getting rid of green hair alage???

[mpls man]

I've had a green hair algae in my tank for about 2-3 months,

I have a phosban reactor running
phoshates are at 0
I cut feeding down to 1 time a week
I feed fish mysis shrimp
I feed rbta anemonie 1 time a week
euro reef skimmer
lighting is MH'S on for 6 hrs...actinics on for 8rs
temp 79-80*
I do 12 gallon wc every wk with ro/di water
since the outbreak on the rock i haven't been to get rid of it. i've been pulling the algae off the rock as much as possible, but it's overcoming the tank. it's been growing on everything, clams, corals, rock
is there another way to get rid of this nusance. :help:
as far as additives i add iodine , stront , and coral vite.
any other ideas would be great.

 

[jmpowie]

put some cherry stone clams (cleaner clams) in your tank from the super market. Clean as much of the alage you can off than wait the rest should go away in a few weeks. It worked great for my tank. I tried everything in over a years time to get rid of the hair alage that was all over the tank. the clams were the only thing that worked and keeps working. Plus it was the cheapest thing too!!!!

 

[connor]

get your self like 3-4 emerald crabs and in a week or two it should be almost gone.

 

[nm reef]

I don't believe a few emeralds will be that effective......
I'd suggest manual removal...maintain water quality...limit of nutrients...insure lighting is in spectrum...patience...and a diverse clean-up crew. Nothing in this hobby happens quickly except problems. I've been fighting a algae bloom for a few months now and its slowly getting better.

 

[connor]

Originally Posted by NM reef
I don't believe a few emeralds will be that effective......
I'd suggest manual removal...maintain water quality...limit of nutrients...insure lighting is in spectrum...patience...and a diverse clean-up crew. Nothing in this hobby happens quickly except problems. I've been fighting a algae bloom for a few months now and its slowly getting better.

really i had a hair algea breakout and added 3 emerald crabs to my 90 an i saw much less in a week and in 3 weeks there was not a spec left

 

[nm reef]

Sounds like you found some really hungry emeralds.....I've rarely seen them very effective at eliminating a major hair algae out break...they can be effective...but I question them being the source of the total solution.

 

[nemo's mom]

One of my friends tried emeralds as well and it worked. Personally never had a problem in my tank....

 

[zanoshanox]

Try scrubbing the rocks with a toothbrush in the prolem areas. You can also try to siphon it out

 

[billb]

I'd probably agree with NM Reef about the Emerald crabs. While they may help, They will go after other food first and if there is enough good food laying around they may not noticably touch the algae. (I have two in a small tank, and they are lazy as hell, stay in the same area and wait for me to feed...)
Green Hair algae is a pain when it happens. It needs two things, Light and Nutients. If you dose with any liquid food, I'd stop, or cut way back. Limit your light as far as you can. Scrubbing, siphoning, and lots of water changes should at least bring you up to pace with it, so you can gain on it.. it will take time though...
as far as additives i add iodine , stront , and coral vite.
I suspect the Iodine is a large contributor to the problem also... I played with iodine, in my "experiment" tank....got the biggest algae problems ever, because of it... Don't know what effect the strontium would have, and don't overdue it with the Coral Vite (which, probably isn't need either for a while)...
Iv'e heard many cures and various voodoo's that could work, and I think usually, it's a combination of cures, once the aquarist has started worrying about the situation and really tightens the controls on his/her tank that solves the problem..
Best of luck,
Bill

 

[mpls man]

so what would you sudjust for adding to my clean up crew ?, I'm not sure what i have for crabs anymore, nasarus snails, red legged crabs, blue legged crabs, lawn mower blennie.
should i add to the crabs, and what kind should id go with.
as far as scrubbing the rocks i've been doing that a lot, it's pretty much everywhere., should i cut back on the iodine ? or the coral vite ?
as far as lights, the MH'S are less then a yr old, pcs are also except for 1 of them is not as bright as the other, in the process of replaceing it.
any other sudjustions would be great.
thanks for all the help so far.

 

[crazyreefnut]

I used urchins emerald crabs also pick off as much as possible. Maintain water quality and test for nitrates and phosphates.
IMO this works and I have had success.

 

[pyro]

My emeralds took out my bubble algae but both of them died for unknown reasons after a month or two. I've heard they have a naturally short livespan though.

 

[dragonboy]

Yeah most of the time my emerald crabs die on me. I'm still battling the hair aglae but if you want fast result try getting a good clean up crew and rowphate that will help reduce nuritents tremendously. Another crab that will be good is sally lightfoot crab those guys are pretty good at eatting hair.

 

[db]

The best algea remover is by far the sea hare. If you can't find one or don't want one I've found Sally lightfoots to be better than emeralds. They are little bulldozers.

 

[murph]

All the suggestions are good. I would also provide an intermittent series of cloudy days on the reef. In other words start limiting your light schedule a bit combined with the other suggestions and as NM said make sure your bulbs are of the right spectrum and not past there prime.

 

[anonome]

All the suggestions are good, I just have a concern. You say you are feeding mysis shrimp only 1 time a week? That can't be good on the fish. I see under your call name it says kole tang. Do you have one? Tangs are great herbivores, so are angels. I read on another website that you should always rinse your frozen food before feeding. It is packaged with tons of phosphates. Run some carbon, but no longer than a week. Any longer and the chances of harboring nitrates will get high. I would also suggest scrubbing out what you can, and siphoning the debris. Good luck!!

I never had a problem with the hair algae, but did with cyano at the onset of setting up my tank, what a mess.

Look at it this way, at least hair algae is green and somewhat pretty, it could be red and slimey. YUCK!

 

[mpls man]

well, i did have a kole tang about a monthh ago, till he passed due to ich ? i've tried just about everything except the carbon
in meens too feeding, are you saying thats bad too feed them that or not enough ?
i'm not sure if the 1 pc being bad can do that much to my tank ?
i'm also thinking on maybe upping the cleanup crew that i may have?
don't know right now , i'd like too see more coraline then green hair.
i'm going to try not adding any additives for a while and see what that brings ?
DB, what is that "sea hare" you mentioned, some type of animal ?
thanks again for all the help.

 

[mpls man]

I've been doing some thinking and wondering if the alge growth may come from the refugium growth, i have a small amount of slime every now and then form on the top of the water, otherwise the refugium is packed with lots of calurpa, could the lighting be any cause to the situation, i have a GE 75 watt bulb i believe, everything grows very well.

 

[secter1]

I have a bloom going on right now. I added 20 more hermits, 4 turbo snail, 15 assorted snails, 2 emeralds and a lawnmower blenny and in 2 days I have 1/2 the prob. This was to a 40G that had 20 hermits and 10 snails. The blenny and the turbos do the most damage but the hermits are nonstop workers. My emeralds were mowing that crap down but got full and are now hidding under my rock work.

 

[dragonboy]

Usually if the hair aglae gets old and long most of the clean up crew won't touch the stuff. I think it just depends on each animal who has taste for it.