The OFFICIAL how I beat Hair Algae thread! How did you do it?

[rknott]

Been in the hobby since 2012, but still consider myself a beginner.

I love the prevention ideas and those are first and foremost. For those of us that lose interest in the hobby for a while (it happens), but don't want to get out of the hobby, it gets many of us. I had a outbreak in my 14G nano for over 9 months that was so frustrating I almost left the hobby over it. My process that eventually let to success.
1. Turned lights down (not enough).
2. Cleaned out sand bed and got got parameters back in check with massive regular water changes. 50% 2 or 3 times per week for a few weeks. (doable in a nano, not sure about large tank). Monitored for a couple of months, but didn't help.
3. Tried all sorts of critters appropriate for my tank. Didn't help.
4. Started manually pulling it out where I could via scrubbing and simply pulling with my hand.

That finally did the trick. With the nutrients gone it didn't grow back and hasn't grown back since. I have now moved on to a 75G and have been able to stay of top of it with regular maintenance. We will see over the long haul.

There are many roads to success. I have also heard of the blanket trick, but I was afraid of losing corals and I didn't want to introduce chemicals that you can't get back out. Probably me being overly conservative. I am not an expert, but have learned to become an expert you have to try things and sometimes fail. I was unwilling to take that chance here.

 

[reefer fro canada]

My tank is about a year old and I never had a bad allege outbreak .Now saying that I learned many years ago to take your time and with this tank I did just that.I cycled my rock for three months and I have been putting in stock very slowly.I got my tang gang and a lawnmower blemy.So with that and a large fusion I have not had a problem at all of course I get a little now and then but the tangs take care of that.

 

[1stNoel]

+1 for Vibrant.

Knocked out my Bryopsis and Hair Algae issues about 2 years ago and they've never returned.

It takes about 6 to 8 weeks to totally work. You have to be patient.

 

[Randy Shapiro]

What I dont understand is my nutrients bottomed out. I now have dinos and GHA. Have been overfeeding like crazy to try and get nutrients up but nothing is working. Cant do water changes either because that fuels the dinos. Any and all help is appreciated. I got corals that arent opening because of no nutrients. Skimmer is off, chaeto is kind of dying. Only running some carbon and been dosing Vibrant just a little once a week.

 

[pigmo]

What I dont understand is my nutrients bottomed out. I now have dinos and GHA. Have been overfeeding like crazy to try and get nutrients up but nothing is working. Cant do water changes either because that fuels the dinos. Any and all help is appreciated. I got corals that arent opening because of no nutrients. Skimmer is off, chaeto is kind of dying. Only running some carbon and been dosing Vibrant just a little once a week.

look at @taylorpitcher11 post

 

[brandon429]

work jobs are coming into my inbox, keep it up team add 20 more tanks lets fix these tanks / update pics r coming to this thread in a bit. dental after shots r coming

 

[Marc2952]

What I dont understand is my nutrients bottomed out. I now have dinos and GHA. Have been overfeeding like crazy to try and get nutrients up but nothing is working. Cant do water changes either because that fuels the dinos. Any and all help is appreciated. I got corals that arent opening because of no nutrients. Skimmer is off, chaeto is kind of dying. Only running some carbon and been dosing Vibrant just a little once a week.

Your nutrients are being consumed by the GHA

 

[Jmas4]

I have two reef tanks. My first one had many ups and downs with different algae outbreaks. For hair algae what finally got it was an chaeto algae and gfo reactor. I did a major scrubbing and a 3 day balck out to kill a majority of the algae, then turned on my reactor's. This allowed my chaeto to establish and out compete the hair algae. Now I dont even run my gfo and my algae reactor runs on 4 hours a day. My tangs and blenny takes care of any new growth. My corals after the hair algae was gone, took off and started using the nutrients too. I haven't had an out break for a long time.
My new tank I learned from my lessons and started prepared. I run an algae reactor from day 1 and have a lot of tangs and snails.
For nutrient control I change my filter sock 3 times a week to prevent the bacteria from breaking down wastes into nitrates. I also feed with all my pumps turned off so no food is wasted.

 

[BryanJ]

I am not a 110% sure but I let all my snails die off and I have not had a problem since. I used to buy 50 at a time I have been pondering what that did to my bio load. My other two game changers were adding ATO and more flow. I also shortened my schedule to change my light bulbs. I run metal halides and I change them just shy of 12 months I used to push it at 13 months.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

Hydrogen Peroxide for hair algae and Vibrant for Velonia! Additional CUC to maintain.

 

[ReefGeezer]

Reefgeezer: Large tanks sure might can be brought through challenges with water dosing, luck, patience and deft skill but Ive logged hundreds totally lost due to inability to access. we could have saved them if the reef was smaller, in every case... if a 20 gallon reefer has a challenge, send em this way...

...working through the water is so 1986-2019.

But 1986-2019 was my time! My 90 is cocked full of rock, and SPS corals that break if you look at them funny. Montipora corals have grown to cover and attach to multiple rocks. Rip-clean just isn't an option. Heck, just trying to rescue an overturned snail requires tongs, chopsticks, a steady hand, and maybe a frag plug or two. I also wouldn't want to sacrifice the cryptic life like sponges, sea squirts, tube worms, and etc. that are part of my almost mature ecosystem.

Like I've said in other posts, I have a little hair algae. It's not a problem. I think it's just part of the process in a bigger reef tank. I have battled multiple forms of Cyano, turf algae, and hair algae on my path to maturing this tank. While there were times I wanted to rip it all out, I've dealt with them using numerous methods you might refer to as "water dosing". Some worked well, some didn't, some caused other problems. I think the struggle is part of the hobby in bigger systems. I am hoping it will finally all go away in a few more months.

That said, I appreciate the value of your method where the system's size allows it.

 

[zapbap99]

hair algae the new anemone for clowns to be hosted by lol idk i had it once it went away

 

[Hemmdog]

I’ve never had it, I’ve never cared for the look of the stuff

 

[mch1984]

I had a battle summer last year, like a big battle of big tuffs of it. I let po4 get a little high and didn't manage it. Once a week I would get a gravel vacuum put the tube in a filter sock that was in a bucket, then there was a pump in the bucket putting water back in the tank has I went. I used long tweezers and basically picked it off and the siphon sucked it out and in the filter sock. I worked on it for about an hour a week for about a month. Meanwhile I added GFO and help with the PO4. I eventually knocked it all out and kept it out.

 

[Vogg]

Dolabella sea hare

 

[AZMSGT]

I had some migrate into my tank with some Zoa frags. The area that I had the frags started to get full of it. I took the two rocks and 10 zoas that had it out of the tank. I poured H2O2 on them. Scrubbed the rock with a tooth brush and gave the Zoas a 20-80 bath for 10min.
A couple days later all signs of algae were gone. The tank is much better for it.

 

[UCF Alum]

I used a combination of Peroxide and Vibrant and it worked. This was a few years ago. If it were now and I had to do it all over again with the experience I have now, I would just let it run its course.

 

[pasquale petrovia]

Took all the rock out of my 225 and power washed it. I was so fed up with it. Coraline is growing on it now so I hope I can keep it at bay until it gets covered. Tried sea hare twice. They died. crabs, snails, 2 urchins, lawnmower. Peroxide, carbon dosing actually turned it brown and killed a lot of it. Power washer took 95% off and now I scrub that and keep at it. Caulerpa growing wild in fuge, but not stopping it. I got the best results by not changing water for 3 months. RO all make-up and changes.

 

[Mark Bradley]

I hired a sea hare from the LFS - took care of the problem very quickly. Really weird looking thing that I would have happily kept if I could have fed it properly in the long term.

 

[brandon429]

also upping the ante on GHA challenge: work threads. They reveal what works at home vs what works for the masses, which is different.

if anyone here wants to see the true nature of GHA have others send you their challenges and log the results.

By page ten, you’re doing stuff your peers secretly think is crazy because the stuff that works for our tanks at home, is restricted to location

what works at home works 10% of the time for the public as a recommend inside algae fix threads, neat gha fact. lemme see some work logs

this must be a tweeted link/awesome 400 live views. Post some challenge jobs right here, let’s fix em live time. Post the before shots of reef teeth and we‘ll go right for the dang incisors.