Continuing saga of tufty red hair algae

[Hutchball]

Hi, still can not win the battle with this darn stuff

I have tried...

New filters in RDO unit meaning 0 TDS
New lamps
Emerald crabs
Mexican turbo Snail
Very frequent water changes
Less feeding
More intense skimming
Lights out

NONE of these have worked although it has not taken over the tank, it has just sat still.

It is quite bad. Some rocks are covered all over, some big ones just covered one side. It's such a shame as it smothers out the small life forms like the small feather duster worms on the rocks.

Anyway, another day, another idea...

I am now trying to reduce whatever is feeding it using extra and beneficial bacteria. I have bought a product called Prodibio Bioclean. It consists of a bacterial vial and food for the special bacteria. You dose every two weeks (and pray I guess).

Week one - no change...

 

[crister13]

What are your parameters????? Have you tried physical removal?

 

[Animal-Chin]

Can you pull the rock out and scrub it? I get a bit of this too and my lawnmower blenny eats it.

 

[Hutchball]

Nitrates are 0. Phosphates do register but it's hard to tell as the algae eats it anyway.

It's impossible to remove in anyway to make a dent in it. I've had green hair algae before and I was able to get rid of that by removal and nutrient reduction but this stuff is invincible!!!

 

[Sniperhank]

If your phosphates are registering, it is def what is fueling your issue. The worse part is that usually as it is fueling this issue you will not register phosphates at all.

Can you check your TDS? Just changing things doesn't mean it is 0.
What does your weekly maintenence look like? When I had my phosphate issue, I had all kinds of dead organics (from a hair algae outbreak from overfeeding) that I had to siphon out from around my rockwork, in my sump/fuge, and my overflow. Even with this it took a couple of weeks to get things back under control.
Once you get those phosphates to 0, start taking out what rockwork you can remove from the tank and scrubbing it with a stiff brush in RO/DI. This will help prevent the algae from dying off in your tank and causing the secondary issue that I ran into.

 

[spoonman]

Do you run a gfo/carbon reactor? That fixed my algae issues.

 

[Hutchball]

Do you run a gfo/carbon reactor? That fixed my algae issues.

No I don't. I don't know how I would set one up as mine is like a 'closed' system.

 

[Hutchball]

I bought a new tds meter at the same time as the filters and that registers 0 - 1 so I think that's ok.

I change 25 litres of 130 litres every two weeks but I tried every third day and sometimes one after the other and it made no difference.

I syphon what substrate I can get to and initially that brought up loads of 'dusty' stuff which I can only guess is rotting material. The substrate I can get to is fairly clean now but I'm not actually sure your meant to syphon the bottom of a marine tank!

The one thing it could be is the substrate I can't get to which is under the rocks. If I could I would put all fresh stuff in but that would mean a tank demolition! Not so bad I suppose on a small RSM 130 but not something I wanna take lightly!

 

[Sniperhank]

If it is registering anything but 0 then that is an issue and prob cause of your algae. How old is the di resin/membrane?

 

[Hutchball]

If it is registering anything but 0 then that is an issue and prob cause of your algae. How old is the di resin/membrane?

All the filters and resin are new. Bought directly off the retailer (not eBay!).

Tds is generally 0. The last batches of water were made with TDS 0 water.

What would you think of vodka dosing. It's not something I'm goin to jump into as I'm currently dosing the Probio stuff but would that sort out the phosphates?

 

[dlsrks]

I have the same problem with the red algae. I had all the correct parameters. I did water changes. Nothing seemed to work. Until I adjusted my protein skimmers to produce more waste. I have two reef tanks and that seemed to work on both. Just give it a few days and monitor your skimmers. Hope yours work too.

 

[Sniperhank]

If you just solved the TDS issue I would stay with manual removal and water changes now that your water is good to go. Should start to see it go away, but it will take time if it is dug in as you say it is.

 

[Hutchball]

I have the same problem with the red algae. I had all the correct parameters. I did water changes. Nothing seemed to work. Until I adjusted my protein skimmers to produce more waste. I have two reef tanks and that seemed to work on both. Just give it a few days and monitor your skimmers. Hope yours work too.

You mean wetter? I have a tune 9002 and it seems to have a mind of its own! Never produced dry skimate always like green/brown water.

Ok, so I've adjusted it so it starts to fill up the cup. Let's see how it goes!!

Thanks for all the advice. I'm sure I'll get there eventually

 

[Hutchball]

Ok so I've adjusted the skimmer now so it's making a LOT more skimate. I guess it's just a waiting game now as it will only be taking out whatever hasn't had a chance to break down.

 

[Smitty]

Good luck. Sounds like I've gone through the same battle as you. Started off with Cyano, then hair algea, now I'm fighting this red turf algea. I haven't figured out anything that will stop it and you can't get it off the rock while the rock is in the tank, I have a problem scrubbing the stuff off.

I will say I recently got a sally lightfoot crab and I've seen it eating some of the hair algae.

 

[Hutchball]

Here's a few pics to show how bad it was...

 

[Hutchball]

So yesterday I stripped everything from the tank I could. Scrubbed and basically boiled the rocks (sorry small creatures). Got a lot of stuff off and out of the tank. I managed to dig out some of the old substrate from underneath the big rocks and cleaned that too.

I cleaned my skimmer and took out an old bag of phosphate remover that I'd forgotten about (doh) and was covered in brown slime. (it was probably about 5 months old)

Added some new bacteria and bacteria feeder from the Probio and the skimmer is skimming like a man possessed!

Almost got stung by an invincible fire worm but he survived and I put him back in the tank.

 

[Hutchball]

Here's the clean (for now) tank