Plan of attack on Hair Algae

[Bearfan]

Well, I'm infested. My Mag Drive 36 broke down for about 10 days last week, so I was skimmerless. I did minimal feeding for those 10 days, and basically limped through. Since then, hair algae is EVERYWHERE!!! I manually removed a bunch, but that was short lived. Also, new bulbs were added to my fixture about 2 weeks before this, the old ones were about 9 months old. First, my readings:

Ph: 7.9
NO2, NO3: 0
Ca: 400+
PO4: 0
NH3: .1
Temp: 82.1
Lights: 11 hour cycle for 10K, 12 hour actinic

Occupants:
Encrusting star polyp
Pulsing Xenia (pulsing like crazy)
Green Zoos (not doing great, may need to be repositioned)
Clove Polyp
Yellow Tang
Royal Gramma
Lawnmower Blenny (obviously on strike =))
2 Peppermint shrimp
5 or so scarlet hermits
4 astrea
2 mexican turbos
8 nassarius (about)

So I know my clean up crew is grossly under staffed. My plan is to add:

20 blue legged hermits
20 scarlet hermits
20 astrea
2 Mexican Turbos

Then I probably should think about a refugium, I think the addition of cheato would help absorb the nutrients that are feeding the hair algae.

BTW, I feed about every other day or three, and then fairly lightly of blender mush.

Anyone have any comments?

 

[quarryshark]

Is your skimmer fixed? if so, put it on overdrive.
Your lawnmower Blenny sucks (jk). Between my lawnmower and the addition of a Coral Beauty, within a week my hair algea was history.
The only other think I can think of is to concentrate your PH's on the worst of the areas, get some high flow running through these areas.
With the lack of PO4, you should be able to get it under control. Sounds like a good plan.

 

[xxmoorishmanxx]

I had some hair algea while back i put in a bunch of mexiacan turbos they did a fantastic job. personally dont like a lot of crabs heard to many horror stories about them eating snails, plus theyed be eatin in my tank. how big is ur tank again i forgot?

 

[Bearfan]

75 gal with 100 gal sump.

 

[darb2]

Has it spread to the sump as well?

 

[foob]

My scarlets are really lazy in my tank. I would recommend not getting more of them. My baha red tips on the other hand work day and night. They are supposedly less aggressive than blue tips, and work harder.

More turbos should be enough I would think. I am running out of algae/cyano to feed my turbos.

Emerald crabs love hair algae, and may take out any bubble algae you missed.

 

[Bearfan]

Nope, none in the sump thus far, but there is no lighting in the sump.

 

[MACATUA]

I had a Sea Hare one time that just annihilated the stuff. He was a cit clumsy but kept the tank sparkling. He even ate seaweed from a clip when he was hungry, so he didn't starve.

But one day he ventured to close to the powerhead, and that was then end of that.

 

[Bearfan]

Well, manual removal and changing the flow around has seriously helped.

I've orderd:

20 blug legged hermits
20 scarlet hermits
20 astreas

(and 2 ricordia florida)

from www.saltwaterfish.com to boost up my cleaning crew. I'll update tomorrow when they come in.

 

[delsol650]

I had a mating pair of Dragon gobies ( sand sifters ) that were just munching on the green hair algae.

 

[JamesR]

I would think the yellow tang would do a pretty good job on the hair algae?

BTW, the sump setup you have is very nice!

Jim

 

[Bearfan]

The yellow tang can't keep up, even with the lawnmower blenny. The new cleaning crew I added seem to be attacking it nicely.