oh no, still no help

aspen

Member
I have done everything for the past 6 months. I have changed lights, water test after water test (everythings ok) weekly water changes, seahare, emerald crabs, and I tried scrubbing but this darn hair algea wont go away. Does anyone have any ideas.
 

danprospec

Member
have you tried emerald crabs- they eat it and are fine, but when they grow up they get aggressive sometimes- or at least what I perceive as aggressive
 

mrdc

Active Member
OK ok ... first list all parameters and how old are your lights. Let's start from there.
Also what type of water are you using?
 

aspen

Member
my lights are only 3 months old
ammonia 0
ph 8.0
nitrates 5.0
nitrites 0
I use ro water and I changed those filters 3 1/2 months ago.
I also use the same ro water for my other tank and that tank has no hair algea.
I have been using phosban too. This has made no difference.
 

mrdc

Active Member
Ok let's try more analyzing...
How long are lights on?
How much do you feed?
Are you using any additives?
What is your clean up crew (besides what's already listed though a seahare is awesome at cleaning algae)?
What are your lights?
What skimmer are you using?
Are you using cc or ls?
What's your water flow?
Enough for now
 

albie611

Member
how big is the tank? if you have room maybe try a tang , they love almost any type of hair algea.
i had one years ago ago and it kept all the hair algea in check on my 90 gal.
also maybe a lawnmower blenny could help.
 

rykna

Active Member
I went to my lfs and bought a specific algae killer that destroies red, brown, and maiden hair(the kind you have). That was what finally did it for me. That was many moons ago, I forget the name of it, I called the lfs they said it's called Marine SAT. It's made by TLC. Help this helps
 

aspen

Member
I have my lights on for 9 hours
I feed everyother day
I add no additives
For some reason most of my clean up crew died, my seahare got stuck on my skimmer box
I have 75lbs of ls
as for water flow I have 3 powerheads and I use a wet/dry filter
and I have a seaclone protein skimmer
I hope I was able to answer all of the questions
 

rykna

Active Member
Originally Posted by pohtr
Isn't algae killer risky? Aany kind of toxins in the tank make me nervous.
Well, the bottle said reef safe and that it Is not toxic to invertebrates or coral, I trust the source I bought it from, I didn,t have any problems with it, but I understand your concern.
 

bobwire

Member
Exactly how much algea are we talking about? It seems that a little won't hurt. I kinda like the look of it. I was afraid for a while that my emerald would eat all of.
 

hemicj

Member
i have same problem i added a few hermits,sallylightfoot and emarald crabs as well as a yellow tang and there tearing into it. the tang doesnt sto picking at it until lighyts go down. i only have 29gal. but buddy with 75 gal is taking tang when it gets a litlle bigger its small now but doing a graet job
 
B

baymonkey

Guest
Those are the guys who eat the algae... Like a clean up crew, crabs, snails, stars, etc... Chemicals are not always necessary, just find what nature uses..
Example, I had an out break of aipstasia, and 3 peppermint shrimp came to my rescue.
 

swlover

Member
Originally Posted by aspen
I have my lights on for 9 hours
I feed everyother day
I add no additives
For some reason most of my clean up crew died, my seahare got stuck on my skimmer box
I have 75lbs of ls
as for water flow I have 3 powerheads and I use a wet/dry filter
and I have a seaclone protein skimmer
I hope I was able to answer all of the questions
So your seahare is dead? Mine destroys hair algea and I had a huge outbreak of it...just one tank the others are free from hair. I switch him back and forth from tank to tank. Get another one, maybe a little bigger one. And if all your clean up crew died something is out of whack. Hope this helps
 

hagfish

Active Member
I see no phosphate test results above. You should test for that too.
One thing to keep in mind is that algae needs nutrients to grow. No matter what your tests say, those nutrients are in the system if the algae is growing. What happens is the algae consumes the excess nutrients faster than you can test for them. Decreasing the photo period helps sometimes, but it's not usually a permanent fix.
I agree that you need to get a full clean up crew. I would get mostly snails including ceriths and nassarius. I also like shrimp because they are fast and good scavengers. Also, I suggest upgrading your skimmer. Sea clones aren't very good. Also, do you have bio balls in the wet/dry? They could be collecting nitrates if not cleaned enough. Also, try to think of any other place where nitrates could accumulate (sponge filters, dead flow areas, etc.).
 

gerry45

Member
same problem here,thick ugly hair algae all over my rock. switched to ro water a month ago and hair algae is almost gone.
 
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