*sigh* can I get some info on hair algea??

[TOURKID]

So my business is going triple speed ahead and im having issues catching up.

I havent been able to spend as much time looking at my tank as usual. but i got a good look at some hair algea today, its on three rocks, and i imagine its going to spread, nothing is bigger than 1/2 a dime, but Im worried about it. ive never delt with ANY hair algea b4

I also have it in my overflow. i wiped that out, and i scrubbed the rocks (out of the tank, and rinsed before putting them back) but i cant get out one of the rocks, its bigger than a basketball and is a supporting rock.. i did cover up that hairalgea with a cleaned rock so now its in the dark


does 'poof algea' equal hair algea? i had some when i cycled my tank, and i have a few of them on my tunzes...

heres what i think im doing wrong:

i have 6 fish. 2 anemones

i feed frozen 2 times a day, not alot. I drain the food 3 times b4 feeding to get off all the tiny pieces and oils. I feed flake 1 time a day


My qt has been treating ick for 4 weeks, so ive been doing a 1 1/2 gal water change every other day. so instead of doing a big water change on my main tank, ive been doing 1 1/2 gal changes 4 times a week...

so im asking does overfeeding cause hair algea? and not enough water changes? is it possible to reverse this now and it will die off?

is this what phosban is for? do i need a reactor?

Im going on ALOT of trips soon, i need to get this taken care of.

will a seahare starve if i only have a tiny bit to get riid of?

thanks for any help at all. i know im slightly overreacting for now, but better catching it early than having a green rock tank..

[hexedagain]

Get a foxface.
Check out my thread on the Orlando forum. I showed zoa colonies I got with hair algae. It shows the three day process of my foxface cleaning every speck of hair algae off of it.
I will grab the link for you, and make it easy.
it does sound like you are over feeding. How many fish do you have in your tank, and what kind are they?
Sorry for being an outsider in your forum, just trying to help.

[hexedagain]

Here is the link, sorry it goes a little off topic near the end of it.

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1087205

[szwab]

the flake is not helping the situation. over feeding will cause your nutrients to build up. larger water changes would be more effective. Do a larger one along with the small ones. I would not add another fish to the bioload. If you can I'd try setting your skimmer a little "wet" and see if that helps.
phosban ideally needs a reactor but you can run it passively in a bag. (not as effective though). try pulling as much as you can.

[TOURKID]

but a phyosban reactor would help?
I cant remember for sure but they arent that much are they??

My skimmer really needs replaced. it skims.. but not very fast...

Just did a 6 gal change, and made more water

my fish really like flake....

and i have 2 wrasses in qt that have to go in sooner than later (b4 first trip)

could another contributing factor be that im still having mini cycles?

fast best way to solve issue? (reactor vs...skimmer? or lots of water changes? more snails?)

the 6 fish that are in there arent big fish...
2 clowns (maroons) 3 anthias.. small bartlets, and 1 dottback

[szwab]

i'd say skimmer over reactor.
rather than snails try some hermits how's the fuge doing? do you have some macros in it?

[sammie]

Your feeding three (3) times per day??? WOW lots of nutrients. Your fish must LOVE you. Check their cholesterol they have to be overweight. Suggestion feed once per day and do a water change.

[RokleM]

Disagree Sammie, she has Anthias. However, I would keep two of the feedings very light (like Arctic pods, cylopeeze, etc) with one main meal.

Agreed, skimmer over a reactor. What's your lighting period?

Honestly, a lot of people sweat it. I guess I go for the "dirty reef" look and just let it go sometimes. You'll find a little bubble algae here, a tiny poof of hair algae there, neomeris annulata, halmedia (sp?), etc. For the most part, I attempt to skim heavy, but I feed heavy as well (3 times a day for my 180, 1 time for frag/sump/58). I run carbon/phos, but that's more for the corals than the algae.

[Treg]

You should be doing a lot bigger than 6g water changes IMO.
Unless your doing that almost daily...

[Hormigaquatica]

First thing I would do is check out your basic levels, mainly looking at Nitrate and Phosphate; you dont want either of those much above zero.

I dont know that youre necessarily overfeeding; I do the equivalent of about 3 'cubes' of frozen food a day, and thats just for 4 small fish (the rest for my LPS). Now, I do have algae outbreaks once in a while when I get lazy about my water changes, but theyre controllable once I get my butt in gear. Im with RokleM; I actually like the look of a 'dirty' reef; I think its much more natural looking to have a bit of algae, here, a couple of (maintined) majano there- Im not one for the perfectly clean, 'sterile' looking tanks (just not my style).

Phosphate media may be helpful- if you have elevated PO4. Test first though; if youre above 0.1, its something to consider.

I do think you could be doing more with your water changes. I would suggest more like 5 to 10gal per week as normal maintenance on the 90, especially since you have anemones. Make sure your skimmer is pulling out a lot of sludge too. If its not performing real well, bump up the water changes even more until the skimmer is tweaked.

Adding cleanup crews will help clear up the symptoms, but wont take care of the root problem. If you have nuisance algae, you Do have excess nutrients in some form. Blast debris out from your rock structure, maybe do a quick siphon sweep of the bottom, and boost your water changes. Dont bother with the sea hare- they need a ton of green; one would remove all your patches within days at most, and would slowly starve to death. Maybe some Turbos or Scarlet Hermits if you really want to do something.

[TOURKID]

Ok, normally I would do a ten gal water change 1 time a week, but with the qt in high gear i havent been on my regular routine. I will just dig out another heater and pump and make another bucket so i have enough new water for both.

fuge is great, micro is growing, no hair algea in there or anything

I like feeding three times a day. the flake meal is very tiny. and Im 99% sure not a piece is overlooked. feeding the suncoral can get messy.. but i havent been feeding my other corals lately...

my lighting period is :

actinics 12 hours, metal halides- 10 hours. OH YEAH, I have no idea how old the mh's are and it was bugging me, so i have new ones on the way, Ill hafta check to make sure but i think i got the ushio 10K, whatever was suggested inthe thread i posted a few weeks ago.

will this help or hurt??

My phos test is a junkie one, and i read that they can read zero and it doesent count, but it reads zero.. i dont trust that though

nitrates ill re check today.

I have a decent amount of hermits, ill add more reds next time im at phishys.

Hormigaquatica- my sand is getting pretty dirty on top, but i thought it was tabu to sweep it? i swept my sand bed when i was a newb and i killed all my shrimp (released my enerobic pockets im sure) how deep can i go with out messing things up??

Im already looking into a new skimmer, just cant afford it for a few weeks at least. Ill do another water change as soon as its aged a lil, and Ill make sure all the food is getting eaten, but im going to try to feed 3 times a day, just more carefully and a little less maybe.


thanks for all the advice, its well noted. Im definately slacking in most areas of my life at the moment!! (i havent even been on here much!!!) lol

[icu2]

I feed heavily in my 90 gal w/ 40 frag tank (flake, artic pods, frozen). I have no problems with hair algae and I attribute it to my well established sump/fuge ecosystem (sponges, feather dusters galore, cheato), many clams, and a GEO skimmer that is much larger than one would typically use on this size system. I am pulling a half gallon of skimmate a week. I also have 2 250 w DE bulbs w/ t5 which seems to be too much light for the hair algae to grow; I have more red types of algae growing.

[Hormigaquatica]

Originally posted by TOURKID

Hormigaquatica- my sand is getting pretty dirty on top, but i thought it was tabu to sweep it? i swept my sand bed when i was a newb and i killed all my shrimp (released my enerobic pockets im sure) how deep can i go with out messing things up??

How deep is your sand bed? If its less than 3" or so, then Ild suggest sweeping it. I dont say that real often, but in a tank with that much food going in, there is going to be more waste build up than in most others. If it is more than 3, and youre trying to do it as a real deep sand bed, thats another story, though it wouldnt hurt to turn over the top 1/2 to 1 inch, thats not where the anaerobic bacteria should be anyhow. You may lose a few pods, but nothing major.

As far as hitting those anaerobic/H2S pockets, hopefully you just dont have any...lol. In a shallow sand bed, they shouldnt be able to form. In a deep sand bed, your little critters/microfauna should be turning the sand over well enough to prevent that kind of build up. If H2S is in there, it Will escape at some point, whether its by a siphon, or if it just eventually bubbles out. Kind of a risk I spose.

[itZme]

If you want to remove the hair algae naturally and solve the nutrient problem when you figure it out I bought a couple of lettuce nudibranchs and they would just hang onto the hair algae all day eating away. I think my hair algae was due to being a new setup and having transferred the live rock and livestock along with having a few pieces of rock that had hair algae still on them.

The thing that finally cleared up the problem for me is my scribbled rabbitfish. He will eat big chunks of algae in a hurry. He will also eat any type of food I put into the tank so I am not worried about him starving. I did purchase 2 sea hares and they cleared up the 2 75g tanks in a matter of 2-3 days but they don't have very long life cycles and they won't eat anything else. They didn't find the remaining pockets of algae and I'm not sure if that's why they died or if they were just old since they were 6" long when I got them from Phishy's. When the first one died it killed a large 8" tall leather and I had to just cut it off the rock before it fouled the tank any more. The second one died a week later and it didn't kill anything but the corals did not look happy until a few hours after I fished out the body.

I would not recommend sea hares but would recommend luttuce nudi's.

Hope that helps,
-- Kevin

[TOURKID]

Hormigaquatica- well its about 3 inches in most places, except where my maroon clown likes to play.. on the left side by 1 of the nems it go's from bare bottom all the way to 6 or 7 inches..

this tank is only 2 months old tops (the sand was new and 50% of the rock was base rock) the other 50% of rock was from my old tank, and at least a yr old.. Im doing a ten gal water change tomorrow, ill sweep it a lil then, but just a little. lol

I switched my carbon today and fed less than usual. Im not into playing games or slacking, i will solve this. but i would really like a new skimmer. as soon as i started talking crap about my skimmer it started working better though, i got 1/2 of my collection cup full overnight.. not coffee colored, more like dark tea, but at least its doing somthing

itZme- I havent tried nudis in this tank, but i had problems with them in my last tank, they kept getting stuck to my intakes and flow was to heavy. Ill consider it, but i dont want to kill them....

My turbo snails ate all the poof algea i had while cycling.. i only have three, but do they eat it at all?


on a side note.. i cleaned the airline tubes on my cpr overflow.. where i first started getting hair algea.. it was almost completely clogged with it.

[hollback]

IMO you should be doing a much larger water change less frequently. I would recommend a 40 gal change about every 1-1.5 months. The 10 gallon water changes aren't doing much in terms of removing nutrients. The more water you pull out the more the more the water change dilutes the nutrients.

I would just let the HA run it's cycle. You did add a lot of fish in two months of having the system set up. The bacteria in the system will take some time to balance out.

[jdircksen]

My tank is about the same age as yours, and I have an algae problem as well. Mainly I have cyano with clear air bubbles. I'm starting to get some green hair algae too. I only have a handful of turbo snails and a few hermits. I've been siphoning the algae into a filter bag every 3 or 4 days. Filter bag is in sump and I keep the return pump going. My lighting is only 8hrs t5 atinic and 5 hours 2x150w HQI.

I wouldn't waste your money on a phosphate test kit. If you have algae, it will read 0. If you don't have algae, I'm guessing you don't have a phosphate reading.

[TOURKID]

holla - that sounds crazy 10 gallons once a week vs 40 gal a month. I see what your saying tho. I only added 3 new fish (anthias) the other three came from the previous tank. so.... I should go run my r/o and make up a 40 gal batch.. either way i can do some larger changes since i do have an overload of nutrients....

jdircksen.. its a new tank, but its old lol I had my other tank for a year so i was able to use all that water and all those rocks, and i only added baserock and new sand... Im pretty sure its my overfeeding... But i love feeding!! lol


hey everybody..

Is 12 hrs total light to much? 10 hrs mh? will the new bulbs make the algea worse?? they should be here any day now....

[prance1520]

I've had hair algae in every tank I've ever started. Ever. Big, small, no equiptment, thousands worth of equiptment. I've never been able to complete avoid it. And I move (set up a new tank) every year :-P

In every tank, it has disappeared. From what I can see, its a stage of the cycle. There is a point in the cycle (usually starting around 1month, going up until 3 months for me) where hair algae just thrives. If you can convince yourself to ignore it, it will show itself the door naturally (assuming you've done things right, from what I've seen posted here you have).

If you want to speed the process, I've made it disappear in a week with ROWAphos before. Reactor is recommended to get the most out of it. If your going to use it in a filter bag, make sure to move it around often so it doesn't clump.

I feed twice a day heavy flake, and I haven't done a water change in 5 months. Its all about having your sytem balance out like Jason said. I'm not recommending the no-water-change-cuz-im-lazy approach, just saying its possible :-P.

You make it. Good luck.

[TOURKID]

i partly think its a cycle too. but im not doing things to really avoid it. im an avid once a week water changer, but ive been getting fish in and out of qt so much, ive been doing tons of baby water changes, oviously not the best approach.

Im going to add some hermits, step up the water changes and a lil less food and see where that gets me

[Treg]

Originally posted by TOURKID
holla - that sounds crazy 10 gallons once a week vs 40 gal a month.

Part of that theory is, when your doing smaller weekly changes your taking out a percentage of the clean water you just added last week... So your getting less dilution. Your also letting the good bacteria's build up by waiting.

Personally, I do not like to go a month inbetween changes. I have read people saying they have better luck doing bigger water changes less often - Keeping your hands out of the tank... Letting it do its own thing. It's been my experience that tank does and looks better doing weekly changes. But I still like to do bigger ones. So I change out about 25-30g a week in my 90g. That may seem a bit extreme but I know if I get busy and have to skip a week, everyone will still be ok.

A few years back I had a flat worm infestation and was changing out about 5g a day (to suck out the flatworms) and my corals never looked as good as they did then.
I'd pay good money to get colors like that again.

hey everybody..

Is 12 hrs total light to much? 10 hrs mh? will the new bulbs make the algea worse?? they should be here any day now....

IMO, unless your MH is pretty dim, they dont need to be on anywhere near 10 hrs a day. Thats a lot of light. Do you keep anything in there that needs that much?

I'm running my MH 2.5 hrs a day. My SPS and LPS were sevearly bleaching at 6 hrs a day. I tried a lot of things and finally just shut down the MH completely for 2 months and ran the T5's only. They are getting nice colors back finally and even growing more than before with less lighting. Each tank is different of course but to give you my opinion to your question, Yes. Its too much light. New bulbs will be brighter and will probably make the HA problem worse. I would consider cutting the time in 1/2 and see how the corals react. Maybe even shut them off for a little while.

It's still a really young tank. Doing larger water changes will help. Less light will help. Rowa in a reactor will help. But I would still try and get to the root of the problem first, before it gets out of control. Which is probably some how centered around the skimmer.

[TOURKID]

they arent dim, but without the mhs i only have 2 t5 actinics, and that IS dim. and yes, I have two anemones that love the light.

Nothing is bleaching. On my previous tank i ran just a 14k mh 12 hrs a day..

I can do 8 hrs i guess with the new bulbs.

New skimmer *sigh* and of course i want the best money can buy lol

Whats your opinion? Right now Im running 4yr old or so life reef skimmer (think its made for 125gal) I can buy a coralife 125 used pretty cheap... or WAIT, and get a geo or somthing similar..

[Treg]

I had a LifeReef SVS 3-24 on my 90g. I thought it was a great skimmer then but looking back... Well, Lets just say, Save up for a GEO.

My 2 Rbta's did just fine under 3 54w T5's for 2 months. (Doing great under 2.5 hrs of MH now.)
Thats not me saying that you do not Need MH lighting. Thats just to let you know they can probably go on less lighting than what you would think.

Also 2 clams and several SPS pieces...

[TOURKID]

can we step up this raffle so i can win early?? lol j/k

anyone need a t shirt??

okok. i get it.
not to mention my skimmer has a big crack down the side so its leaking *bleah* going to be around a month or so b4 i can buy one....

[lakee911]

Tour, you could build a new skimmer like I did and few others as well. Mine is pulling out so much gunk, I need to clean it daily and I've got a light bioload.