Hair algae?

walkietalkie25 · #1 01/05/2008, 08:19 PM

Can anyone help me with an algae that has started to grow in my reef tank? I'm not sure what it is, or even what hair algae looks like, but this is fuzzy, green, and grows right onto the sides of soft corals, pipes, etc. Obviously something must be off in my tank, but I don't know what, so I don't know how to get rid of the problem! I can't send any pictures now, because before I thought of writing here, I scaped it off of everything and disposed of it. Any ideas? Thanks.

reefhead165 · #2 01/05/2008, 08:41 PM

check your phosphates

Konadog · #3 01/05/2008, 09:05 PM

Time and hard work is all it takes if its hair algae.

Couple things to look at:
Feeding, how much, how often, and what.
Water changes, how often and how much.
Water movement, is it enough to keep detritus from settling and breaking down in the tank rather than being removed by your skimmer.
Skimming, is your skimmer clean and working properly.

Manual removal is a start, do a water change after removal (if its a lot) and siphon out all the detritus you can find. Add a powerhead if you can to keep things in suspension, so your skimmer can remove them. Cut back on feeding and if your using frozen food, rinse it off before you feed to the fish. You can also add a GFO filter to aid in removing phosphates. And take your time, this doesn't happen fast.

walkietalkie25 · #4 01/05/2008, 09:17 PM

Thanks guys. The phosphate is fine, we have a phosban reactor. As far as the other things, nothing has changed from what we've been doing the past 2 years since we moved our tank. Skimmer is working fine too. So, I guess I'll just wait and see what happens. (?) There was not a lot of this in the tank, but enough that I did notice it on a few corals and my return spray bar. Thanks again. Oh, how do I know if it's hair algae, what does it look like, and what causes it? (Besides phosphates, since our level is fine.)

weaver5 · #5 01/05/2008, 09:31 PM

Remember phosphate can test fine but be high.The hair algea holds it and feeds off of it.If you were to test the level of it in the algea you would see it is sky high. Have you checked the ro/di water with a tds meter?Maybe getting time to change filters..scott

mysterybox · #6 01/05/2008, 09:40 PM

you also might not be changing your media enough in the reactor. It might be getting saturated quicker than you think.

mysterybox · #7 01/05/2008, 09:41 PM

what test kit are you using to test phosphates?