Rid hair algea! refugium or phosphate reactor

[evolution]

I have a 55 gallon reef tank with 100 pounds of live rock, powder brown tang, orchid dotty, maroon clown, and clean up crew. I have been fighting a battle with hair algea for 10 months now. Would a refugium help ? or should I purchase a phosphate reactor ? all my levels are perfect. I am running a peguin hang on bio wheel filter 330, a seaclone protein skimmer, 2 powerheads, and use only ro water ! hair algea has killed my hammerhead coral as well as my star polyps ! PLease help !

 

[mike347]

I have 90 pounds of live rock so where not to far different. My guess is that you know about lights and spectrum lost after time and so on. Their are many reasons that lead to algae problems like food and phosphate, water temp and so on. The thing that got rid of most of my types of algae and I do mean most was my Mexican Turbo Snails, Large ones 1 1/2 or so in size. I have 4 that size and 4 smaller. Make sure their Mexican Turbos the other Turbos never cut it for me. If you have them allready then do a search on this site I saw a good article about algae in general, But I can't see anything keeping up with weekly small water changes and mexican turbo snails.

 

[mike347]

Oh its my opinion that you don't need a bio wheel with live rock but it does do a great job of mixing up the surface scum. I only used them on tanks with no live rock and fresh water because I don't want micro bubbles in a reef. I also have a cpr fuge which does help I just let all types of algae grow on the live rock I placed in there for pods and stuff and i'm sure it would help. How much probably not enough alone to stop a 10 month battle.

 

[footbag]

The benefits of a refugium will far outweigh the PO4 reactor. A refugium will remove NO3 and PO4 as well as provide food for the tank. A PO4 filter only filters out the PO4. I would add a macroalgae refugium. You will hope that the macros consume all of the nutrients before the nusiance algae takes off. I would also suggest removing as much hair algae as possible with your hands. You hands can remove a million times more algae the your cleanup crew, and it takes a surprisingly long time to starve out hair algae. Just remove it and it probably wont' grow back.

 

[rwhite]

Do you have any corals or anything in the tank that you dont want to disturb? If not, here's what we did: During a water change session I kept the first bucket of water and transferred some to a clean tub (sterilte or whatever) that could accomodate the largest piece of LR we had. Then began to remove each pc and scrub the algae off with a new toothbrush and rinse it in whatever was left in the bucket and place it back in the tank. At some point the scrub water will get nasty and have to be dumped and replaced with water from the bucket and start the cycle over again. Of course, you'll have to have plenty of new water for replacement and you may not be able to accomplish it all at one time. I did it at least twice and I believe once the bulk of the algae has been removed the snails (we have Astreas) and hermits were able to keep the new growth in check. We havent had a hair algae problem since, been about a year now. If you need more details let me know. Just a suggestion and I agree that you shouldnt count on the snails to take care of the problem, they should be thought of as preventative maintenance. There will always be algae in the tank. Good luck!
Oh, and BTW, we dont run a refugium, but we do keep a red macro algae growing in the tank to help. When it gets bushy, I trim it.