Help me with hair algae? Please?

[Erabe]

Hi all, I need help understanding a BAD hair algae outbreak I'm experiencing in my 3 month old mixed reef tank.

The tank is 4ft x2ft x2ft (total volume 110g / 420 litres) and has a similarly sized sump, with a live rock refugium (no macro yet) and I'm running filter floss, then skimmer, then fuge, then GAC. I have 4 clown fish (2 were rescues - will re-home when I see aggression) , 2 azure damsels, a lawnmower blenny, an exquisite fairy wrasse, a tiger pistol and yellow watchman. CUC is 3 turbos, 3 red banded trochus, a conch, 2 kuekenthali shrimp, a sandsifting star, and I've seen some smaller bristle worms. The tank was started with about 50% live rock from my previous tank, and the rest was dry rock, dry sand.

I had the classic diatom bloom, which really didn't last too long, but ever since I've had a terrible outbreak of brown hair algae, that I can't even pull off completely - like its rooted into the rock, it also grows on my sand-bed. Lawnmower gets the shorter stuff but it's just too much for him and he's always looking 20 months pregnant.

I've also never had any phosphates and my nitrates are sitting at about 2. (Salifert) I started dosing Nitrogen and Phosphorus to try get a readable number, but this only fueled the algae, so I've stopped dosing it, and also stopped dosing Reef AB+, as it seems the algae are taking all my nutrients up and I'm still at 0P/2N. I'm also not overfeeding, though there are some bits of food that end up on the sand, but the CUC takes of this.

Current parameters using AF reef salt:

Alk: 7 (Dosing Sodium Bicarb in my top off water to raise - trying to get to 8)
Cal: 500+ (I don't know why, I've never dosed it)
Mag: 1230
Salinity: 35
PH: 8.1
Temp: 26c / 78f
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 2
Phos: 0
Ammo: 0

Lighting is a QMaven 2 Q6-90 170w running mostly blues / purples, I've turned white/red/green much lower and running the light 8 hours with a 30 minute ramp up/down. (9 hours total)

The algae is so bad in some spots it's starting to irritate my corals, especially my zoas, I've dipped them in Hydrogen Peroxide a week ago, it did turn the algae white, the zoas looked much happier, but the hair quickly returned. I'm back at square one. Is there something I'm doing wrong? Is this normal? Should I dose the nutrients again, feed even less? Feed more? Skim dryer / wetter / not at all? Corals all look happy, but I'm worried the algae could damage them beyond repair soon. Pics below:

Any help appreciated greatly!

Thanks!

 

[sixty_reefer]

Can you add picture with just white light

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Can you explain what kind of flow you have in the tank? Algae loves low flowm and algae growing on the sandbed often indicates not enough flow along the sand.
How often do you change the filter floss?
How much do you feed, and how often?
PErsonally I would drop the temp down to 76, no benefits at all to run it warm, in fact bad bacteria and algae love warmer water.
When you dipped the algae in peroxide and it turned white, did you put that back in your tank? Algae holds nutrients in its cells, when it dies it releases the nutrients back into the water to feed more algae. You have to continuously strip the system of nutrients until it all dies back.

 

[EnterName]

"3 month old tank"

You might want to read about the "ugly phase". Basically every tank goes through a diatom outbreak followed by green hair algae. This is expected and takes some time. It doesn't make sense to fight it, as it happens regardless of the availability of nutrients, etc. The hair algae is brown because diatoms attach to it and cause a discoloration. Its also possible the blue light is making the green hair algae appear brown.

The best thing you can do is wait. Manual removal is okay, but if that actually reduces the time it takes for the ugly phase to end is hard to tell.

Your phosphates are stuck at undetectable levels for two reasons:
1. The algae is eating it all up
2. The calcium carbonate of your subtrate and rock is binding a lot of phosphate until they are sufficiently saturated to allow for detectable dissolved phosphate levels. Basically it's an ongoing chemical reaction that binds and redissolves phosphate. Right now this equilibrium is binding much more than it is dissolving which causes measurable phosphate to be below your test kits detection limit. Depending on how much life vs dry rock/sand was used it can take quite a while for phosphate to become detectable.

In other words: Everything seems fine, you don't need to do anything but wait. Keep the skimmer running normally for gas exchange and removal of detritus which will just accumulate otherwise.

I would return the sandsifting star to be honest. It will starve in a new tank.

 

[Erabe]

Can you add picture with just white light

Hi sixty! Here you go, thank you!

 

[Erabe]

Can you explain what kind of flow you have in the tank? Algae loves low flowm and algae growing on the sandbed often indicates not enough flow along the sand.
How often do you change the filter floss?
How much do you feed, and how often?
PErsonally I would drop the temp down to 76, no benefits at all to run it warm, in fact bad bacteria and algae love warmer water.
When you dipped the algae in peroxide and it turned white, did you put that back in your tank? Algae holds nutrients in its cells, when it dies it releases the nutrients back into the water to feed more algae. You have to continuously strip the system of nutrients until it all dies back.

I have pretty good flow, a gyre on higher up one end and an MP40 clone on the opposite down low, in fact the algae flows back and forth quite a lot, and my corals do too. I change the floss out about every three days, depending on if I cleaned glass or not it will get clogged sooner or later. I feed 3 times a day about half a teaspoon of pellets and broken up flake, and half a frozen cube every third day.

I've dropped temp to 76 - thank you.

I rinsed the dipped frags in tank water and put back yes, I only dipped frag plugs to try help the zoas, it was very little amount of algae, and returned a few days later.

 

[Erabe]

3 month old tank...

You might want to read about the "ugly phase". Basically every tank goes through a diatom outbreak followed by green hair algae. This is expected and takes some time. It doesn't make sense to fight it, as it happens regardless of the availability of nutrients, etc. The hair algae is brown because diatoms attach to it and cause a discoloration. Its also possible the blue light is making the green hair algae appear brown.

The best thing you can do is wait. Manual removal is okay, but if that actually reduces the time it takes for the ugly phase to end is hard to tell.

Your phosphates are stuck at undetectable levels for two reasons:
1. The algae is eating it all up
2. The calcium carbonate of your subtrate and rock is binding a lot of phosphate until they are sufficiently saturated to allow for detectable dissolved phosphate levels. Basically it's an ongoing chemical reaction that binds and redissolves phosphate. Right now this equilibrium is binding much more than it is dissolving which causes measurable phosphate to be below your test kits detection limit. Depending on how much life vs dry rock/sand was used it can take quite a while for phosphate to become detectable.

In other words: Everything seems fine, you don't need to do anything but wait. Keep the skimmer running normally for gas exchange and removal of detritus which will just accumulate otherwise.

I would return the sandsifting star to be honest. It will starve in a new tank.

Thank you, I've read up on it for weeks now, but as you know every second answer from every second reefer is in complete contradiction, and I'm just frustrated with the situation. I appreciate the advice, I am spot feeding the star bits of shrimp while the sandbed matures. Hopefully that'll be enough.

 

[EnterName]

3 month old tank...

You might want to read about the "ugly phase". Basically every tank goes through a diatom outbreak followed by green hair algae. This is expected and takes some time. It doesn't make sense to fight it, as it happens regardless of the availability of nutrients, etc. The hair algae is brown because diatoms attach to it and cause a discoloration. Its also possible the blue light is making the green hair algae appear brown.

The best thing you can do is wait. Manual removal is okay, but if that actually reduces the time it takes for the ugly phase to end is hard to tell.

Your phosphates are stuck at undetectable levels for two reasons:
1. The algae is eating it all up
2. The calcium carbonate of your subtrate and rock is binding a lot of phosphate until they are sufficiently saturated to allow for detectable dissolved phosphate levels. Basically it's an ongoing chemical reaction that binds and redissolves phosphate. Right now this equilibrium is binding much more than it is dissolving which causes measurable phosphate to be below your test kits detection limit. Depending on how much life vs dry rock/sand was used it can take quite a while for phosphate to become detectable.

In other words: Everything seems fine, you don't need to do anything but wait. Keep the skimmer running normally for gas exchange and removal of detritus which will just accumulate otherwise.

I would return the sandsifting star to be honest. It will starve in a new tank.

Thank you, I've read up on it for weeks now, but as you know every second answer from every second reefer is in complete contradiction, and I'm just frustrated with the situation. I appreciate the advice, I am spot feeding the star bits of shrimp while the sandbed matures. Hopefully that'll be enough.

Yeah, I get it. There is so much information out there it gets really difficult to tell right from wrong.

Keep the tank clean, nutrients low, and it will pass on its own
I started my current system with 100% dry rock and sand which caused the ugly phase to be very long, but it still fixed itself without me having to use chemicals or starting to scrape each rock clean by hand. I don't think manual removal will harm your tank, but I can't promise it will speed up the process either.

 

[Erabe]

Yeah, I get it. There is so much information out there it gets really difficult to tell right from wrong.

Keep the tank clean, nutrients low, and it will pass on its own
I started my current system with 100% dry rock and sand which caused the ugly phase to be very long, but it still fixed itself without me having to use chemicals or starting to scrape each rock clean by hand. I don't think manual removal will harm your tank, but I can't promise it will speed up the process either.

Thanks for the motivation! Yeah I don't even think scrubbing will help, the stuff is really hard to remove manually, and it's EVERYWHERE... I will be patient. Or die trying! ;)

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I would beef up your CUC. You don't have much in terms of CUC for a tank your size.

 

[Erabe]

I would beef up your CUC. You don't have much in terms of CUC for a tank your size.

I tend to agree! I added two turbos and two trochus this past weekend to see if they'll touch the algae, so far they're still "getting acclimated" and not doing much but if they do, I'll get more, wanted an urchin or two but LFS was sold out... there are some clean spots on the rockwork, I just haven't figured out what cleaned there... seems like it happens overnight. Appreciate the advice!

 

[kimts]

I tend to agree! I added two turbos and two trochus this past weekend to see if they'll touch the algae, so far they're still "getting acclimated" and not doing much but if they do, I'll get more, wanted an urchin or two but LFS was sold out... there are some clean spots on the rockwork, I just haven't figured out what cleaned there... seems like it happens overnight. Appreciate the advice!

I struggled with hair algae for soooo long. I have a tuxedo urchin and turbo snails and I feel like I tried everything. I was talking to a fellow customer at my LFS one day, and she said she didn't get rid of hers until she added red-legged hermits. My LFS only had 3 in the store, and I bought them. I swear, I don't know if it was a coincidence, or luck, or if they really had something to do with it, but my hair algae is finally gone. Battled it for MONTHS.

 

[Erabe]

I struggled with hair algae for soooo long. I have a tuxedo urchin and turbo snails and I feel like I tried everything. I was talking to a fellow customer at my LFS one day, and she said she didn't get rid of hers until she added red-legged hermits. My LFS only had 3 in the store, and I bought them. I swear, I don't know if it was a coincidence, or luck, or if they really had something to do with it, but my hair algae is finally gone. Battled it for MONTHS.

I did consider hermits, don't they pick at corals though when the algae is gone? Really don't want to have to sump any animals eventually, or have to get rid of them some other way, I get really attached to my aquatic buddies. Lol

 

[X-37B]

Not enough snails for that 120. 1 per 2 g's is a good start. 1-2 uchins, emerald or pithos crabs will keep it in check once its reduced.
Best advice is to trim the algae short. Get s Sea Hare and rehome it once the algae is gone, 2-3 weeks max, then keep your cleanup crew going.
My 2 year old 150 has at last count 100+ snails, 8 emerald crabs, 2 urchins, 10 red legged hermits, 1 Tomini Tang.
Only visable algae is coralline.

 

[Project1004]

Like many say, I would beef up your CUC.

That’s including some Tangs and rabbit fish. Why don’t you have these fishes? X.X
Sea hare and urchins. Manual remover etc.

 

[Erabe]

Not enough snails for that 120. 1 per 2 g's is a good start. 1-2 uchins, emerald or pithos crabs will keep it in check once its reduced.
Best advice is to trim the algae short. Get s Sea Hare and rehome it once the algae is gone, 2-3 weeks max, then keep your cleanup crew going.
My 2 year old 150 has at last count 100+ snails, 8 emerald crabs, 2 urchins, 10 red legged hermits, 1 Tomini Tang.
Only visable algae is coralline.

Thank you! Will increase CUC, beautiful tank BTW!

 

[kimts]

I did consider hermits, don't they pick at corals though when the algae is gone? Really don't want to have to sump any animals eventually, or have to get rid of them some other way, I get really attached to my aquatic buddies. Lol

I haven't had that issue. They're annoying scavengers, for sure.

 

[Erabe]

Like many say, I would beef up your CUC.

That’s including some Tangs and rabbit fish. Why don’t you have these fishes? X.X
Sea hare and urchins. Manual remover etc.

My "showpiece" fish will be a one spot foxface, haven't found one yet... might do a tomini, LFS has some. Thanks!

 

[X-37B]

My "showpiece" fish will be a one spot foxface, haven't found one yet... might do a tomini, LFS has some. Thanks!

Note I had a one spot in my old 120. It outgrew that system in a year and I rehomed it to a 350.
The Tomini is my choice now, or a yellow.
Although not normal it chewed the tips of my green slimmer down so the tips were all flattened.
It was a cool fish though and ate from my fingertips.
Old 120

 

[Project1004]

My "showpiece" fish will be a one spot foxface, haven't found one yet... might do a tomini, LFS has some. Thanks!

I think SEA HARE is your best bet for those brown alage. They will mow em down.