hair algea out of control

scuba connor · #1 04/15/2007, 02:55 PM

ok green hair algea is covering every rock its thick its everyware!! and its floating in my tank and sufercating my corals i have already loust 2 corals to this devil hair algea so i just added 100 snails, i am shuting of the lights in my tank for 3 to 4 days and im hooking up a UV sterilizer will that get rid of it???

fras · #2 04/15/2007, 02:58 PM

the snails will help but you have to sort out your water 1st of all. Can you give us some more specs about your system and where you get your water from.

scuba connor · #3 04/15/2007, 03:08 PM

i make my own water i have a RO DI i also use instent ocean for salt my tank is alittle over a year old and i have ben keeping SPS in it for the last 8 months and this last past couple of weeks it just exploded with green hair algea i think it was caused by my high nitrates so i did my extra water changs betwen my regular ones and i got my nitrates down to 0 but the algea is so think i caint even brush it off wit a tothbrush it just takes forever and my rock work isn't the most stable so im to afraid to mess with that

so do you think the UV the snails and the 3 to 4 days of darkness should kill it?

nethawk73 · #4 04/15/2007, 04:56 PM

it'll take a while. I just did the same ....it's been taking about two weeks but I'm almost there. Scrubbing would help alot. What's the tds of your water after ro/di.?......

romanr · #5 04/15/2007, 06:34 PM

Is there a nutrient sink in the tank? A place where nutrients might accumulate? Some examples might be a refugium, DSB, Live Rock.

My hair algae problem was my sand bed and refugium which had become nutrient sinks despite my best efforts. I also had a problem with detritus accumulating in certain areas in and around my live rock.

My solution (not the best for everyone and not appropriate for all situations) was to remove my sand bed, empty my refugium and give the live rock a good monthly blowing while at the same time increasing flow from 25X to 40X. It took about a month for things to start to get better and after a couple of months my tank started to flourish once again.

Prior to doing this I tried replacing my RO filters, adding a Phosban reactor, doing weekly water changes, feeding less, lessening the light cycle, adding various herbivores (Fish, snails, hermits, sea hares, etc), increasing alk & calcium, discontinuing all supplements except for alk & calcium, adding a detrivore kit, increasing the lighting cycle of my chaeto, harvesting more often, vacuuming portions of the sand bed, manually removing hair algae, etc, etc. And no, this was not all tried at once and I waged this battle for about a year before finally having success by ridding my system of my nutrient sink.

I wish you good luck and be sure to explore all options and by all means don’t be afraid of doing whatever you have to save your tank.

Sk8r · #6 04/15/2007, 06:37 PM

Usually an extreme algae bloom means excess phosphate from fishfood [use frozen, not dry] and sometimes overfeeding; a worn out ro/di; etc. If there's not much phosphate, there's not much algae, and even if you get algae eaters, their poo releases phosphate back into the system, I'm suspecting, so until you chemically bind it or use a refugium, you won't get rid of it. A lot of water changes with 0 tds ro/di, phosban, refugium--these are the best ways to fight it.