Red Hair Algae....

[BellaCoop]

I am having a HUGE issue with Red Hair Algae and it is starting to really make the tank look bad. What is the best way to get rid of this? It is growing on my snails, corals and rocks... Water perimeters are good and the tank it not near a Window. I also run my HD Primes for 7 hours and 45 minutes a day. I have gone through and cleaned it all out but it keeps popping up.
Please help with some advice!!
#reefsquad

 

[jsker]

I am having a HUGE issue with Red Hair Algae and it is starting to really make the tank look bad. What is the best way to get rid of this? It is growing on my snails, corals and rocks... Water perimeters are good and the tank it not near a Window. I also run my HD Primes for 7 hours and 45 minutes a day. I have gone through and cleaned it all out but it keeps popping up.
Please help with some advice!!
#reefsquad

picture would help, but sounds like you have cyano

 

[saltyhog]

What are your water parameters? Do you have a refugium? What's your clean up crew like?

Agree with @jsker, a picture would be invaluable in trying to come up with a plan. #reefsquad

 

[tatties]

if you are dealing with algae outbreak, i don't think your lights should be on for that long either. do you have a fuge with macros competing?

 

[Ron Reefman]

If you say it's a red algae, I'll take you at your word, but a photo would be a huge help.

Besides the parameters others have asked for, I'd like to know the power levels you are running your led at, especially the blue, white and red.

 

[BellaCoop]

I will take a water test and get some pictures when i get home today. I run Blue at about 75% and white @ 72% Red is really low @ about 3% I do however have a Strong Red on my Fuge for my micro. I have a fuge, clean up crew is 5 Turbos and a Sand Star. I had a shrimp but my clown fish always eats them....

 

[BellaCoop]

picture would help, but sounds like you have cyano

I was just looking @ pictures of cyano algae and its more stringy than that. I will be getting Pics today after work.

 

[BellaCoop]

This is just a pic from google but its pretty similar.

 

[RichieRamos]

Is it red cotton candy algae?

http://www.melevsreef.com/critter/cotton-candy-algae

I dealt with this for 8 months .. If this is it. You need to dose a drug into the tank and no water changes for 2 months. My tank is 240gallons and it was EVERYWHERE!!

Let me know and I can find the name of the drug.

Rich

 

[jsker]

Look at your nitrates and phosphates

 

[RichieRamos]

Unfortunately, If it is Red Cotton candy algae, Nitrates and Phosphates will have no affect on it. For me it came in on something that I purchased or traded for. I tried massive water changes, testing, even sent the a water sample to colorado testing. I was ready to break down the entire set up and bleach it out when someone told me of the meds.. started with and F.. and i had to mix about 1 tablet for every 10 gallons of volume including sump. The stuff was everywhere.

 

[Fish_Sticks]

Algae management bible as prescribed by fish_sticks

The rules of algae management:

1. do not make sudden changes, do not use hydrogen peroxide, do not turn off your lights and perform a tank blackout (this is not only bad for your corals, but your fish), or do anything that would be described as a fast fix. These strategies do not work long term. As soon as you stop dosing, as soon as you turn back on the lights, the algae will come back. These are foolish strategies.

2. patience. Understand that it will take a few weeks or even a month to fix the problem. This hobby is based on the slowest changing thing in the world, the ocean. Patience is required to achieve success in the hobby.

3. algae is not a bad thing. Sure its ugly, but its not going to crash your tank in a few weeks. Every single tank on the planet has algae, there is no way to get rid of it. The secret that nobody talks about, is that you never get rid of algae, you control algae.

4. during this process, you should be manually removing algae from the tank when it reaches high levels, or when it threatens the well being of your corals and fish.

5. do not do too much too fast. Take things slow and focus on changing your habits. The algae will dissipate with time if you perform a responsible maintenance routine. Plus, fish love a little snack of fresh grown algae, they are probably having a ball while they watch you run around like a crazy person changing a hundred things on the tank and ruining the balance of the ecosystem.

6. this bible assumes that you arent running your lights for longer than 14/16 hours. Although algae likes light, it cannot survive on just light. If you have a dirty tank, you can grow algea with lights on for only a few hours a day. Fix the real problem...

Why do you have algae? Its plain and simple, don't let anyone fool you.
Your tank is dirty; maybe not chemically, but physically.

Nitrate levels around 10-20 are perfectly fine. Phosphates dont even really matter that much. Algae doesn't even really like nitrogen, what they do love, is ammonia!

For algae to use nitrogen, they must convert it into ammonia.

Algae love ammonia because it is less work for algae to consume ammonia than nitrogen.

When detritus (fish poop, uneaten food) breaks down into ammonia, the ammonia is usually taken up by the bacteria in your rock; however, because algae love ammonia, I personally believe and have experienced that algae can use ammonia before the bacteria have a chance. This causes some bacteria to die off and for the algae to get worse over time. Can you see how this would create a snowball effect? Your algae is essentially taking over your bacteria. This gets even worse because the algae also contributes to clogging up your rock and taking up valuable surface area that bacteria need to live. So essentially, I believe, that the algae can overtake your bacteria when it comes to using ammonia.

So, if you remove the detritus, you solve your algae problems. Don't let anyone fool you otherwise!

Where is the detritus?
It can be in the holes and pores of your rock.

Fix: use a turkey baster to blast out only a few rocks per day, overtime your equipment (skimmer or filter socks) will collect the detritus. You also create more surface area for bacteria to live inside the rocks.​

It can be in your sand bed.

Fix: Vacuum out your sand bed with a gravel vacuum. This can and should be done on a regular basis during your routine water changes, and you kill two birds with one stone; changing the water, and cleaning detritus! I like to vacuum out with my right hand, hold the end of the hose with my left, and control the flow of water in the siphon hose with my left hand fingers.​

It can be in your equipment.

Fix: Clean your equipment on a regular basis, check any sponges, filter floss, pumps, wavemaker suction cups. Detritus can get lodged anywhere.​

It can be in your sump.

Fix: I like to suck it up with a turkey baster. The best part about the baster is you can use it to blow water out, or suck things up.​

It can be in your macroalgae (if you're growing macroalgae).

Fix: After a small 1G water change, just shake out your chaeto macroalgae in your water change water.
​

Great so now I can go crazy cleaning my tank right?
Not so fast. Doing too much at one time can cause your tank to crash. Only do a fair amount of maintenance a day. Doing too much than your equipment can handle will cause your ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate production to rise too much too fast. This is not so much about getting rid of the algae as much as it is improving your maintenance habits. If you fix your habits, the algae will be under control; and stay under control.

​

How do I avoid detritus buildup?
Well if you look around your tank, I'm sure you can find dead spots where water inst flowing very well. See if you can find some dead spots and fix them.

If you have a power head pointed directly at a rock, its gonna lodge a bunch of crud into there.

But I have friends coming over and I want my tank to look nice fast.
That's just too bad. The algae has be slowly gaining power overtime and getting stronger and stronger though weeks of work because you have detritus build up. If you think you can fix all that in one or two weeks, then you're out of luck.

But I have super duper deadly byopsis, cotton candy algae, (insert buzzword terrible evil algea here, AHHHH NITRATES ARE AT 11 PPM IM GONNA DIE, I NEED TO USE PHOSBAN ASAP. IM NEVER GONNA FEED MY FISH AGAIN!!!! MAYBE I NEED TO RIP OUT ALL MY ROCK AND TOSS IN IN BLEACH !!!! OR JUST CHANGE MY T5 BULBS AND IT WILL GO AWAY AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!)
Calm dowwwwwn. So what. All algae does the same thing. They feed off the ammonia produced by the detritus in your aquarium. You can carefully physically remove the algae just like normal, remain calm, dont do anything too fast, dont result to stupid quick fixes, and follow the algae bible.

Lots and lots of people are gonna tell you otherwise, but that's not their fault.
This is your tank.
You've been given the algae bible. If you don't use it, your tank will only have you to blame, not random people on the forums who suggested you try a couple of foolish quick fixes in a hobby based entirely on patience; based around the slowest changing thing in the entire world, the ocean.

 

[ScooterV]

Short of a microscope and verification from an expert, I'm certain I had cotton candy algae. No snails or hermits I had was eating it. My foxface and kole tang ignored it. Mexican turbo snails took it out though. I usually have none, due to the longevity of turbos in warmer tanks, but I added six to my 270 and they cleaned it up. I still keep just a couple turbos, and if they die I see it starting again.

 

[BellaCoop]

Unfortunately, If it is Red Cotton candy algae, Nitrates and Phosphates will have no affect on it. For me it came in on something that I purchased or traded for. I tried massive water changes, testing, even sent the a water sample to colorado testing. I was ready to break down the entire set up and bleach it out when someone told me of the meds.. started with and F.. and i had to mix about 1 tablet for every 10 gallons of volume including sump. The stuff was everywhere.

If you find out what it is called let me know.

 

[RichieRamos]

Short of a microscope and verification from an expert, I'm certain I had cotton candy algae. No snails or hermits I had was eating it. My foxface and kole tang ignored it. Mexican turbo snails took it out though. I usually have none, due to the longevity of turbos in warmer tanks, but I added six to my 270 and they cleaned it up. I still keep just a couple turbos, and if they die I see it starting again.

Yes I tried the Mexican Turbo Snails as well. As soon as they died.. The Red Cotton Candy Algae came back.

 

[RichieRamos]

If you find out what it is called let me know.

This is what i used.

Fluconazole 200mg tablets.. I dissolved 30 of them into a cup of water from the tank as my tank volume is about 300 gallons.

It took about 2 weeks before i noticed that it was dying off. ALSO i did NO water changes for 60 days.... IF you have a FUGE take out the CHETO cause it will die off and cause nutrient levels to spike.
I also turned off my skimmer..

This being said... ALL of it was gone at the 2month mark .. I started on a weekly water change schedule, ALSO i got some new cheto back in my refugium after about the 2 1/2 month mark. I had a small hair algae issue until the cheto started growing.. 5-6 months later EVERYTHING Is gone....

Red Cotton Algae is a pain in the @##..

 

[RichieRamos]

This is what i used.

Fluconazole 200mg tablets.. I dissolved 30 of them into a cup of water from the tank as my tank volume is about 300 gallons.

It took about 2 weeks before i noticed that it was dying off. ALSO i did NO water changes for 60 days.... IF you have a FUGE take out the CHETO cause it will die off and cause nutrient levels to spike.
I also turned off my skimmer..

This being said... ALL of it was gone at the 2month mark .. I started on a weekly water change schedule, ALSO i got some new cheto back in my refugium after about the 2 1/2 month mark. I had a small hair algae issue until the cheto started growing.. 5-6 months later EVERYTHING Is gone....

Red Cotton Algae is a pain in the @##..

This being said.. I want to make sure you know.. I AM NO Expert... I am just a hobbiest who was at his wits end. I am not sure what you have in your tank, this is what I did for MY issue of RED Cotton Candy Algae...

 

[Ron Reefman]

BellaCoop, given, as you said, that you are no expert. And that you have had several different 'theories' about what you have in your tank, a few photos of your tank could be very helpful!

I've never had red hairy algae or cotton candy algae or whatever anybody calls it, but then we don't know if that's what you have either... without seeing it.

What RichieRamos & Fish_Sticks have told you could be very useful information. But a solid ID of the situation is really critical.

And I'm in 80% agreement with all that Fish_Sticks Algae Bible has to say. I disagree a little with a few points, but more so because he is so adamant that 'X' doesn't work than what he says does work. I don't know anything about him and I'd really like to know more about where his expertise comes from. This is in no way meant to say he is wrong, I'd just like to know more so we all can feel more comfortable about his recommendations. And I've never used Fluconazole for anything, so I would only say that if I were BellaCoop, I'd like to get confirmation about using it for this purpose. Again, I'm not saying RichieRamos is wrong, I'm saying before I would add ANYTHING into my tank, I'd want more than one suggestion that this works. I'd want confirmation from at least one or two other people.

As Fish_Sticks stated, take your time and lets do this right.

 

[RichieRamos]

BellaCoop, given, as you said, that you are no expert. And that you have had several different 'theories' about what you have in your tank, a few photos of your tank could be very helpful!

I've never had red hairy algae or cotton candy algae or whatever anybody calls it, but then we don't know if that's what you have either... without seeing it.

What RichieRamos & Fish_Sticks have told you could be very useful information. But a solid ID of the situation is really critical.

And I'm in 80% agreement with all that Fish_Sticks Algae Bible has to say. I disagree a little with a few points, but more so because he is so adamant that 'X' doesn't work than what he says does work. I don't know anything about him and I'd really like to know more about where his expertise comes from. This is in no way meant to say he is wrong, I'd just like to know more so we all can feel more comfortable about his recommendations. And I've never used Fluconazole for anything, so I would only say that if I were BellaCoop, I'd like to get confirmation about using it for this purpose. Again, I'm not saying RichieRamos is wrong, I'm saying before I would add ANYTHING into my tank, I'd want more than one suggestion that this works. I'd want confirmation from at least one or two other people.

As Fish_Sticks stated, take your time and lets do this right.

I agree.. You need to identify the growth. Do your research. I think i said that I am no expert. I just did my research on what i had growing in my tank. Let me know how i can help... - Richie

 

[FGourdin]

Are you using RO water for all H2O replacement and new saltwater makeup? Run carbon to pullout some organics and fine tune the skimmer. Cut photoperiod. Do as much manual removal as possible and give the system time.