hair algea

[10gnano]

If I take all the livestock out of my tank and keep doing water changes with the lights still functioning will the hair algea disapear over time?

[rchlebak]

Possibly. If you do water changes with RO saltwater mix. I found it easier to get rid of hair algae by using a phosphate absorbing media and keeping clean up crew such as blue or mexican red leg hermit crabs and snails plentiful. That combined with manual removal solved my problem a few years ago.

[10gnano]

I have a phosphate remover in the tank and have been giving them scrubdowns, I only use RO water, so I will remove my fish and reduce my light I guess. I dont want to lose my frogspawns. But I wont put them in the new tank until all hair algea is gone

[rchlebak]

What brand of Phosphate remover do you use? some of the cheaper ones will saturate and begin leaching Phosphates back into the tank causing algae blooms. Another possibility is that your rocks may already be saturated in Phosphates and are the cause of the blooms, new live rock may be in order.

I have found that ROWA phos and Phosban seem to work the best and are usually recommended.

Do you use carbon at all? poor carbon is sometimes washed in a phosphoric acid during the manufacturing process and can also be a phosphate source.

I know how frustrating it can be trying to get rid of hair algae.

[Vincenzo.]

water changes. and it goes away naturally.

[groan]

a LOT of water changes.
As many know on this forum I have been fighting hair algae for about 2 years now. do a search for some of my past threads. it's brutal.
I have resorted to going for a long period of not buying any new coral, selling off any taht i wasnt attached to, removing and scrubbing all my rock and putting it all into a dark tub. fast running salt water on it and weekly water changes for about 6 weeks.
Thsi is what I'm doing now.
If you look at my Tank Redo thread you will see the tank as it is now. once the rock is cooked I will be putting some back in the tank, some (lots) into the sump and the rest I will sell as cooked rock.

Basically i brought out the nukes after standard artillery was not doing the job.

[10gnano]

I am using Fluval Carbon, and PhosGuard

[rchlebak]

groan's advice should definitely destroy it all, (yikes, groan, on your hair algae issues!)

I am running a biocube 8 with a high bioload, 1 large watchmen goby, LPS and softies ect. and i found that when i removed the carbon insert from the back area and went with ROWA Phos in a filter bag seated in the middle overflow tray my water quality went up immensely. Same thing with my 25 gallon mixed reef.

I also use Prime treated tap water as i have not made the leap to RO water yet, but so far all is well.

Maybe try and run only the phosphate media and no carbon before you tear down your tank?

[10gnano]

I will be running both tanks until I get a satisfied 2 weeks with no hair algea preseant, I am using copious amounts of the phosphate remover, and I will change it more frequently . I am gonna do a 10% water change every 2 days or so. I hope my wife does not kill me. I am anxious to get my corals into my new setup but I also dont want to infest if either.

[theone]

hello im joe i have been doing the saltwater aquarium for 15 years and now just starting to grow coraline algea do to the green hair algea thats caused from to much food resting at the bottom creasting nitrates ,phosphates need to change 20% of water first and easy up on food also the phosguard,or phosphate pads help also add a little magnesium they also make and agea kill whick is for saltwater i  hope this helps

[theone]

hello joe again forgot to tell you also alot of emerald crabs they love hair alge i just put 18teen of them in my 125gallon and will get more when money is right

[Benja]

Once upon a time: I had one piece of lr covered in green hair algae.
I threw it in my lr cooking bin where there is no light.
One week later I was checking my cooking lrs... to my surprise all the algae had disappeared.

so...why would you want to leave the lights on in your setup?

[10gnano]

because I have Coral in it that kinda need light to survive

[groan]

I also use Prime treated tap water as i have not made the leap to RO water yet, but so far all is well.

How long have you been using tap? I used tap for the first 2 years in this hobby and I have a feeling that and my poor water change habits caused my tank's high phosphates in the rocks and substrate leading to leaching out of the rocks even afterswitching to RO.

do yourselves a favor and get an RO unit as soon as you can. there's nothing better than clean water.

[rchlebak]

Yes, an RO unit is in the future plans.

I have been on treated tap water for over 3 years now. Like most, i learned along the way but i seem to have sorted out the management of my reefs the way they sit.

Believe it or not my biocube 8 is essentially a stock unit, bioballs and all. I had terrible water quality using the carbon filter inserts, once i removed that and went with phos remover in a bag everything cleaned up. Just 10% water changes every 2 weeks and it does well. I do have a shallow sand bed which the watchmen and hermits keeps clean. Soft corals grow nicely as well as a hammer that has split from 2 heads to going on 7 over the past 2 years. So i don't mess with what works.

My 25 gallon tall tank is over skimmed, (octopus HOB 1000) and over-lit (250 w, phoenix 14k) but all corals are growing and doing well, even sps's such as staghorn, montipora digi and cap species. I do dose BioCal to keep alk and Ca up. Top up with fresh water every day or so and water changes every 2 weeks. This combined with a keen eye on what the tank is doing (and adjustments accordingly) and it has done extremely well.

So, it is possible to run a reef on treated tap water but agree there is less risk with RO.

[groan]

Good for you, Tap water works fine for some, and terrible for others. I assume i am in the latter camp.

[10gnano]

I wonderhow long I could let my frogspon/Cocoa Worms and Mushrooms go without light?? Any Ideas. I may just move the tank into my basement and give it an hour or two of light per day.. Any thoughts?>

[groan]

Not sure aboput the others, but I've been told that mushrooms will detach after a period of no light.
When that happens you can move them back to a cup or container in a tank to reattach to a CLEAN rock. That is what I am goign to do. I have a couple dozen mushrooms that I am hoping to harvest. I wasnt able to cut them off before sticking them into the dark.

I broke off my stoneys to be remounted onto clean rocks after i re-landscape.

[Maxthecat]

clean up crew. 1 hermit per gallon, no more algea. problem solved.

[Bob P]

How's that algae problem 10gal?