the other inverts want to eat it. Also lots of blowing out junk with a turkey baster from the holes in the rock.

 

[sfin52]

Where's the option for fish

 

[sfin52]

Foxface and kole tang plus assorted hermits, emerald crab sea hare and urchin. Has kept algea in check.

 

[Dom]

Identifying and removing the source of nutrition.

 

[LRT]

Super clean 0tds source water.
Dosing phosphates.
Scrubbing and power blasting my old reef rock with tap. Believe it or not its made the biggest impact to date.
Scrubbing and cleaning my racks, plugs and discs.
Turf scrubber.
I've systematically got it growing where I want it and slowly losing foot hold to coraline where I dont want it.

Do not sleep on good source water. You will def get out what you put in. For me its been a year long battle with just about every nasty thing that could possible grow on my reef. Slowly winning the fight though.

 

[ADAM]

There is a bit of a few that apply, but time and patience are the main things I used. Now manual removal and lowering nutrients would be the two closest related; assuming you have a good cleanup crew in place. By watching what your feeding, including any liquid coral foods/additives, and manually removing the growth that you can during water changes or recycle filtering (siphoning water out through a filter pad/sock to catch the debris and adding water back to the aquarium) you are exporting the nutrients absorbed by the algae, and over a little time the reduced input and removal of algae will inhibit the growth rate of new algae and the system can regain a better balance. The patience part is not about the time this takes as much as it speaks to not getting frustrated and start over filtering the system to the point you strip away all the nutrients and end up with whole new issue to deal with.... ask me how i know this!

 

[Giancarlo_f]

Tang gang

 

[Giancarlo_f]

Tang gang

In fact, I would never start a tank too small to have surgeonfish... or at least house a small tang to be transferred into a larger tank down the road. Just makes algae management a breeze.

 

[MnFish1]

Super clean 0tds source water.
Dosing phosphates.
Scrubbing and power blasting my old reef rock with tap. Believe it or not its made the biggest impact to date.
Scrubbing and cleaning my racks, plugs and discs.
Turf scrubber.
I've systematically got it growing where I want it and slowly losing foot hold to coraline where I dont want it.

Do not sleep on good source water. You will def get out what you put in. For me its been a year long battle with just about every nasty thing that could possible grow on my reef. Slowly winning the fight though.

NO offense - I dont understand this post... What does 'blasting my old reef rock with tap' mean (assume you mean out of the tank lol).

2. Where would you want 'hair algae' (the topic) to grow?

3. Curious - why do you think adding phosphates helps?

Congrats - that you're getting it where you want...!!!!

 

[Sunny in Miami]

Hair Algae: The Best Way To Get Rid Of It Is?

Hydrogen peroxide, Lawn Mower Blenny, Manual Removal, Rock Scrubbing, Lowered Phosphates, Tank Blackouts, Urchins, Fluconazole, Granular Ferric Oxide (GFO), UV Sterilizer, Refugium, Algae Scrubber, Clean Up Crew, Lighting Change, Sea Hare, Vibrant etc.

Wait, WHAT?!

There are many reasons as to why you might get an outbreak of hair algae in your tank and along with that many ways that you can also eliminate it. But today let's NOT talk about why you have had a hair algae outbreak but the best ways and methods, you have found, that work best to get rid of it!

What have you found to be the best thing (or combo of things) that finally got rid of your hair algae outbreak?

Before and After by @bwomac44

What I found out is that by eliminating my red channel on my AI lights and as I can remember yellow and green also, that the algae started to receed like the wicked witch melting away on The Wizard of Oz. Yeah no kidding! Within in days there was nothing left.

 

[ScottB]

Go one spot foxface for the win. Zebrasomas for backup and good looks.

 

[schuby]

Maybe I've been lucky, but I've never had bad GHA in my current, 2-year-old tank, started from dry rock, live sand, and Dr Tim's One and Only. I had several Tangs from the beginning, a CUC of mostly snails, chaeto refugium, and a skimmer. I did have a lot of bubble algae (probably from an SPS frag), seemingly in every crevice, but would never have called it "overrun".

What I've found is that as I've increased my biodiversity (artificially and primarily with a shipment from IPSF.com of WonderMud, bristle-worms, mini brittle-stars, and spaghetti worms) is that I have less and less algae growing anywhere. I still have some bubble algae, but it is not growing much if at all. I'm very happy to have sponges growing in my rock copepods swimming, and amphipods scurrying around.

My first tank was started with all live rock in 2004. I had no idea how amazing live rock is, with all of its bio-diversity, until this tank.

 

[LRT]

NO offense - I dont understand this post... What does 'blasting my old reef rock with tap' mean (assume you mean out of the tank lol).

2. Where would you want 'hair algae' (the topic) to grow?

3. Curious - why do you think adding phosphates helps?

Congrats - that you're getting it where you want...!!!!

All good great questions.
Yes I mean removing my 20 yr old ocean rock. Scrubbing with plastic kitchen brush and power blasting it with regular old tap water in bath tub with high pressure attachment for 5-15 seconds depending on size of rock. You wouldnt believe what came out of crevices that where there long before it came to me. Pretty sure I seen an old dinosaur fossil in the drain. Where ever the nasties where growing, cleaning and blasting them with tap water has coraline growing and taking over now. Some just over night and not even full light cycle.
Absolutely dosing phosphates is helping me in my battle..
I want green.
I wish I have been battling gha tbh. I can't wait for my nasties to turn green its alot more easier to deal with than brown, purple, red, reddish brown and you name it.
By getting it to grow where I want it would be on turf scrubber and not all over my rocks, plugs, discs and racks.