Hair algae and lights

[col]

I've started having small outbreaks of algae. Some patches are "fuzzy" and some are more definitley like blades of grass.
I know there is an underlying problem as my phosphates are not exactly zero. I can sort this out later.
Will keeping lights off for a few days have any benefit or is it just a waste of time?

 

[jimmyn]

you say "blades of grass" but you mention hair algae. Is the "fuzzy" algae brown or green? Small outbreaks are not necessarily bad. The blades of grass could be beneficial macro algae.
What are your water parameters? have you changed lights recently? changed lighting cycle?
Turning off lights could stop the process some, but as soon as you turn them back on, you will probably be right back to where you are. There is an underlying driver that will still be there.
Try a clean-up crew. Hard to answer unless you provide some more info.
Good Luck

 

[col]

The fuzzy algae is green.
The "blades" of grass algae is green also.
Water parameters are
Ammo - 0
Trites - 0
Trates - almost 0
Phosphates - 0.5 ish
I have a couple of blue leg Hermits and Turbos, aswell as a bicolour blenny. None of them are interested in the algae, just graze round it.
Lighting has been upgraded a few months ago but is still only 100w NO. Lighting is no longer than 8 hours.

 

[beaslbob]

Originally posted by col
I've started having small outbreaks of algae. Some patches are "fuzzy" and some are more definitley like blades of grass.
I know there is an underlying problem as my phosphates are not exactly zero. I can sort this out later.
Will keeping lights off for a few days have any benefit or is it just a waste of time?
I depends on what you mean by benificial. As stated above the algae will die off if you turn you lights off. The question is whether or not there are other plant life in the system. If there is say macros or marine plants, they will actually grow faster (using stored energy) while the lights are off. The when you turn the lights back on you will have more desirable plants consuming the nitrAtes and phosphates. The key is to adjust your lighting to where the desirable plants survive but the faster growing (and dieing) algaes are crowded out. As the tank matures, you can increase the lighting. If you do not have other plant life in your system then you need to add some. Otherwise the algaes will simply return.

 

[col]

If there is say macros or marine plants
Macros Shmakros

 

[reefnut]

Leaving the lights off or cutting them back will help short term... I find it very hard to believe that macros will grow faster with the lights off but that's beside the point. What spectrum are your lights? A large cleanup crew may also help.

 

[col]

4 x NO lights - 2 x 10,000k + 2 x actinic
I have no clean up crew to speak of - 2 blue leg hermits and a few turbos. Neither have touched the patches of the fuzzy stuff, I even placed hermit on top of it.
what would you recommend?

 

[reefnut]

A larger cleanup crew and water changes to reduce your phosphates.

 

[col]

What would be a good cleaner crew for 42g?

 

[reefnut]

Hermits and snails. Kip could help you more but a good verity of snails seems to do good.

 

[col]

Here Kippy Kippy

 

[oregonbud]

Col - I swear you need to stop posting, it seems like every time you post about a problem in your tank, it pops up in mine not more then a week later. Finally got rid of the cyano problem I was having a couple weeks ago (thanks to your advice, it was a bad batch of water, phosphates were reading over .5 - thankfully the water store let me take the stuff I had back, and replaced it) And now I am starting to see the nasty hair algea, like yours its only in one or two spots, mine seems to really like the output area of my emperor filter and the end piece of one of my PH's
Clean up crew - I would say from my own experiences and readings, you would want 10-15 hermits, (I am a really big fan of zebra hermits, mine munchs hair algea like crazy)maybe 10-12 nassarius snails, 10 or so cerith snails, maybe a conch, brittle star, and one or two cleaner type shrimp. If I were going to add that amount, I would start off with the hermits, wait a week or two, then add the snails, then the shrimp, then wait 3-4 weeks watching water quality and then add a brittle star.

 

[col]

Only crew I have seen in my LFS are Turbos, red and blue leg hermits and brittlestars.
I have a scarlet cleaner.

 

[oregonbud]

Personally I could care less about the Turbos, the ones I have/had didn't seem to do much other then hang out on the rock work and occasionally clean the glass, I currently only have one turbo left, and switching all my snails to nassarius and cerith.
If your LFS does not sell them you may want to try seeing if they can special order them for you - I know mine will do that for anything I want that they don't currently have in stock.
I can't remember if you have a sand bed, or crushed coral? If a sandbed seriously try to get some of the nassarius snails, I got 5 the other day and its amazing how clean my sand bed is in the areas they have been in, I am going to go get another 6 more of them and 6 cerith next week. Dunno how the shipping is to England, but worst case scenario, I could get you some here, and ship them to you if you wanted - I pick them up for 1.50 each or 6 for 10.
edit* I also have a couple friends in London, don't know what locale you are in, but I could ask some of them if they know of any shops you may not have found, that might carry a wider variety of inverts.

 

[col]

I have CC.
Which snails would be best because of this, and which wouldn't be suited to CC. All of the patches of hair are on LR.

 

[oregonbud]

When I had CC the turbos seemed to do an ok job, just in a tank with sand they really don't go after anything in the sand bed, and i think the hermits get most off the rock, so the snail is all by himself getting the leftovers.
I didn't have CC for long enough to recommend a clean up crew for it, outside of hermits, and turbos - I'm sure someone else (BangGuy or Kip) may have some other advice.