hair algae is winning, more snails?

willie

willie

Member
I am about to loose my mind with my hair algae. I dont know how it is growing I have tried so many things to rid my tank of it. I have gone in 3 times and pulled as much off of the rocks as I could but there are some areas I just cant reach. I have set up 15 gal refug full of cheato and calurpa. I want to set up a scrubber like Snakes but dont have the room under my cabinet. i have brand new ati t5ho's that i run for about 7 hours a day. I dont feed very heavy and I have fairly decent flow and I only use rodi water.
I am grasping at straws here but I am about to add some more turbos. I have a 90 reef with a 30 gal sump/refugium I am rocking 130 lbs of live rock. I already have a decent cuc but I am thinking about adding 3 or 4 more turbo snails to complement what I have going on already which consists of:
15 hermits
15 random snails
2 emeralds
2 peppermints
1 coral banded
1 decorator crab
1 tuxedo urchin
1 scooter and lawnmower blennies
3 turbo snails
1 yellow tang
How many more turbos can I add before I start to starve the cuc? do you think this will help?
Any other suggestions?
 
snakeblitz33

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
How much space do you have beside your aquarium? Reason is, you could probably pretty easily install a scrubber in a tote or 10g aquarium beside the tank.
 
willie

willie

Member
Thats a pretty good idea. I will have to investigate that. If I do I will probably make a larger refugium while Im at it and just have a supersumpsidecar! design to follow....
 
geoj

geoj

Active Member
What are you testing?
Is your skimmer making enough that you can dump it every day?
For now let the HA grow on the back and sides of the glass so you can remove it with a scraper when it gets long.
Is the tank covered in coralline algae?
 
xcali1985

xcali1985

Active Member
Sea Hare will devour it all. Just make sure you have somewhere to place him once he cleans the tank. If it dies in the tank, it will release toxins that will probably nuke your tank. However, this little buddy will clean your tank better than any snail or crab can ever do.
 
btldreef

btldreef

Moderator
I tried 3 sea hares, all were great, for about the 3 seconds they lived. If you have even 1/4 of an inch of powerhead left uncovered, they'll find it. Dumbest animal I've ever owned. Snails and hermits won't do too much for it either once it gets out of control.
Is it regular hair algae or a specific species like bryopsis?
 
willie

willie

Member
Tank has been up and running for a month and a half. Hair algae showed up about 2 weeks ago. Dont have a right now reading but last water test was on monday and ammonia, nitrate,nitrite all 0, ph 8.2 alk 7 mag 1350 cal 420 sal 1.026. Phos 0
 
xcali1985

xcali1985

Active Member
Test are not going to be reliable. They will read 0 with hair algae, its consuming all the nutrients. A high magnesium will slow algae growth. Not exactly sure what the numbers are.
 
willie

willie

Member
Hair algae continues to plague my tank. I have been doing weekly 10 gal water changes. I have been going in weekly and removing by hand a pretty decent amount of the gha that I can reach. I am nervous about using mag because of my inverts and have been considering dumping a large amount of turbo snails or a sea hare into the tank to go crazy on it for a while.
My setup is fairly new at (3 months) new lights, I run ro water, it is a 90 gal (w 30 gal sump) with a h korilla 4 and 2 and a mag 9.5 pushing the water around. I have a fairly light bioload 5 small fish 3 of which eat algae. I have 130 lbs of lr and it is getting covered with gha (reg hair not bryopis)
Im going crazy, someone help me?

 
btldreef

btldreef

Moderator
If the magnesium is raised slowly, it usually has little effect on inverts. I had an evil battle with bryopsis and ended up having to go the mag route. I have a 180 mixed reef with a 55 refugium and 45 sump. I even have mysid shrimp in my refugium. The only invert I lost was a fighting conch.
That being said, the mag treatment is really more effective for bryopsis than regular gha, but in such a new tank, I would give it a shot.
Raise it slowly up to 1600ppm and keep it there for a minimum of two weeks, then lower slowly. You must use Kent Tech M or it doesn't work, trust me.
In all honesty, I don't think more turbo snails will make much difference and I've already shared my thoughts on sea hares. If you want to try them first, by all means do so, it's your tank.
As for your RO, are you testing it with a TDS meter?
What salt are you using? What salinity?
Have you tried turning the lights off for 3 days? 3 days is safe for corals.
When you pull out the gha, do you turn off all filtration/circulation first? Do you do a water change right after?
What are you feeding? How much? How often? Are you rinsing?
Looking at your pictures, you might have to add another power head or reposition the ones you have.
 
beaslbob

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
You have algae eaters like snails, a refugium with macros, and hair algae.
So kill your display lights and stop adding food until the hair algae is gone. The resume with less duration lighting and less feeding. Increase both of hair algae does not come back, decrease both if it does.
You will find a combination the allows your corraline and macros to thrive but not the hair algae.
my .02
 
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