Struggling with hair algae

[baylisascaris97]

Hi All- I am struggling with hair algae. I have a 150 gallon aquarium. I’ve cut my feedings down to once a day or once every other day. I’ve done manual removal, 20 pitho crabs, turbo snails, reef fluxed it three times, black out for a couple of days. I don’t know what else to do. My last ICP a couple weeks ago my phosphate was .16 and nitrates 25. I run rowaphos and a sterilizer. The tank is 5 mos old. I need help.

 

[bushdoc]

I am a big fun of biological methods, how about sea urchin and some live rock for biodiversity, also pods could help and unfortunately battle might be long, so do not get discouraged.Good luck!

 

[Louis Z]

Do you have coral?

 

[baylisascaris97]

I am a big fun of biological methods, how about sea urchin and some live rock for biodiversity, also pods could help and unfortunately battle might be long, so do not get discouraged.Good luck!

Yes. I have 2 urchins and added gallons of pods over a 3 mos span. I have mandarins. Every other week I was dosing at least 1/2 gallon pods.

 

[Reef Jedi]

Are you using RO water?

A strict cleaning and water change schedule will be very beneficial. Stay on a 2 week schedule. Manual removal of algae is needed so the snails and hermits can take down what’s left. An urchin would help as well. Keeping no3 around 10 and phos around .1 should be the goal. You can also dose microbacter7 to help the biological balance and also add pods to eat algae that others can’t reach.

Stick to the schedule and it will turn around. Unfortunately nothing happens fast in this hobby and it always seems to take twice as long to fix a problem after it’s started.

 

[baylisascaris97]

Do you have coral?

Yes. It was a transfer from smaller tank to bigger tank.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I always feel sad when folks cut the feeding to try to control nutrients, its not the fishes fault after all.

For me you nitrate and phosphate is too high, and if you have hair algae then the nutrients are likely higher. Hair algae consumes nutrients very quickly and stores those nutrients in the cells of its tissue, so the nutrients are still in the tank even though it doesn't show on the tests.

Hair algae comes down to nutrient import vs nutrient export. Overfeeding, under-filtration, lack of water changes, lack of tank maintenance, tap water, low flow, dirty filters all contribute to algae. If you started with dry white rocks then it might just be normal new tank syndrome.

You've not provided any info so its hard to suggest what you should focus on. If you can provide more info and some tank pictures I'm sure you will get more suggestions, good luck.

 

[Louis Z]

Do you still have smaller tank up and running ?

 

[Louis Z]

You might be able to transfer back the corals . Lights out on larger tank for 3to 4weeks to get it under control . Do dips to eliminate as much hair algae as much as possible on the corals and move back in . The clean up crew will be able to get a handle on it once manageable

 

[Kmst80]

What algae eating fish do you have? Are you doing manual removal?
No fish nor Cuc likes long old hair algae, but if you manually remove as much as you can they will take care of the rest.
My best fish for that is my foxface closely followed by my purple tang.

My nitrates and phosphates used to be higher than yours, no hair algae in my 200 gallon tank. Got hairalgae in my fuge and in my piggy back breedingtank, coz there is no algae eating fish there.

 

[Louis Z]

No fish nor Cuc likes long old hair algae, but if you manually remove as much as you can they will take care of the rest.
My best fish for that is my foxface closely followed by my purple tang.

Good to know . I wondered why no one was eating my GHA . . It got too long and out of control. Lights out DT and Refugium . and finally under control . Reintroduced cheato . I have seen it but I remove it right away . Easier to control now .

 

[v!kas]

maybe adding a fish that eats hair algae would be great

 

[Louis Z]

I have tangs , .Starry blennies . They never touched it .

 

[slingfox]

You should post a full tank picture. It sounds like you are doing a whole lot. That is a good thing overall but sometimes it just takes manual effort and and time to get through the uglies.

What nutrient export methods are you using? What rock did you use for the aquascape?

You likely need to plan for manual removal every few days for several weeks or even months while keeping the CUC population up and feeding only enough so that it is consumed by the fish quickly. You’ll get there in time.