what to do with live rock covered in hair algae

[lubbockfishdude]

My hair algae has become out of control. I use tap water that I treat and no RO unit. I know...prolly my own fault...but I am wondering what my option are to get rid of it. I have an emerald, a lettuce nudibranch and a few hermits, but it seems to be growing at a much faster rate than it dissapears...which is a very slow rate. I have tried phosguard, but didnt really see a difference in the decrease. Are my options to get rid of the rock?
I would appreciate any quality help from past experience.
Thanks guys!

 

[wrassecal]

Is it just one rock? If so and it's that bad I would take it out scrub it off with a clean toothbrush and not worry about killing the beneficial bacteria, then put it back in. It will become live again in time. If it is more than one rock then don't do what I just said.

 

[lubbockfishdude]

it is mainly all of my rocks that are exposed to light. Almost every rock in the tank has it. In addition to what I have originally have asked, what would keep hair algae from growing when I upgrade to a 100 gal from my current 18 gal? I have heard that RO units prevent it...true?

 

[bonermeister]

Go RO/DI! It will solve most of your problems. Buy a unit or buy RO/DI from your local fish store and do water changes using it only. Don't ever use tap again. There are all sorts of things that can tag along in tap water and cause you a lot of grief. As for making your tank pretty right now... Relax and be patient. Take what algae you can out physically, but don't scrub if it is covering the majority of your rock. Time is the only cure for this. I would recommend not using any additives or chemicals, that only fights the effects and not the source of the problem. Switch to RO/DI.
Good luck!

 

[elan]

i had the same problem. i changed my lights because the ones i had were from a used system and i really didnt know how old they were. a few weeks later, and the problem started reducing itself alot. i am still waiting for it to be completely gone. I agree that time will correct the problem. i am using tap water myself with minimal impact, but i may be luckey enough to have relatively clean tap.
I am conteplating a RO/DI unit myself, but i think once i start doing some water changes, i am going to buy the water from the lfs. see how that changes things over a couple of months, and if i feel like its worth it, ill start shopping around.
hope that helps.

 

[richierich2000]

well mine was almost as bad just about everyrock and the send had hair algae on it use ro/di water and start doing one water change a week about 20% then get you a good cal and kh test make sure very sure that it is in range cal 450-500 kh 10-12 then use kalk everyday to keep things stable and test like 2-3 times a week I use kent pro dkh to raise kh too 11 and kent turbo calcium to raise calcium too 500 and a refugium will help too use a strong light on it and keep it on 24/7 that is what I did or the easy way turn off the lights and cover the glass for a week or so and then start over
I went for this to

 

[richierich2000]

too this

 

[xxvietxjustinxx]

AHahahaha very nice come back Richie

 

[fshhub]

it looks like our dry goods is closed for now, not sure why
You can get an RO/DI unit from a plumbing supply store and it would be teh same thing, but maybe less expensive than the LFS

 

[rabid frog]

I had the same prob with hair algae. Waht I did was once a week do a 205 water change, and also I scrubbed off every rock with a tooth brush while all flow was off. Then I put a tube sock on the end of the hose that goes into my sump so it can catch all the floating algae that you scrubbe off removing all of it from the system . leave the sock on there over night and you will amazed at how much of the algae it traps. Then start using ro/di water. I buy mine from a water supply thing once a week. I think it is 25 cents a gallon. It took me about a month to get rid of it but it worked.

 

[bstoner]

A good source for an enexpensive RO unit is www.purewaterplanet.com. I bought my 5 stage RO from this company off of e-bay for 118.50 and installed it last night. It seems to be working verywell does about 50 gal. per day. Check em out.
Also to remove the hair algea for now i would use a vinyl tube like the one on a gravel sucker and vacuum it off the rocks. This way you do not harm the good algea etc.

 

[javajoe]

Hair algae can be a pain in the back side.
I FINALLY got rid of all mine, but it did take some work.
The first thing- stop using tap water. I will echo everyone else here-- use RO/DI. A lot of people don't realize that if you live in a city, the water company treats the water by ADDING phosphates! Phosphates, when ingested with your tap water, help prevent dangerous metals like lead from being absorbed by your body.
Using RO/DI will stop the import of phosphates into your tank.
Second- scrubbing it off rocks was a good thing in my situation. I went as far as during a water change, I put all my rocks in a seperate tub, scrubbed off as much hair algae as I could with a toothbrush in a tub of salt water, then put them back in the tank and finished my water change.
The hair alge DID grow back, and so i let it grow to about 2-3 inches long, then it was easier to pluck in out by hand right off the rocks. this allowed me to get the roots as well-- hair algae does tend to anchor well.
After about 2 months of this, i now have only a couple very small patches that spring up from time to time, and these usually get eaten by my rabbitfish and my molly blenny.
Good luck and HANG IN THERE!
If you can't afford an RO/DI unit (we don't have one yet), see if your LFS sells RO/DI water by the gallon.
Joe

 

[scotts]

I guess that I could claim success in my battle. I scrubbed it when it go too bad, cut down on the fedding and added a clean up crew of red hermit crabs. So far so good.
Scott

 

[blueberryboomer]

We had green hair so bad it was starting to strangle our corals, we have well water and everything seems to thrive in it, we've never had a problem, until we change lights over. What we finally did besides the water changes and picking it off the rock, witch didn't seem to help all that much was we started shutting our lights out a couple hours earlier then we used to. We had our timers set to come on at 9am and go off at 9 pm. Well we have cut them down to 11am til 6:30 pm, almost all the hair is gone now, its taken a couple months, but things are looking up now.
Lisa