Hair algea in a 4 year old tank.

[cdemoss01]

I have had a 65 gallon saltwater Marineland reef tank. For years I have been battling hair algae, and right now a bad infestation of brown algae on my glass. It is scrapable, but the hair algae wont go away, it always comes back in a bloom, my parameters are fine, and I have been dosing Reef Elixir for months. Sometimes it goes away but it always comes back. What do I do?

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Pics and water parameters would be useful for diagnosis and treatment .

 

[BanZI29]

check out this thread. Some one else had the same issue before.

What type of snail eats green hair algae

What type of snail eats green hair algae ?

www.reef2reef.com

 

[cdemoss01]

I will try to get pictures when I get out of work today.

 

[cdemoss01]

Pics and water parameters would be useful for diagnosis and treatment .

I dont know why it wont go away

 

[Rick's Reviews]

From my understanding and also battling this (4 years also in a 45g tank)
is that no cuc will eat any hair algae after it grows to a certain length. For me I find the best method of removel is gloves on and hands in, I manually remove as much as possible with fingers 'pinch and twist' and catch/suck up any floaty bits with turkey baster, then I work from the furthest point away from my filters. I will say I do this before my regular water change/ filter clean. Then just toothbrush the remains working in quarter sections of my tank each time/ before a water change and filter clean, I'm close to being on top of it and my tuxedo urchin loves to help and often uses it as camouflage, helps me with hard to reach places

 

[cdemoss01]

These are the best pictures I can get but if you can see it there is hair algae mostly on one side, and bubble algae on the other side, the glass is covered in brown algae which is very hard to remove

 

[Pickle_soup]

Bruh, I am not going to sugar coat it, but it looks like you haven't changed the water in months. And it looks like your tank has many dead spots where detritus gathers.

 

[jsker]

Your nitrates are high. I cut back on feeding and run carbon dosing of vodka to neutralize the waste from the fish.

This wold be a good start.

 

[cdemoss01]

Thank you both

 

[cdemoss01]

My mom has threatened to get rid of the tank, I am a very young hobbyist and I’m trying to get it back up to standards.

 

[cdemoss01]

Bruh, I am not going to sugar coat it, but it looks like you haven't changed the water in months. And it looks like your tank has many dead spots where detritus gathers.

What do you mean by dead spots and what is detritus? I changed my water earlier last month. The water isn’t cloudy the glass has that brown stuff on it.

 

[Rick's Reviews]

I think, if this my aquriam I would genuinely rip clean, just my opinion.

It looks like only GSP coral in aquriam along with hairy snails so I don't think you have much to loose, I honestly thought it was a small issue (my pictures is worst I could find, over 2 years ago), I persisted every 2 weeks to clear all/ as much as possible in the method previously advised.

I honestly think either a total rip clean or sell up.
if your still interested in this hobby maybe try a nano tank or similar so it's easier for you to manage

 

[cdemoss01]

I simply cannot do a rip clean, that would send my parents over the edge and they’d never let me do it again. I have three fish, marble wrasse, royal gramma, and a lone clownfish. The hair algae has died down. With maintenance and dosing reef elixer. My nitrates are usually always never perfect. I just want to be able to clean the tank and get it successful

 

[Uncle99]

“Parameters fine”
Apparently not, and certainly unstable.
Without this data, corrections cannot be safely made.
You need to know the starting point to effect corrections which is usually 99% of reef issues.

 

[Rick's Reviews]

I simply cannot do a rip clean, that would send my parents over the edge and they’d never let me do it again. I have three fish, marble wrasse, royal gramma, and a lone clownfish. The hair algae has died down. With maintenance and dosing reef elixer. My nitrates are usually always never perfect. I just want to be able to clean the tank and get it successful

If your willing to do it and keep on top of it then the only option is.. in my opinion, hands on/ in.

What filtration system do you have, hob, cannister, sumps, pumps, skimmers etc

 

[BranchingHammer]

I'm surprised no one asked this yet... Are you using tap water or rodi to make your water and for top off? Sometimes using tap water can fuel algae blooms. I would recommend taking the rocks that you can out one by one and scrubbing them in a bucket with a tooth brush and then rinsing them with clean saltwater. I would also scrape the glass with a razor blade or a similar scraper, and then do a large water change (30% or so). That will help reset your tank a bit and make it easier to take your tank back.

I totally understand the feeling when the tank looks really dirty and you kind of feel hopeless on how to clean it. I started this hobby when I was very young too and I struggled with maintaining the algae in my tank and had to do a lot of "rip cleans" where I scrubbed all the rocks and did large water changes. One thing that helped me a lot was switching to RODI water, it made my algae issues a lot easier to manage.

One other thing, what type of filtration are you using? You might want to upgrade it (skimmer, larger HOB, canister, etc.) or increase routine maintenance on it. Like others said, I would increase the flow as well so that you have less dead spots where decaying material can collect and so the filtration can remove particles more easily.

YOU CAN DEFINITELY MAKE THIS TANK LOOK REALLY GOOD! Don't hesitate to ask any questions if you want any advice, we are always here to help you!

 

[cdemoss01]

I'm surprised no one asked this yet... Are you using tap water or rodi to make your water and for top off? Sometimes using tap water can fuel algae blooms. I would recommend taking the rocks that you can out one by one and scrubbing them in a bucket with a tooth brush and then rinsing them with clean saltwater. I would also scrape the glass with a razor blade or a similar scraper, and then do a large water change (30% or so). That will help reset your tank a bit and make it easier to take your tank back.

I totally understand the feeling when the tank looks really dirty and you kind of feel hopeless on how to clean it. I started this hobby when I was very young too and I struggled with maintaining the algae in my tank and had to do a lot of "rip cleans" where I scrubbed all the rocks and did large water changes. One thing that helped me a lot was switching to RODI water, it made my algae issues a lot easier to manage.

One other thing, what type of filtration are you using? You might want to upgrade it (skimmer, larger HOB, canister, etc.) or increase routine maintenance on it. Like others said, I would increase the flow as well so that you have less dead spots where decaying material can collect and so the filtration can remove particles more easily.

YOU CAN DEFINITELY MAKE THIS TANK LOOK REALLY GOOD! Don't hesitate to ask any questions if you want any advice, we are always here to help you!

I am running a Tidal filter with kessel lighting… I also have two flow pumps in the tank with two fluval heaters. Thank you for the support with this, I have gotten hopeless before but I haven’t given up. I use RODI water to fill the tank up. I never let the tank go down you can barely ever see the top of the water when you’re looking at the tank. It’s always as full as I can get it. I have tried a sea hare, it died a day later unknown cause. The fish are healthy, and livley. And my coral is growing like crazy. I want to redo my entire aquascape when I get the algae taken care of. I have no skimmer should I buy one?

 

[Rick's Reviews]

I am running a Tidal filter with kessel lighting… I also have two flow pumps in the tank with two fluval heaters. Thank you for the support with this, I have gotten hopeless before but I haven’t given up. I use RODI water to fill the tank up. I never let the tank go down you can barely ever see the top of the water when you’re looking at the tank. It’s always as full as I can get it. I have tried a sea hare, it died a day later unknown cause. The fish are healthy, and livley. And my coral is growing like crazy. I want to redo my entire aquascape when I get the algae taken care of. I have no skimmer should I buy one?

I have looked at tidal filters and they are quite easily taken apart to clean, I assume this is only filter you have so I would definitely start with cleaning this first. there is loads of surface skimmers available for approximately £10-£20, these will definitely help in the process of removing your hair algae and I also recommend these as an additional filter moving forward. Once all filters are cleaned, I would set a goal of a weekly clean out. every week I'm going to pinch and pull all 'grass' gha that I can possible, I'm going to scrub a quarter of my rock with a toothbrush working from furthest away from your filters, in one hour clean filters again l

 

[Rick's Reviews]

I have looked at tidal filters and they are quite easily taken apart to clean, I assume this is only filter you have so I would definitely start with cleaning this first. there is loads of surface skimmers available for approximately £10-£20, these will definitely help in the process of removing your hair algae and I also recommend these as an additional filter moving forward. Once all filters are cleaned, I would set a goal of a weekly clean out. every week I'm going to pinch and pull all 'grass' gha that I can possible, I'm going to scrub a quarter of my rock with a toothbrush working from furthest away from your filters, in one hour clean filters again l

Or hands all in all day and pinch pull scub, clean filters every hour, repeat..... then 50% water change, I honestly wish you the best, if I was your neighbour, I would be happy to do it