I have had it with the HAIR ALGEA!!!!Please help

[brndfrb]

I have had a little hair algea in my tank for a while. Well i have been doing water changes and things and i thought it was undercontrol. But now it is worse. It is starting to grow onto my coral and choke the life out of it. PLEASE help waht do i do. Name one creature that eats the dang stuff and i will buy it.

[Salttanker]

What water source are you using? I had that problem a while back using tap water.

Is the tank near a window at all? excess nutrients maybe? elevated temperatures?

Mike

[natman2]

Buy a small yellow tang. If its anything like mine hair algae will be gone in a week and you will have to go buy it something else to eat.

[Gatorfreak]

I second the Yellow Tang. I also had good results with Astrea snails.

[MyMonkey]

I know from experience that Sea Hares will eat this stuff. However, they should be watched. One bombed my tank and released a bunch of toxins and ink into the water when it died. But, he was a HA lawnmower.

[brndfrb]

I use ro water. I have a yellow tang. It is not near a window. The tank gets up to 80. Just like it has since i set it up 4 years ago. ANy other advice?

[Salttanker]

How about your lighting? Are the bulbs still good? Have you changed them out recently? Other than that, maybe someone else can chime in.

Mike

[Boxster]

Most often than not, the LR is leeching out phosphate to fuel it. Is this tank a dsb tank?

[Hara]

I don't see that anyone has mentioned manual removal as an option. When my tank crashed, a few months after, I had acres of hair algae. Along with the water changes, I manually plucked out bunches daily. when it was almost under control, I then shut off the lights completely for several days. It never came back. This whole process was over a month in time, not just a few days.

[HoopsGuru]

I agree, purchasing animals to consume it does nothing to remove the source of the problem...only temporarily handles the symptoms. Something is fueling the hair algae, most likely excess nutrients. Do you remove the algae? Do you do water changes? Do you have a good skimmer? Have you tested your source water for phosphates and nitrates (RO water is not perfect if the membrane is old, TDS is super high, etc.)?

[Phyl]

Have you tried running a phosban reactor in your system? Maybe you've changed food that you're feeding or amount? Your nitrates test at or near 0? What about PO4?

If the tank has been running for 4 years with no problems it must be very strange and aggravating to suddenly have a massive outbreak of hair algae. Wonder if something is going weird in your sand bed?

[StickyTuba]

Won't turning the lights off for a couple of days affect your corals that are in your tank?

[Hara]

not for just a couple days...

[brndfrb]

Ok let me see if i can catch up. My bulbs are only about 6 months old. I can not turn off my halides for a long period of time. To many corals. That is totally not an option. I have been removing it manually. Nitrates and Nitrites are at 0. Have not tested po4. I have a deep sand bed. I just don't know what to do. I mean is it normal for a tank that has been set up this long to suddenly have an outbreak of hairalgea?

[hcuellart]

One way I have gotten the phosphates down on several instances was to get 1 or 2 oz of Phosban in the tank changing it weekly with 15% water changes using RO/DI (the deionization part is important for this) water with a new membrane and in 3 or 4 weeks it should be down to zero. If not, then your problem should definitely be on the feeding side. All this, while pruning all the hairy stuff you can.
I don't think LR will leach PO4s...
I once heard a guy who had a problem with its aragonite sand he used. He got it from some pet place and did not rinse the sand well and he had the problem for over a year and after hundreds of dollars spent in Phosban... He said there was always a milky silt in the sand when he vacumed it. He supposed that might've been the problem.
Well HTH.
Good luck

[hcuellart]

Ah, I realized too late your tank does not have new substrate. Disregard my last paragraph...

[HoopsGuru]

I would still have your source water tested for nitrates and phosphates...I hate to be redundant but in catching up I don't think you mentioned if you did. Old tank syndrome with DSB usually appear as both hair algae and cyano...any cyano on the sand anywhere?

[ellisz]

RO water can have PO4. You need RO/DI water. If you are getting your water from a store they might have old filters in it.

As for your lights, Hara was suggesting a few days off. This will not hurt your corals. Even acros will be fine for a short period.

[HoopsGuru]

If you don't eliminate the source of the problem though, leaving the lights off will do nothing. It will hurt the photosynthetic organisms that are more desirable (coralline, macro, corals, etc.) and can outcompete the hair algae as much as it will effect the hair algae. It may work if you eliminate the source to hasten the wasting away/elimination of the hair algae.

[MyMonkey]

What filtration do you use. Instead of going with a Phosban system you can just add some decent phosphate remover to your filter. I used Phosguard I think in my Emp 400. It worked, then I had a bacterial problem and the bloom returned later. 8O It is going away now.