Hair Algea with bubbles?

[rpkneumann]

Please see video.
I have a hair algea outbreak which I try conquering by scrubbing rocks every couple of weeks. I most likely caused it by overfeeding. I changed from hakiri cubes to self made food. That is a lot richer.
My nitrate levels jumped to about 40.
Reducing food supply and also reducing lighting hours to get control of this. The tank started in September but has not gone through the usually “the bad, the ugly and the good” phase with Algea.

I did notice when all pumps and wave makers are off that the Algea produces a steady stream of rising bubble ???
Anybody know what that is?

Hair Algea Bubbles:

 

[Uncle99]

You mentioned no water chemistry information which is usually the cause.

Describe parameters and how you keep them stable.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Thats a lot of algae. Algae produces oxygen during the day as part of photosythesis, thats what the bubbles are. But at night it releases carbon and absorbs oxygen, so hope you have good oxygenation in the tank or fish can suffer or even die at night.

Its all about nutrient import vs export, have a look over your system or post some details for advise, but you might need to upgrade your filtration system. I feed my fish 3 -4 times a day, small amounts, only as much as they can eat in 20-30 seconds. Don't let any food rot in the water, this is main source of fuel for algae.

 

[rpkneumann]

Can’t feed 3 or four times. Twice the right amount needs to do it. I went from 6 gr per feeding to 4 gr per feeding. They eat everything within 30 secs. The filtration is a roller filter and skimmer which are operating just fine.
Open for more suggestions.

 

[rpkneumann]

You mentioned no water chemistry information which is usually the cause.

Describe parameters and how you keep them stable.

Here are my values, They stabilized a couple fo months ago.
After physically scrubbing the algea off all surfaces, basically usign a whole roll for the rollermat, it seems the hair algae is reduced and slowly retreats. I will do this agin in a couple of weeks and support this trend.
I do not have any corals in the tank yet.
My values, all done with Hanna Checkers:
Amonium: 0.08
Nitrite: 0.022
Nitrate: 43
Phosphate: 0.26
Calcium: 455
Alkalinity: 7.9
Magnesium 1350
Salinity: 34.4
Ph: 8.1
Temp: 27.2
Water change every 4 weeks. 30%
Using 2 reactors for PhosBond and Carbon. Used Phosguard before but couldn't keep my phosphates down with it. PhosBond seems to work longer.
Skimmer works great. (Wet skimming). empty/clean every 2 weeks.
Rollermat is at max capacity for its size (couldn't fit a bigger one and paying the prize now with high roll consumption.

I know Phosphate and Nitrates are not ideal, but also not super high.
After reducing feeding, those values halved from what they where before.
Also added a good size CuC a couple of weeks ago (about 120 assorted snails and some crabs). I'm starting to see razed aeras from the turbo snails. But only after I physically cleaned the rock brushing off the algae.

 

[Uncle99]

30% is a big change at one time.
May cause unstable chemistry and pest type stuff loves that.

How old is the system?
Can we see the full tank shot?

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

Here are my values, They stabilized a couple fo months ago.
After physically scrubbing the algea off all surfaces, basically usign a whole roll for the rollermat, it seems the hair algae is reduced and slowly retreats. I will do this agin in a couple of weeks and support this trend.
I do not have any corals in the tank yet.
My values, all done with Hanna Checkers:
Amonium: 0.08
Nitrite: 0.022
Nitrate: 43
Phosphate: 0.26
Calcium: 455
Alkalinity: 7.9
Magnesium 1350
Salinity: 34.4
Ph: 8.1
Temp: 27.2
Water change every 4 weeks. 30%
Using 2 reactors for PhosBond and Carbon. Used Phosguard before but couldn't keep my phosphates down with it. PhosBond seems to work longer.
Skimmer works great. (Wet skimming). empty/clean every 2 weeks.
Rollermat is at max capacity for its size (couldn't fit a bigger one and paying the prize now with high roll consumption.

I know Phosphate and Nitrates are not ideal, but also not super high.
After reducing feeding, those values halved from what they where before.
Also added a good size CuC a couple of weeks ago (about 120 assorted snails and some crabs). I'm starting to see razed aeras from the turbo snails. But only after I physically cleaned the rock brushing off the algae.

Your tank is still relatively young.

In my experience snails and crabs don’t like to eat long strands of algae. You can help them by scrubbing/removing as much of the long algae as possible (which you are doing). If possible, remove the rock from the tank and scrub it in a separate container/bucket (maybe while doing a water change and use the old tank water).

Sounds like you beefed up your clean up crew which is going to help. You could also get an urchin. What types of snails did you get? Some don’t actually eat algae.

I think you are on the right track and would keep going with what you are doing. There are plenty of folks that have your no3/po4 numbers but don’t suffer from nuisance algae. I would still aim to drop them some though.

 

[Johnd651]

Please see video.
I have a hair algea outbreak which I try conquering by scrubbing rocks every couple of weeks. I most likely caused it by overfeeding. I changed from hakiri cubes to self made food. That is a lot richer.
My nitrate levels jumped to about 40.
Reducing food supply and also reducing lighting hours to get control of this. The tank started in September but has not gone through the usually “the bad, the ugly and the good” phase with Algea.

I did notice when all pumps and wave makers are off that the Algea produces a steady stream of rising bubble ???
Anybody know what that is?

Hair Algea Bubbles:

To answer your original question, it looks like bryopsis.

 

[rpkneumann]

30% is a big change at one time.
May cause unstable chemistry and pest type stuff loves that.

How old is the system?
Can we see the full tank shot?

You can check my Centre Pomipdeux thread for pictures. The DT is 140 ga nominal, filled about 125 ga hight. , 5" sandbed, 80 lbs of rock. Sump is 35 ga, 10 ga ATO.

 

[rpkneumann]

To answer your original question, it looks like bryopsis.

Thanks for the identification. Its not quite "fern like" but then this algae family has about 100 different similar kinds. Before i throw meds into the tank I want to continue to scrub it and do water changes.
It is growing incredibly fast. Last scrub (nearly clean) rock surface, was a week ago and now its back already with a 3/4 inch carpet. But in total less. So, perhaps i can win these battles one by one.

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

If it’s bryopsis…you will have to medicate the tank as nothing eats it.

If it’s “normal” hair algae you should be able to beat it back with scrubbing and a good clean up crew.

 

[Aaron Stone]

You said you don't have any corals. I would recommend reducing your lighting to a bare minimum, if not simply turning them off. You mentioned that you reduced it, but if you are still seeing "pearling", oxygen bubbles coming from the algae, then you are still giving the algae enough light for strong photosynthesis.

Turn the lights off for a couple weeks, stunt the algae, and let the clean up crew do it's work, and scrub away at it yourself. When it is looking manageable slowly bring the light back up over the course of a week or two. But not to full power until you are ready for coral.

 

[rpkneumann]

You said you don't have any corals. I would recommend reducing your lighting to a bare minimum, if not simply turning them off. You mentioned that you reduced it, but if you are still seeing "pearling", oxygen bubbles coming from the algae, then you are still giving the algae enough light for strong photosynthesis.

Turn the lights off for a couple weeks, stunt the algae, and let the clean up crew do it's work, and scrub away at it yourself. When it is looking manageable slowly bring the light back up over the course of a week or two. But not to full power until you are ready for coral.

Aaron,
I will try that.
The bubbles are only visible when the powerheads are off and there are no currents to speak of.

 

[rpkneumann]

I guess i have some success.
Seems my problem is contained (for now)
What I did:
- radically brushed off the hair algae 3 weeks in a row
- lowered feeding to half the amount ( once a day isntead of twice a day. My wrsses don't seem to mind
- turned light to "moonshine" only for 1 week now. will go another week.
- changed my Phosphate reactor every week (using Seachem PhosBond)
- 22% water change
Results:
- Sand bed cleaned up, all white now
- still some minimal hair algae growth. Guess enough for the snails to eat. But rocks look very clean

My values have not changed drastically )Measured once a week)
- Phosphate went from 0.26 to 0.17 to now 0.22
- Nitrates went from 43 to 45 to now 42

I'm not 100% sure why the hair algae is gone, certainly not a big feeding or chemistry change.
Did the lights do the trick?

 

[Aaron Stone]

I guess i have some success.
Seems my problem is contained (for now)
What I did:
- radically brushed off the hair algae 3 weeks in a row
- lowered feeding to half the amount ( once a day isntead of twice a day. My wrsses don't seem to mind
- turned light to "moonshine" only for 1 week now. will go another week.
- changed my Phosphate reactor every week (using Seachem PhosBond)
- 22% water change
Results:
- Sand bed cleaned up, all white now
- still some minimal hair algae growth. Guess enough for the snails to eat. But rocks look very clean

My values have not changed drastically )Measured once a week)
- Phosphate went from 0.26 to 0.17 to now 0.22
- Nitrates went from 43 to 45 to now 42

I'm not 100% sure why the hair algae is gone, certainly not a big feeding or chemistry change.
Did the lights do the trick?

The lights. Hard to photosynthesize moonlight.

I would recommend trying to bring down nutrients, but don't be too aggressive. You may find a tipping point where the phosphates suddenly fall off a cliff. At that point you might start fighting dinos instead of hair algae and you will long for the days when hair algae was your big concern.

Let it go another week then slowly bring up the lights. I have found that there tends to be a minimum light level where all the various photosynthetic organisms in the tank are getting enough to start competing with each other, which is what you want. If you have a pH monitor you should see an increase in pH during the lighting hours once that point is reached. I tend to leave it there for a week or more until I start to see coraline algae start to spread. Then you can start ramping the lights up further. Keep the clean up crew strong.

That's my two cents. Others will likely offer other ways to skin this cat, but that is what has worked for me in the past.

 

[rpkneumann]

After 3 weeks of "moonlight only" ans scrubbing it off the rock., the hair algae disappeared. Slowly increased intensity am now running my two AP9X lights at 45% max and light cycle about 6 hours. soem hair algea came back on soem of the rock, but it doesn't seem to spread right now.
Phosphates had been high all this time. Around 0.4.
Reduced feeding to half. Phosphates went down to 0.3 but that's not significant. Using self made food. Equivalent to a little more than a cube of Hakiri a day. (Hakiri is about 3.3g, i fed around 4g)
After looking up the native phosphate levels of the ingredients i sued to make my food of i saw that i added a ton of phosphates with the food.
Here is the reference i used generated from FDA data of fresh unprocessed foods.
It's Phosphorus not Phosphate!
Multiply phosphorus (mg/l) by 3.066: This gives you the equivalent phosphate value (mg/l, ppm)
I used this to only roughly compare values. (High or low)
F.e. Atlantic Salmon has about 17x less phosphorus than scallops for the same weight. Big difference.
Im not a nutritionist. Can't debate these values.

After 2 weeks of less feeding and changing my PhosBond reactor every 5 days the last measurement dropped to 0.07 phosphates. My objective is to drive it down to 0.01.
I now changed back to feeding hikari mysis cubes to see if that makes an additional impact.

Different but related question:
Any substance to the statement that phosbond or phosguard leaches Phosphates after saturation?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Different but related question:
Any substance to the statement that phosbond or phosguard leaches Phosphates after saturation?

Binders of all sorts can release phosphate if something stronger comes along to bump phosphate off, or if the phosphate level in the water lowers for any reason.

 

[rpkneumann]

Binders of all sorts can release phosphate if something stronger comes along to bump phosphate off, or if the phosphate level in the water lowers for any reason.

Thank you.

 

[Screwgunner]

I don't like chemicals but I run a algea scrubber and I feed my tangs alittle of the algea now and then and hair algea took over in my tank all my peramiters were good . I tried no lights ,pulling it off but nothing worked so I tried flux rx my corals are all good and fish snails crabs all good and the hair algea just melted.