Huge Hair Algae Issue, Struggling to keep it away?
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NY_Sea
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Just my suggestions. Run GFO. Reduce light period. Increase magnesium with Kent tech m . Add a Mithrax crab, turbo snails and a tuxedo urchin. Of course continue with water changes and scrub off as much as you can manually
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David100
Community Member
I did yes, I had some snails and a good hermit crap collection, however, over time the hermits died off as did the Snails and I basically have 1 Hermit left with an Urchin. How often do you need to add snails? The QT process seems to take a good long time! Mine are ready in 3 days I have 8 Snails to go in and 3 crabs. Im not sure if that'll make a dent but its got to be better than nothing.Did you ever have a clean up crew?
That is likely the main problem. My nutrients are much higher than yours but hard to find a spec of algae with stuff eating it. Some cyano popped up but the asternia starfish are going to town on it
I am always heavy handed with frozen food.I never believe in cutting back food, I feed what it takes to keep the fish healthy. Just increase export instead.
What type of snails? I mostly try to buy trochus but I also have one Mexican turbo and a fighting conch. I don’t have much issue with them dying. I do have a few nerites.
Hermit crabs seem to fight till there is one left though.
Lot of answers here so I'll just ask a few questions
What is your export like? How often are your water changes or do you have a skimmer? Sounds like you have PhosGuard which should help.
RODI is a good idea;long term you will save money and won't have to worry about LFS tds.
6 dKH is low but not that far off from NSW levels and you don't appear to have anything in the tank that demands much alk (softies don't use much at all). Just want to keep it from going lower.
Be careful with Vibrant - yes, it kills algae, but it also can bring a host of undesirable effects. Lots of organisms potentially waiting to take that prime real estate once the algae is killed off. Keep eye out for dinos, diatoms or cyano, which is more likely with high TDS water
What is your export like? How often are your water changes or do you have a skimmer? Sounds like you have PhosGuard which should help.
RODI is a good idea;long term you will save money and won't have to worry about LFS tds.
6 dKH is low but not that far off from NSW levels and you don't appear to have anything in the tank that demands much alk (softies don't use much at all). Just want to keep it from going lower.
Be careful with Vibrant - yes, it kills algae, but it also can bring a host of undesirable effects. Lots of organisms potentially waiting to take that prime real estate once the algae is killed off. Keep eye out for dinos, diatoms or cyano, which is more likely with high TDS water
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David100
Community Member
My export is typically 20% weekly, but sometimes if I'm a little busier than usual, it can drift to 20% every 2 weeks. My CUC has been lacking and I have more going in today after QT, Im hoping that helps! I think I only reached for Vibrant out of desperation as it keeps coming back worse than ever.
I think Long term Im getting a RODI system, in the next couple of weeks to sort and TDS issues.
As for Alk, I really don't know what to do with this as I do not have allot of corals so don't think I need to be dosing etc at the moment.
I'd just raise it via water changes to 7ish, and then keep it stable in a narrowish range. Most corals are more picky about parameters changing rapidly, rather than a specific number being bad. Or, aim for whatever your preferred salt mixes at and bring it to that via supplementation or water changes.
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David100
Community Member
I will but it’s not pretty! I have been pulling out algae with each water change with the pinch on the tube method and it grows back so fast, I have stopped dosing vibrant now and have kept a regular 20% weekly WC, I am a few days behind right now so I may be doing double this later tonight. The tank looks horrendous on white light. I have added the CUC I had in QT now, including nassarius snails 4 , 4 Trocus snails, 3 red hermit crabs and I had my 1 tuxedo urchin which unfortunately passed away due to unknown reasons.
my parameters as of yesterday's testing are
Salinity :1.024
Nitrite :0
Ammonia :0
Ph 7.8
Phos: my kit is returning cloudy results suddenly so I’m not sure on phos right now I would estimate around 0.1 or higher
please don’t judge this tank I am really doing my best to resolve this it just feels like nothing is working!
going forward I am going to get more cuc in QT asap, I am going to increase my water change schedule. Other than that I am not sure, I am considering adding a lawnmower blenny to try and have something that will help pick the bits off the rocks.
Is there any filtration I can use?
I currently have a bag of phosguard In, a bag of purigen, a bag of carbon and then some filter floss and filter sponges. throughout which I clean on each water change. I also have a lot of bio balls in the back sump area.
Any advice at this point
I most certainly have a nutrient issue, I was feeding half a cube of frozen food a day but I have stopped this now as I think that could have added a lot of nutrients to the water. I now feed a small pinch of pellet food which is all eaten by the clowns and they seem happy enough with this.
My Skimmer is on and produces a wet skim that I empty around once every 2 weeks or so.
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No judgment at all for sure, my tank would do that if I didn’t have a small tank that was easy to clean. Algae likes the same conditions corals like and there are parts of the reef in nature that go eutrophic at times, attracting grazers who munch it away
I don’t think we should add grazers, they rarely target what we want them to and they risk bringing in disease for your fish
I want to show you how to fix that reef, it’s one full days work, just one so it’s not bad.
fluconazole would play an important part but *not* how the masses use it. The masses add fluc to the algae as it sits, rots it away deep inside the sandbed, then gets cyano invasions for two years
this is how you win, study this thread it’s only a ten minute read where we fix a smaller system exactly the way you need to
www.reef2reef.com
**fluconazole would be added once it’s clean, as growback prevention not as the remover**
then we lower your light levels and sustain them much lower power for two months
we verify your source water is ro di, resins clean and new, 0 tds etc
lemme know what you think
that tank can be fixed by this weekend.
gator’s reef, fixed in one weekend after months of trying hands off methods:
ten hours later
I don’t think we should add grazers, they rarely target what we want them to and they risk bringing in disease for your fish
I want to show you how to fix that reef, it’s one full days work, just one so it’s not bad.
fluconazole would play an important part but *not* how the masses use it. The masses add fluc to the algae as it sits, rots it away deep inside the sandbed, then gets cyano invasions for two years
this is how you win, study this thread it’s only a ten minute read where we fix a smaller system exactly the way you need to
GHA Has Destroyed My Passion for the Hobby
Title says it all. I've been in the fish game on and off for about 30 years now. I don't think my morale has ever been this low. I feel like my tanks are just becoming a source of stress in my life. My 20g reef (below) has been up since 2019, my FOWLR has been up since 2015, and I also...
www.reef2reef.com
**fluconazole would be added once it’s clean, as growback prevention not as the remover**
then we lower your light levels and sustain them much lower power for two months
we verify your source water is ro di, resins clean and new, 0 tds etc
lemme know what you think
that tank can be fixed by this weekend.
gator’s reef, fixed in one weekend after months of trying hands off methods:
ten hours later
I really want your repair job if possible, we could use your after pics in several different threads including the six hundred page fluconazole thread, they need to see what it takes to actually fix a reef vs cause cyano and dinos for two years. We could truly fix that tank in one day but it’s all day work, the rocks must be rasped externally + the ending peroxide step and the sandbed absolutely cleaned, as Humu did in the example thread above.
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David100
Community Member
Heya, I appreciate the help, I have just had a read through the thread and think it could be beneficial to try this, I have a fairly packed weekend coming up so I don't think I will get time to try anything like this however I am going to try and get some time in my diary and give it a go.
Can we get crystal clear on the procedure?
I currently do not have a separate tank I can set up, up to house the fish, however its possible I could house them temporarily in a small QT Tank with the current Tank water and filter media, this shouldn't need cycling?)
This is my understanding (Please correct where I have misunderstood as I couldn't see a step-by-step so I am going to say what i think may be the route to go? based on the thread) :
1. Siphon out as much Algae as possible of the live rock
2. Remove all live rock one by one onto a desk and Scrap off any remaining algae with a knife, I assume this will chip away the rock but will ultimately remove all/most of the algae remaining.
3. Spray a generous amount of 3% Pure Hydrogen peroxide onto the Rock (AVOIDING CORALS - Which will be out of the water for 10-20 mins while this is happening)
4. Lightly Swish the rock in a bucket of old tank water in a bucket and place the rock back into the tank
5. I think we need to remove the sand. But Im not entirely sure how to do this, I guess just siphon as much of it out as possible with a hose? I assume a lot of the water will be out of the tank in buckets at this point so can I put around 50-70% new water into the tank? without upsetting the balance of everything?
6. Wash the sand, I was thinking of getting as much as I can into a bucket and going outside with the hose putting it on full spray and placing the hose in the bucket letting the dirty water overflow for 1-3 hours (Unitl the water is clean) . or is there another way to do this?
7. Rince the sand in RO water briefly and place it back into the tank, rearranging the rock work.
The sand and rocks should now be clean. Now would be the time to add back the fish. however Im guessing it would be advisable to wait 2-3 days to check for any spikes. and then drip acclimate the fish to the new water and pop them back in?
At this point Im not sure about dosing but im guessing fluconazole would be added here?
The other thing Id am worried about are my snails, crabs and shrimp go? Where do they go? can they stay in the tank or will this be to much stress for them?
Agreed i need to edit in a stepped flow into the thread, your summary is very close, once I'm at work I'll clear up the steps based on your summary.
now that I think about it there's no need to have to do all the rocks on the same day potentially. I'll list ways we could begin your rock cleaning a couple days before, that way the sand rinse portion is the job for that day. A couple changes to the procedure coming up in a bit, it'll be so fun to fix up that reef and skip cycle it back to clean. No bottle bacteria will be needed
now that I think about it there's no need to have to do all the rocks on the same day potentially. I'll list ways we could begin your rock cleaning a couple days before, that way the sand rinse portion is the job for that day. A couple changes to the procedure coming up in a bit, it'll be so fun to fix up that reef and skip cycle it back to clean. No bottle bacteria will be needed
I may have missed this but did you ever just bite the bullet and try aggressive, manual removal for a period of time?
*like every few days for a sustained timeframe of maybe a month or so?
*like every few days for a sustained timeframe of maybe a month or so?
Cool.
Mine was never as bad and contained to the one of my two rock structures that started as dry rock. (Live rock structure never got a speck)
Here's what I did and been clean for 4+ months now:
***all of this has been recommended previously, I assume
1. Aggressive manual removal, including removing rocks into separate tub when possible
2. Increased magnesium from 1200s to around 1350 -- basically I just switched from regular IO salt to Fritz RPM and kept up on water changes (but soft corals only in just 40 gallons)
3. Cleaned mechanical filtration more frequently (((just pond filter material in HOBs)))
Good luck...
OP has had months of random offers, they don't work. rip cleans work, and have all the cure links to choose from in recent jobs. anything shy of removing the waste already in the system won't work, it'll cause tradeoff invasions.
all param tuning comes in the clean condition
all grazer experimentation, all physical changes aren't removers of algae, that translocates the algae into the bed and rock crevices as waste, surgery is true export we need the clean condition finally here.
its the #1 thing the public pushes back on, the real fix to his tank.
being waste free and having no pent up rocks is the long term fix, I purposefully waited months to let the public run it's way here knowing it wouldn't work. occasionally like Humu we find a reefer truly willing to make a reef comply vs ask it to
www.reef2reef.com
all param tuning comes in the clean condition
all grazer experimentation, all physical changes aren't removers of algae, that translocates the algae into the bed and rock crevices as waste, surgery is true export we need the clean condition finally here.
its the #1 thing the public pushes back on, the real fix to his tank.
being waste free and having no pent up rocks is the long term fix, I purposefully waited months to let the public run it's way here knowing it wouldn't work. occasionally like Humu we find a reefer truly willing to make a reef comply vs ask it to
Algae Identification
Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?
www.reef2reef.com
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Leadfooted
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Manually pull / remove as much GHA possible, the shorter hair algae's easier for the CUC
Add:
Sea hare
2 Halloween hermit
4 small emerald crabs
40 blue legs
10 Red legs
20 snails of you choice
2 mexican turbos
small Convict tang
Small mimic tang
Anything less than the above, you're just playing games
All the above can go back to the LFS as needed for credit, this is just the army to help remove the algae and keep it under control.
I would only suggest a fraction of the above for long term.
I'm also a firm believer in UV for long term algae / bacteria control
Good luck
Add:
Sea hare
2 Halloween hermit
4 small emerald crabs
40 blue legs
10 Red legs
20 snails of you choice
2 mexican turbos
small Convict tang
Small mimic tang
Anything less than the above, you're just playing games
All the above can go back to the LFS as needed for credit, this is just the army to help remove the algae and keep it under control.
I would only suggest a fraction of the above for long term.
I'm also a firm believer in UV for long term algae / bacteria control
Good luck
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