Hair algae

[sarah3188]

Any ideas on how to get rid of hair algae? It seems to have over taken my tank!

 

[mike007]

Test your water and lets see what it shows. Algae is usally caused by excees nutrients in the water. Overfeeding is normally what i see. Phosphates,poor lighting and a host of other things can cause hair algae. Need to know what water you are using and test results then we can help.

 

[Reef Keeper 18]

We had terrible hair algae, got to the point where it all had to be taken down, rinsed, dried,bleached, dried, rinsed, dried, then cycle with live bacteria before beign added to my display. Long process but it worked

 

[Bartmmackey]

Look at this link it works:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/how-i-beat-dinoflagellates-and-the-lessons-i-learned

Don't freak on the blackout and no food for 72hrs....everything will be fine.

 

[sarah3188]

I will get some water results for ya, we may end up trying cleaning out the rock. That link takes me to a website for waterproofing phones and stuff?

 

[sarah3188]

That link is working now, nm

 

[MelissaKathryn]

Ours broke out with the addition of new live rock and brand new hamilton bulbs in our halides and turning them on full blast right away for like 10 hrs a day. we turned the lights off, ripped out as much HA as we could, and purchased 10 huge turbo snails (8 went in our 55 gal aquarium, 2 in our 15 gal refugium) and a lawnmower blenny. After that, it cleared up within a week. We also got a phosphate absorbing crystals orr something and they went in a sock thing in our refugium. I am sure someone else can expand better on that. lol Good luck! it is so frustrating but totally worth it when you conquer it!

 

[sarah3188]

Thanks for the advice! We have a 90 gallon with a ton of snails and crabs, I've been looking at some fish (like the lawnmower blenny) that could help, too hopefully we get it taken care of soon!

 

[mike007]

If you can get a counch they are like lawnmowers.

 

[sarah3188]

Ill check that out!

 

[MelissaKathryn]

oh we have a fighting conch too! We had smaller turbo snails before.. we prob have about 60 crabs and snails total.. but these big ones were literally lawnmowers! they had an entire back wall cleared in just one night! the LFS would take HA from their other tanks and feed it to the snails lol i've heard yellow tangs are awesome at removing HA, too.

 

[sarah3188]

Cool thanks! I'll might try getting some!

 

[divewsharks]

You have excess phosphates. Water changes and run GFO. Putting creatures in that eat the algae clear the symptoms but doesn't solve the issue. If you want to keep it from coming back, control the nutrients in the tank.
It's not a hard battle to win.

 

[Bartmmackey]

Sorry if the other link went wonky
How I beat dinoflagellates, and the lessons I learned ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

 

[maidia]

Just manual pick the HA as most as you can, run the GFO and put a lot of Real Mexican Turbo. It's help. If not then you need to clean all the rock out.