Im giving up...

[mrpope]

after an 8 month battle with hair algae, I think Im finally going to give up. I have changed lighting, flow, water perameters, and have even used that stop hair algae stuff and nothing works. Seriously, I have tried everything. With the money I have spent on trying to fix this problem, I could have bought a new 100 gallon setup with all the accessories. Sorry I just need to vent.

So If there are any new methods of eradicating hair algae out there any advice would help. BTW, any one in the san francisco area want a 40 gal reef fixer-upper?

 

[drillsar]

OK first off, whats are you using to check Nitrates, phosphates and what levels are they? Also what about your cleaning crew?

 

[mrpope]

Oh, forgot to mention:
ammonia:0
nitrite:0
nitrate:0
phosphate:0
silicate:0

all tests conducted with salifert testing equipment, and replacement water is good too.

 

[mrpope]

My clean up crew is quite sufficient, the only problem is that they dont even touch the hair algae. Infact, the snails dont even go on the rocks.

 

[Fluff]

Well, if you want to spend a bit more, I've heard great things about phosban. Water changes are usually enough to take care of nuisance algaes but it takes alot of them and a good bit of time to get ahead. Because the algae is there is proof that there is phosphates in your system. It's not showing because it's being depleted by the algae. I'd keep trying with the water changes and be more aggressive, manual removal may help as well. But, I've heard phosban will also help if you have a mind to go that route.

 

[Hara]

the way I beat it was by manual removal and a complete black out of the tank. If you have a place to farm out the corals and clam, it would be helpful. You could then black out the tank for a couple of weeks. I looked over your clean up crew, nothing there could possibly eat enough of the hair algae to give you a helping hand. I was in the tank removing it with a toothbrush and forceps every night for a month. Then an interesting thing happened, my lighting unit broke down and I had no lights for a week. When the lights came back there was very little hair algae and that I took care of by hand.

Please dont give up yet. You can turn it around.

 

[cmor1701d]

Have you tried any turbo grazer snails. These are the big ones that can't right themselves if they fall. They went to town on my hair algae and cleaned it up. The difference from day to day was amazing.

Also, what's your lighting period? Have you cut back to just a few hours each day?
PWC, lot's of them can help too? Are you using RODI water?

 

[mrpope]

I tried phosban, but it didnt really help, I use RO/DI replacement water, I had some turbo grazers, but they stayed on the glass, my algae blenny likes to eat it a little, my lighting period has been reduced to 8 hrs/day. I tried the manual removal method a while back, but I swear it spread more fast but breaking it up. The toothbrush attached to a siphon sounds good, but it will just come back because of the root systems still attached to the rock. The one thing that seems to work the best is that stop hair algae stuff, but it just comes back. At one point it was nearly gone, so I turned off the lights for 4 days, and it looked pretty good after that, but it was back in a matter of days.

It started as dark green hair algae and now it is light green/brown and even more ugly. I have lost lots of coral due to this and eveything hides in my tank and it looks like a ghost town. It really sucks.

 

[Brenden]

You could try "cooking" your rock. There has to be a source for the algae. Have you tried getting your water from somewhere else? Where does your RO/DI water come from?

 

[drillsar]

Well I may be wrong but algae eats phosphates, I also would check if your test kits are still good. Phosphates can become undetectable since the algae is eating it. I would invest in a phosban reactor there cheap enough and see what happens?

 

[chineseknife]

Subjectively, you have tried to take a gazillion gallons and cram it into a small box. Because of this, nutrient build-up will always be an issue. The key is to find it's source, and eradicate it. What do you feed and how much? How old are your bulbs? How often do you clean the collection cup and skimmer body? Seeing that you have a scwd, I'm guessing you have a sump/fuge? You could try a juvenile yellow tang, knowing that later you may have to give it up due to size(or get a bigger tank ). How much flow do you have, would you say? I would definitely check your water supply. Some lfs have been known to save on buying carts for their ro/di systems...Also, check the expire dates on your test kits. The black-out method seems to work, but temporarily IMO. I had a huge battle with red cyano, I began a religious medium size water change ritual and went from having 4 MJ1200's to 2 Sieo M1500's. These two changes along with sparser feedings went a long way in my fight. i am proud to say that it only ever have a couple of patches that I have to spot siphon when I do a water change. I feel your pain, but you musn't give up. Keep at it. It could just be new tank syndrome. In which case, rarely though, it'll go away on it's own. Got any pics?

 

[Scottm]

sounds like your feeding habits since you have checked out your water supply before it goes in the tank. I know that is the #1 biggest reason for nuisence algae. How much are you skimming? What amount and kind of skimmate is being produced?

 

[Fluff]

It started as dark green hair algae and now it is light green/brown and even more ugly.

You said it's turning brown, maybe it's burning itself out. Is it loosing substance as it changes color?

 

[lando]

Chianeseknife has offered some great suggestions. It is very important to identify and correct the source. However, the use of tangs to control hair algae is a bit more fiction then fact. They just do not eat it. Increasing the bioload of an already stressed tank is not the answer. It could just compound things. Everything else I totally agree with.

 

[mrpope]

I feed a variety of frozen foods. I only feed as much as they eat though. I pour a little at a time in there and make sure they eat it all. I use an Aqualine 10,000 hqi bulb, and I changed all bulbs 3 months ago. I clean the collection cup on the skimmer one every 3-4 days, and the body about once a month. I do not have a sump, but my tank is small enough to go without one. I have about 18X water flow, with wave maker. I do check my water supply and it is good.

This is just so discouraging because I have had various tanks over the 5 years I have been in this hobby and this is the first problem I havent been able to fix.

 

[seaham358]

Im not one to make say use chemicals but as a last resourt use AZNO3. I know guys who had terrible battles with the HA , briopsos (sp) and this is the only thing that helped.
FOLLOW the directions..
Good luck.

 

[MarineFlake]

My 75G last year, summer, was engulfed in green hair algae. I had it on the rocks, on the walls, in and on the overflow box, it was bad. I finally bought a new nitrate test kit (salifert) and no3 was 50ppm or so. The Red Sea (Which was *not* expired) simply showed no color and I ASSumed that meant it was 0. It was probably 3 months or so of scraping green algae off the back glass, corners, picking it by hand off of rocks, sand. It even began to grow on the base of my huge toadstool and that scared me cause it wasn't making the toadstool real happy..Looking back, I missed a couple visual signs of the issue even though the test kit was obviously wrong. For starters my xenia (you know, the stuff you can't kill even if you tried?..) was starting to die off. I couldn't keep snails alive for more then 15 - 20 days, polyps on the toadstool stopped expanding. That is, they would still extend, but no joy on the actual polyp popping out. Various things that I should have looked twice at. Anyway, I did a series of huge water changes for one. I stopped feeding every day and went to every 3 days (No dead fish in almost 6 mos...the little pigs..) I *definitely* quit dosing selcon and invert (filter feeder) food. This stuff *will* trash your tank unless you know exactly what your doing with it. (I Learned the hard way) And like you, before I did all this, I was about to give up. I bought a Phosban reactor, filled it with 50 percent carbon (Good stuff, not the cheapo crap) And 50 percent phosban. Between that (cause it turns out that the overfeeding and stocking of the tank was also elevating my po4) the numbers began to decline. I also went with an 8 hour actinic light period and a 6 hour 10k period. That is my 03's come on and go off 1 hour before the 10k (All VHO) for a total of 8 hours. Replaced the bulbs too, this seemed to lend to the cure as well. I'm not implying you haven't done everything in your power to get it under control, but I *highly* recommend a second, third even forth opinion on your water params. po3, po4 and silicates can all lend themselves to our beloved algae issues. With out knowing the gory details of your tank and params, all I can offer is this personal experience write up and my best wishes! Please do let us know if you get some new info on your water params. Something is feeding that algae as pointed out in another post, finding it and eliminating it is the task at hand.

Peace.

 

[mrpope]

If I reduce feeding to every three days, do I keep that up forever or just until the algae subsides? PC: what happened to you is exactly what is going on. My test kits are good though.

 

[Scottm]

yes feed at that interval forever. that is what fixed my issues, that and I reduced my feeding of DT's phytoplankton to once every week. with frequent water changes it is under control. How much skimmate do you produce? you should be doing 2-3 cupfulls a week with the bioload that you have in my experience.

 

[MarineFlake]

If I reduce feeding to every three days, do I keep that up forever or just until the algae subsides? PC: what happened to you is exactly what is going on. My test kits are good though.

As sottm said, that feeding schedule is kept and adjusted as needed. I did find that my tang was starting to lose weight which in turn revealed that I was not properly feeding him to begin with. I started clipping algae (Purple, green, etc) for him to graze on and removing uneaten portions after 24 hours. I gave in to the 'begging' of the fish too often as well. (And found out my wife was also!) So sometimes they would be fed multiple times a day with out my knowing. I had a *bad* habit of dosing invert (filter feeder) food with out thinking about the consequences on the closed system. Remember the trash that does get in a tank has *nowhere* to go. So, it just sits in your tank and decays.
I don't question your test kits may show good, but I seriously think you should get another opinion. Take a sample to the LFS and see if they will test and compare the results, ask a friend to come test with their kit, whatever it takes to get to the source of the problem. Heck, if you live near the Memphis Tn area I will test it for you..Kinda curious now myself..Hair algae is a dead give away for elevated po4 and/or po3. Its been proven time and time again on this message board and many others. Even if you have corrected the issue and the test is dead on accurate, it will take manual intervention to get the trash scraped off the lr, sucked off the substrate and cleaned off the glass. I mean, I could have made my family algae wrapped sushi every week for a month while I was cleaning it up. It was soo bad (How bad was it??..jk) I actually removed LR from my tank and scrubbed it with a toothbrush (medium of course, ADA recommnded!!) to try and get the fine hairs off. And to no avail a week or so later the growth would start again. I finally had to set aside what my test kit was telling me and go with the evidence that was right in my face.
Again, with out completely definitive water params and some insight into your feeding, lights, filtration, skimming, tank details, husbandry, we can only provide a good guess and some generalizations. For your sanity, I hope it turns around for you!

Peace.