Hair algae

paptort

paptort

New Member
Ive had my 55 gallon FOWLR and with LS for about 1 year now and i am having serious trouble with hair algae. It grows all over my front glass and covers the sand in some areas like grass. It is very difficult to siphon out, since it is sort of "rooted" in the sand and it is also difficult to wipe off of the glass. I have had some success turning the lights of for around a week and then wiping it off when it is dead/dieing. I think the problem may be that i filled up the tank with tap water when first starting it up, even though i have been using RO water to top off for about 11 months. Salinity is at 1.025, ammonia is 0, nitrates are 0, my lighting system is 165W t5.
 
miaheatlvr

miaheatlvr

Active Member
Originally Posted by Paptort
Ive had my 55 gallon FOWLR and with LS for about 1 year now and i am having serious trouble with hair algae. It grows all over my front glass and covers the sand in some areas like grass. It is very difficult to siphon out, since it is sort of "rooted" in the sand and it is also difficult to wipe off of the glass. I have had some success turning the lights of for around a week and then wiping it off when it is dead/dieing. I think the problem may be that i filled up the tank with tap water when first starting it up, even though i have been using RO water to top off for about 11 months. Salinity is at 1.025, ammonia is 0, nitrates are 0, my lighting system is 165W t5.
JUST WHAT I WROTE ABOVE...
reen Hair algae= DONT FEED IT,, you need to get your nitrates and phosphates down, control lighting, good clean up crew, Lawnmower blenny IF APPLICABLE, also increase your water flow as well.. all these things will help with your diatoms as well... Think about adding some kind of fuge and/or macro algae if applicable..
 
paptort

paptort

New Member
How high do I need to get the flow? Its at about 10.5X hourly turnover. My clean up crew is 15 blue leg hermit crabs, a serpant starfish, four margharitta snails, five nassirius snails, and five astrea snails and a scooter blenny, what would you suggest adding?
 
dinogeorge

dinogeorge

Member
IMO, I would not worry about adding anything at all to your tank. I would do two things to fix this problem - First, reduce your feedings and starve the algae out. Over-feeding is the number one cause of hair algae. It can only grow if it has a lot of food. I know its hard to do, but sometimes not feeding your tank for three days is enough to kill off most of this stuff. Then when you go back to feeding, cut it back a bit.
Second, I would reduce your lights a bit. Perhaps a simple change like having your lights come on 20 minutes later each morning and off 20 minutes earlier at night.
Good luck man.
 
dinogeorge

dinogeorge

Member
No, not really. I think reducing lights and cut feeding back a bit will get you what you want, without the expense of adding more powerheads.
Good luck man.
 
mcbdz

mcbdz

Active Member
Flow is more for cyno. I'vve had hair algea grow on the defuser of my powerheads before, so flow wasn't the problem.LOL Make sure you are still removing as much as possible with each water change.
 
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