Freaking hair algae invasion

darkmoon

darkmoon

Member
I'm going nuts with this one....
My water quality is very good, salinity is usually just a hair higher than .025 but it is always stable. So is calcium and pH.
I made sure to not overfeed, i cut down the lighting.... I even got a seahare (that died.. dunno why). The seahare was doing the trick and getting BIG. But then it stopped. Just hung around the back of my zooa rock for a couple of weeks, with short ventures to the back glass of the tank... I haven't seen it for at least 3 wks.
The problem, you ask? SUNLIGHT!!! I get a lot of sunlight in the afternoon in my living room... around 5pm or so, if the blinds are open, the tank even receives direct sunlight!
So yeah, i've been making sure to close those damn blinds in the afternoons. I even considered moving the tank, but since i have a wall to wall sliding glass door, the whole living room receives direct sunlight at some point or another during the afternoon hours.
Moving it woud even be something i'd try to avoid, with my 5" tall, 110lb little self to do it all by myself *sigh*
Needless to say, the corals are just HUGE. So big they're looking out of place in my 55gal (I've been meaning to ask about fragging those, hehe)... I have a bubble coral that even with the lights off in the morning, bends towards the window looking to receive what little light comes in during the am.

Any suggestions??? Another hare???
 
nordy

nordy

Active Member
What about putting some type of inexpensive type of dark covering on the sliding door? I had that problem on my tank too, as it is in a south facing room and when I too noticed my corals leaning into the sunny side of the room, with tank lights off, I realized that the sunlight was a problem (I had a moderate algae problem). I found some cheap very dark light shading curtains at Kmart for the three windows in that part of the house and that did the trick for me. My windows are a lot smaller than a sliding door but there ought to be some thing sized for your slider that is made to block light from the slider. Or, you might be able to find someone who could make a set of custom shades for not too much.
 
digitydash

digitydash

Active Member
How many fish do you have?What is your phosphate and trates @?How many times a week do you feed?How often do you do water changes?What kind of filtration do you have?How much flow do you have?Just a few people will ask.Sunlight is not your problem their is something else.
 
jacrmill

jacrmill

Member
just found out I had this problem also....but it gave me serious hair algae. I just put up window treatments to keep the light off the tank, hopefully this will solve the problem....also I just bought a good CUC and I have a sump filled with chaeto and by water is well skimmed and not overfed. If you got all that, should be in good shape (or at least I hope so for my sake also)
 
darkmoon

darkmoon

Member
I have 2 clowns, a mandarin, and a neon goby. Will test for phosphates, but last i tested it was not present. Nitrates 0. I feed 3 times with frozen ... umm the red thingies. The suncoral i feed outside the tank (i think this is where the problem got started, by me overfeeding the tank to feed the suncoral). I do a water change at least every three weeks... The flow, well, im not that sure... I'll have to go look at the filter and the pump again, but I thought it was ok (but not great, I admit).
Also, I purchase ocean water from a local place, I don't have a skimmer or a sump/fuge (i want a fuge, but haven't figured out how to go about that without having to drill that tank), and what's a CUC???
Thanks guys for your replies.
 
invertcrazy

invertcrazy

Member
cuc= clean up crew (crabs, snails, etc.)
If sunlight is your problem, you could try that film they use for window tinting. You can get it at an auto parts store.(just a last resort option)
As stated above test your water for phosphates and nitrates
 
bgbdwlf2500

bgbdwlf2500

Member
i think you found the problem, the sun. sun wreaks havoc on any tank fresh or salt. good for your corals im sure but not for algae
 
nycbob

nycbob

Active Member
the only way to really get rid of or control it is doing more frequent water change. make sure the new water is as pure as possible. direct sunlight wouldnt cause hair algae problem. when changing water, siphon and pull off as much hair algae as possble.
 
mr.clownfish

mr.clownfish

Active Member
if i was u i would buy a big lawnmower blenny they are awesome fish with tons of personality. they even have white and orange poke e dot ones. its in there name LAWNMOWER blenny. they will eat hair algae like crazy!
 
darkmoon

darkmoon

Member
Hi guys... finally got around to post the test results.
Nitrates are almost 0... just a tiny bit shows up but not enough to get a reading. Phosphates are 0. My flow is at minimum 1200 gph. I have a korallia pump that pushes that, and i don't know what the filter pushes, but is not that much.
As for CUC (thanks for clarifying that IC), I just purchased a few more... But at the time i first posted i had 3 turbo snails 3 or 4 blue legged hermits and 10 ceriths snails. Saturday i bought 3 more turbo snails, one mexican turbo snail (is that what they're called?), and 10 nassarius snails. Is that enough???
I do a 7 gal water change every month... Is that too little???
I got a lawnmower blenny, but he's going to be in QT for two more weeks, if all goes well. I do still plan on getting another sea hare.
Any ideas???
 
bgbdwlf2500

bgbdwlf2500

Member
Originally Posted by DarkMoon
http:///forum/post/2659127
Hi guys... finally got around to post the test results.
Nitrates are almost 0... just a tiny bit shows up but not enough to get a reading. Phosphates are 0. My flow is at minimum 1200 gph. I have a korallia pump that pushes that, and i don't know what the filter pushes, but is not that much.
As for CUC (thanks for clarifying that IC), I just purchased a few more... But at the time i first posted i had 3 turbo snails 3 or 4 blue legged hermits and 10 ceriths snails. Saturday i bought 3 more turbo snails, one mexican turbo snail (is that what they're called?), and 10 nassarius snails. Is that enough???
I do a 7 gal water change every month... Is that too little???
I got a lawnmower blenny, but he's going to be in QT for two more weeks, if all goes well. I do still plan on getting another sea hare.
Any ideas???
how big is the tank?
 
darkmoon

darkmoon

Member
I'm about ready to scrub these rocks down... I'm so sick of my tank looking so bad. Grrrrrr... Question though... So i take them out piece by piece and scrub with my handy dandy toothbrush. Will i be losing a ton of good stuff along with the algae???
Any tips on how to do this? What about the sand? one of the corners (where the sun hits most directly) is bad all the way down from the rock to the sand.
I'm thinking it may be the RO water i purchase at the store that's brining the phosphates into my system. I'm going to test that today too.
 
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