Help! Battle of the Green Hair algae

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Florida8

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Oct 1, 2004
Messages
648
Location
St. Augustine/Jacksonville, Florida
Hi Everyone. Been gone a while.... the flu ran though 6 kids and 2 parents... fun eh?

Have a question about Green and red hair algae which is trying to over take my tank.

I have cut back on feeding, don't have but 2 wee little fish anyhow.... lighting is 8 hours right now instead of 12 hr cycle.

Water is great, do Bi weekly changes.... issues are because my error in filling with tap water.

Test for everything but Calcium and Phos.

I have been replacing water biweekly 5g (29g tank) with good RO/DI water.... filled with tap water (ugh!)

I have been removing as much of the hair algae by hand as I can when doing PWC, but any one who has ever had this knows it just sheds and flies all over the tank. I have been reading and saw that the Rock-lawnmower blenny is a good fish to have for this as they will also take prepared foods.

Before I purchase this fish, is it really a good cleaner upper? Will itr be ok once the hair algae is depleted (hopefully it will be)

All I have now is a small green chromis, who is about to back to the LFS because he drives my green clown goby bonkers... and a clean up crew of 12 blue legged hermits, 4 large turbos.

Thankful for any advice.

Kimberly
 
GHA is a pain. The best method I have seen is actually manual removal. Take out the effected rocks and scrub then off in a buckt of SW. suck up anything on the substrate. It is a chore but tends to work better then anything else.
 
I agree the manual way is best. I suggest you take a toothbrush and rubber band it to the end of my syphon hose and gently scrub rock while removing water for PWC. Takes a couple weeks but it will work. Lando`s way sounds faster.
 
Hi Mellisa! Yes, I love them but I only have a 29g at the time set up.

Lando & Melosu, I agree, manual is best, but 2 things, my lasnscaping is just how I want it LOL but more, I have a mantis I cant get out and too scared to mess with the rock work until I do.

I got most by hand and its growing still, but I will keep up with the PWC and try to keep it coming out by hand as much as possible.

The toothbrush idea is good, I will make whatever contraption I can to get it out of there.

Got Bait, I ahve never seen a sea hare in the LFS... but I just looked and they are huge! LOL, I think a tang would fit better in my tank HEHEHE! Do they come smaller? Do you have one?
 
My suggestions are as follows.

1) Get soem of the phosphate removign media and run it in your filter or sump or get a phophate reactor. You probably have high PO4 levels because you put direct tap water into the tank.

2) Get a clean up crew that consists of some (2) Mexican turbo snails, a few nasseriuth snails and some blue and red leg hermit crabs. Turbo snails can do an amazing job with almost any type of algae. They cleared my tank from nasty to clean in abotu 2-3 weeks.
 
Got bait...Thanks so much!... and your tank looks GREAT!!!

Melissa -- Sorry about spelling your name wrong, I named my 2nd daughter Mellissa with 2 l's and 2s's lol... so I am always mispelling it trying to do ti the 'right' way :)
 
I had battled GHA for about 6 months. Felt like I had tried just about everything, but this is what finally worked for me: Added another skimmer, put some phosphate removing media in my sump. Continued to remove manually, and in about 6 weeks, I was hair free!! Good luck, I know how frustrating it can be.
 
Clean up detrius from your lr. Use a tooth brush to brush off rock surface. Rearrange your rocks to a point where there aren't any obvious dead spots. Siphon your substrate. Clean up your equipments (filters, powerheads including the impeller area, others).

Make pwc. If Nitrates are still high after that, use AZ-NO3. Good luck.
 
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