Huge Hair Algae Issue, Struggling to keep it away?

[David100]

Hi All,
I'm fairly new to the hobby, my tank is just over 1 year old now, for the last 3 months or so I have been battling a Horrendus hair algae outbreak, I think I have found one or many of the causes however id like to ask some questions and get a game plan for going forward? Ive read allot of forum posts about Tank Cleans H202 Treatments, using Vibrant and picking it out.

So far I have hand-picked it out and dosed some vibrant to try and get ontop of the outbreak as its been getting rather messy.

So the 2 reasons I suspect for my issue is 1 overfeeding, I have x2 clowns in a 130L tank and I feed them half a cube of frozen food each day, I use to feed a pinch of pellets but they seem happier with frozen food and tend to eat it all however it seems like way to much for them, but its a hassle to cut the cubes down to smaller portions so I stick with half a cube. i think the water in these cubes is full of nutrients and its going straight into the water and giving me a spike? Im not sure how to fix this issue as the food like brine is so tiny you cant really strain it? so is it worth going back to pellets full-time for them? to try and resolve this?

Secondly, I found out my LFS TDS reading on the last batch of water I got is 8 TDS is this good bad or normal? I know we aim for 0TDS but is there a desired range to be in? I think I remember them telling me it can be up to 14TDS but never anymore. Should I be worried about this? Or is this a acceptable range?


I just want to get rid of this issue really, my tank looks awful and each time I spend an hour picking some of the tufts it's back within a week, I now believe this is my own fault for my feeding habits and perhaps partly my LFS stores fault for higher than expected TDS?



There's no direct sunlight, and I have taken my lights from 100% (Blue, Purple, Cyan) Down to around 80%.




Im not really sure if my params are useful as there is so much algae that the phos and nitrate will likely be actively consumed by the algae to grow, but my recent tests shown:

Phos 0.10
Nitrate 20
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Salinity: 1.025
KH 6.0
PH 7.8

Im considering getting a RO unit and doing a 50% water change for the next 2-3 weeks with a better quality ref salt to get the tanks water params in a better position with a higher PH and ALK, and hopefully kill off this alga with some Vibrant dosing. I know its controversial but the corals don't seem to unhappy with it and if it can kill off a good amount and some 50% water changes can export the nutrients I think I might get through this.

I also added a Tuxedo Urchin last week, and have 4 Nass Snails, 4 Trocus Snails & 3 Redf hermits in QT ready to go in at the end of Feb.

Is there anything else I can do?

 

[KrisReef]

Shorten the light period, add a GFO filter, pull the rocks and scrub them with a soft brush, rinse in tap and toss them back in.

 

[David100]

Shorten the light period, add a GFO filter, pull the rocks and scrub them with a soft brush, rinse in tap and toss them back in.

I already have some phosguard in I put this in about a week or two ago, should I still add GFO? And rinse the rock in tap water? Won't think kill the good bacteria & Corals?

 

[Phil Steel]

TDS is high so that needs to be sorted and yes you're a bit heavy handed on the feeding.

I would try and remove as much of the algae manually either by hand like you are doing, or with a brush and siphon that water out as a water change. Those nutrients need to get back to balance.

Lower the light period by an hour or two and add in beneficial bacteria like MB7 and see how it goes.

I'm not sure if you'd consider getting a lawnmower blenny or tang, but they would go nuts munching away...at least in my experience they have.

Good luck!

 

[David100]

TDS is high so that needs to be sorted and yes you're a bit heavy handed on the feeding.

I would try and remove as much of the algae manually either by hand like you are doing, or with a brush and siphon that water out as a water change. Those nutrients need to get back to balance.

Lower the light period by an hour or two and add in beneficial bacteria like MB7 and see how it goes.

I'm not sure if you'd consider getting a lawnmower blenny or tang, but they would go nuts munching away...at least in my experience they have.

Good luck!

I have a 25L Tub of Saltwater ready to go from my LFS so this is the 8TDS+ one, I can't control this for now but Ill definitely look at moving away from using that water asap! I'm going to Siphen and thumb pinch with some tubing to take as much out as I can and really extremely cut back on the feeding, ive been looking online and clowns can go without food for a few days at a time in the wild so I might feed every other day for a short period to help balance the nutrients out, assuming this isn't cruel for them? I have searchem Stability which is a bacteria Supplement, Once I have added the new water in and got out as much as I can again, with reduced feeding and reduced light I'll start dosing that daily for 1-2 weeks to establish some new good bacteria aswell as some light Vibrant Dosing. I know that may be controversial but at the point I'm at I need to get exporting the algae any way I can and give the CUC a chance to get a foot hold. 20% water changes each weekend to export that Cruddy algae and weekly filter deep cleans may get me out of this. Ill have to keep this post updated to see how it goes!

 

[mtraylor]

In review of your tank and battle I would do several things.

1. Cut feeding to 1/4 cube a day ot every other day.
2. Ensure to use 0 tds water
3. Measure Magnesium and get within high range to prevent other algae issues. Around 1380
4. Get phosphate to about .04

Saved the best for last
5. It's all about the cleanup crew. Get them in the tank. They will take care of it in couple weeks if done properly. Add a few turbos to your collection. Urchin are great

6. Get a uv sterilzer

 

[Mark Goode]

A couple of Sally Lightfoot crabs (Percnon Gibbesi). They may not be much help if the tank is hugely overgrown with the stuff, but new growth they'll munch as soon as it appears. I've two of them, and hair algae appears to be their favourite food - even trying to climb the glass to reach the odd stray tuft.

Very entertaining critters too - and FAST!

 

[shadyraro]

I had a hair algae problem myself and all I did was dose algaefix every 3 days and manually removed the hair a few times. 6 weeks later and it is all gone. When I started I was dosing less than recommended as I wasn't sure how my tank would react, it ended up being fine and weeks later I ended up dosing slightly higher as I could see it working. I also turned my skimmer off for 30 mins when I dosed to let it circulate around the whole system. I didn't change my lighting schedule at all and I don't use a UV, but I do a weekly 10% water change.

 

[Lavey29]

Your tank is nothing compared to my GHA jungle last year. 8 TDS is bad and will contribute to problems. Your parameters are fine except KH is low. Raise magnesium to 1500. It turns GHA white and makes it easy to remove. Add 2 turbo snails. Daily manual removal. Cut lights to 6 hours with blue and uv only. No whites. Skip the vibrant. Dose phytoplankton and add pods for diversity. GHA will be gone in a month.

 

[David100]

Your tank is nothing compared to my GHA jungle last year. 8 TDS is bad and will contribute to problems. Your parameters are fine except KH is low. Raise magnesium to 1500. It turns GHA white and makes it easy to remove. Add 2 turbo snails. Daily manual removal. Cut lights to 6 hours with blue and uv only. No whites. Skip the vibrant. Dose phytoplankton and add pods for diversity. GHA will be gone in a month.

Thanks for the reply, What do phytoplankton and pods do? Can I just buy these at my LFS? Do the Pods/phytoplankton Need topping up every week/month or are they a one-time add and let them breed? I have snails in QT right now, they finish end of Feb! I did a bit rip of the algae today and it looks way better! Hoping reduced feeding helps stop its growth! but ill give the magnesium a go too! Also, because im curious, how come skip vibrant?

 

[Double monti 61]

Having an efficient crew of small creatures like worms snails and yes even some hermit crabs will help they clean up what is left of the food and some may also consume algae oh and did I forget to mention the hatted astrinia starfish also help.

 

[Screwgunner]

It takes vibrant 6 weeks to kill green hair. Then afterwords you will get cyanno and dinos. Not worth it. Please don't use.

 

[Lavey29]

Thanks for the reply, What do phytoplankton and pods do? Can I just buy these at my LFS? Do the Pods/phytoplankton Need topping up every week/month or are they a one-time add and let them breed? I have snails in QT right now, they finish end of Feb! I did a bit rip of the algae today and it looks way better! Hoping reduced feeding helps stop its growth! but ill give the magnesium a go too! Also, because im curious, how come skip vibrant?

Pods just increases biodiversity and helps with nuisance algae. The more biodiversity and microfauna your tank has the healthier the tank is. People have had success and failures with vibrant but anytime you add a hard chemical to your tank to kill something off it's possible its killing good stuff off also like good bacteria so that opens the door for more problems. Slowly raise your alk to 8 over a month. Your not over feeding. I feed 4 cubes total per day. Most of your parameters are fine. I wouldn't change the feeding.

 

[Lavey29]

Thanks for the reply, What do phytoplankton and pods do? Can I just buy these at my LFS? Do the Pods/phytoplankton Need topping up every week/month or are they a one-time add and let them breed? I have snails in QT right now, they finish end of Feb! I did a bit rip of the algae today and it looks way better! Hoping reduced feeding helps stop its growth! but ill give the magnesium a go too! Also, because im curious, how come skip vibrant?

You need to make sure it's GHA and not briopsis which has fern like ends at the tip.

 

[ryanjohn1]

Hi All,
I'm fairly new to the hobby, my tank is just over 1 year old now, for the last 3 months or so I have been battling a Horrendus hair algae outbreak, I think I have found one or many of the causes however id like to ask some questions and get a game plan for going forward? Ive read allot of forum posts about Tank Cleans H202 Treatments, using Vibrant and picking it out.

So far I have hand-picked it out and dosed some vibrant to try and get ontop of the outbreak as its been getting rather messy.

So the 2 reasons I suspect for my issue is 1 overfeeding, I have x2 clowns in a 130L tank and I feed them half a cube of frozen food each day, I use to feed a pinch of pellets but they seem happier with frozen food and tend to eat it all however it seems like way to much for them, but its a hassle to cut the cubes down to smaller portions so I stick with half a cube. i think the water in these cubes is full of nutrients and its going straight into the water and giving me a spike? Im not sure how to fix this issue as the food like brine is so tiny you cant really strain it? so is it worth going back to pellets full-time for them? to try and resolve this?

Secondly, I found out my LFS TDS reading on the last batch of water I got is 8 TDS is this good bad or normal? I know we aim for 0TDS but is there a desired range to be in? I think I remember them telling me it can be up to 14TDS but never anymore. Should I be worried about this? Or is this a acceptable range?


I just want to get rid of this issue really, my tank looks awful and each time I spend an hour picking some of the tufts it's back within a week, I now believe this is my own fault for my feeding habits and perhaps partly my LFS stores fault for higher than expected TDS?



There's no direct sunlight, and I have taken my lights from 100% (Blue, Purple, Cyan) Down to around 80%.




Im not really sure if my params are useful as there is so much algae that the phos and nitrate will likely be actively consumed by the algae to grow, but my recent tests shown:

Phos 0.10
Nitrate 20
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Salinity: 1.025
KH 6.0
PH 7.8

Im considering getting a RO unit and doing a 50% water change for the next 2-3 weeks with a better quality ref salt to get the tanks water params in a better position with a higher PH and ALK, and hopefully kill off this alga with some Vibrant dosing. I know its controversial but the corals don't seem to unhappy with it and if it can kill off a good amount and some 50% water changes can export the nutrients I think I might get through this.

I also added a Tuxedo Urchin last week, and have 4 Nass Snails, 4 Trocus Snails & 3 Redf hermits in QT ready to go in at the end of Feb.

Is there anything else I can do?

Brs bioballs in a reactor. Pin cushion urchin, more crabs. And try to switch to a flake food. That frozen stuff is nothing but problems. I had unrelenting hair algae for a year. This is how I got rid of it completely.

 

[David100]

Pods just increases biodiversity and helps with nuisance algae. The more biodiversity and microfauna your tank has the healthier the tank is. People have had success and failures with vibrant but anytime you add a hard chemical to your tank to kill something off it's possible its killing good stuff off also like good bacteria so that opens the door for more problems. Slowly raise your alk to 8 over a month. Your not over feeding. I feed 4 cubes total per day. Most of your parameters are fine. I wouldn't change the feeding.

Overfeeding is about the only thing I can attribute this to, I do think the liquid that melts down isnt a RO mix its very meaty and smelly, so maybe the specific food source is a little too high in nutrients. I was thinking of melting all the cubes down and straining off the exess liquid and refreezing the food in RO water to avoid this issue . If its not too much food I genuinely have no idea where the added nutrients have come from, other than the higher TDS from my input water source . Ill add some pods and phytoplankton next time I head to my LSF. Hopfully the new CUC & Urchin will help

 

[David100]

Brs bioballs in a reactor. Pin cushion urchin, more crabs. And try to switch to a flake food. That frozen stuff is nothing but problems. I had unrelenting hair algae for a year. This is how I got rid of it completely.

Yeah, this is my worry! The frozen foods seem to get mixed reviews! BRS, for example, says it's much harder to overfeed Frozen foods than pellets however I have found the opposite. The frozen foods seem very messy and spike nutrients from what I have experienced. I am from the UK so maybe different manufacturers use different methods which is why there's some variability in how people choose to feed.

 

[BirdFish5000]

I'd consider a turf algae scrubber. Mine has helped me quite a bit.

 

[Lavey29]

Overfeeding is about the only thing I can attribute this to, I do think the liquid that melts down isnt a RO mix its very meaty and smelly, so maybe the specific food source is a little too high in nutrients. I was thinking of melting all the cubes down and straining off the exess liquid and refreezing the food in RO water to avoid this issue . If its not too much food I genuinely have no idea where the added nutrients have come from, other than the higher TDS from my input water source . Ill add some pods and phytoplankton next time I head to my LSF. Hopfully the new CUC & Urchin will help

I put my cubes in a cup with little tank water and melt them down. Then strain it through a small fish net. I use Hikari and Rods.

 

[Tamberav]

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.