Hair algae

[dmbnpj]

Ive been battling long green hair algae for a couple months now. I have done everything possible to rid the tank of this. My water TDS is now down to zero. Water flow is good. Lots of hermits/snails, yellow tang, lawnmower blenny. Will this stuff eventually die off and disappear?

[poppin_fresh]

It may, or it may not if you are feeding it by loading the tank full of Phosphate. How old are your lights? Have you tried a PO4 remover (GFO)?

[dmbnpj]

Yup, forgot to add that. Running GFO on a phosphate remover. Also have some phosguard in the sump. Lights are brand new.

[poppin_fresh]

As long as you are not overfeeding, you should win the war at some point. No one can say for sure exactly how long it may take. Do you have a skimmer?

[dmbnpj]

yup, ASM G3 on a 75 gallon tank

[dmbnpj]

also have refugium with chaeto and caulerpa

[demonsp]

Whats used for flow?
Amount of LR and LS?
What does your SB look like,clean and crisp or brown and unsifted?

[dmbnpj]

modded maxijet1200s for flow. lots of LR(over 100lbs) sandbed is clear, i have snails and a cucumber that seem to sift it well
i know my system can run well with the way i have it set up. What happened is i let my tank go for several months and am now just starting to get back into it. I have excessive amounts of this hair algae now. Just wondering how long it will take to get rid of this? The yellow tang and lawnmower dont seem to touch it at all which was surprising when I got them. I thought they would take care of it. Parts of the hair algae are very long. I have tried manually to get rid of it several times but I can never get it all. I was counting on natural methods and using the fish to rid it but I guess it is just a matter of time.

[demonsp]

Some spot flow as hair algea dont like direst flow. stirring small areas of sand and blowing off the rock right before the water change to remove more. HOB filter with carbon. A 33% change followed by weekly 20% changes untill under control. A conch snail would be a great addition. Mine loves the stuff and 1 can go a long way.

[chillman]

try and manually remove as much as possible, and then add a bunch of snails and hermits. You may need more than you have. I remember I added a ton to my 75 tank, and in a week it was all gone. Granted, a bunch of them died off as they ran out of stuff to eat, but my algae disappeared.

[dmbnpj]

conch snails dont really go onto the rocks though do they?

[demonsp]

They will go where the food is. They sand sift , rock climb , equipment climb. I think they perfer glass but i ve seen him everywhere.

[dmbnpj]

a conch? really?

[dmbnpj]

fighting conch?