Algae help!

[squibley2]

I just got done with a 3 day stint of no lights on in the tank to try to get the upper hand on some hair algae that has been a pain in the **********. I turned the lights on today and it does not seem to have made any difference in the algae at all. I did not cover the tank with a towel or anything but the room does not get a lot of light from the windows so the tank was fairly dark the whole time. Should I just repeat the process for another 3 days? I have a lot of sps and other corals in the tank and I don't want to harm them but I need to get the algae under control. Every time I test my water params they are perfect and I know part of that is becaus

[squibley2]

sure

[jjjimmy]

Can you post a pic of the suspect algae?

[squibley2]

[-=Efrain=-]

A really nice Foxface Fish should take care of that hair and they are not expensive..

[squibley2]

I already have a yellow tang in the tank and he or she does not touch it. Do you think a foxface would do better I love the way the foxface lo looks.

[-=Efrain=-]

Well google the foxface and you should see a couple sites state that they do eat hair algae and yellow tangs are a little more picky about their algae and most do not touch hair algae. As usual do your research..

[squibley2]

I did not buy the yellow to control the algae I got him a long time ago cause i love them.

[jmick]

It is really hit and miss when you say a certain type of fish will eat hair algae and I've only seen fish pick at it. If it were me, I'd treat the source of the problem and if I had to I'd take the rock out and scrub the algae off every time I did a water change. Also, I have seen seahares mow over the stuff but the issue with then is they make mass amounts of waste and there is a lot of undigested matter in it.

[squibley2]

I did try a seahare but it did not last very long my elegance got hold of it and thought it was dinner even though it was about 5" long. I can't find the source of the problem is the problem. I can't for the life of me figure out why I can't kill it.

[SlowCobra]

No light for 3 days by itself will NOT control the issue.

Algae's can be a pain to get rid of. You might want to provide more information as to the entire setup including all water parameters, lighting type and bulb age, are you using RODI or tap water, do you have a refugium with chaeto?

Do not rely on fish to combat the problem rely on husbandry to overcome it.

Once you provide all of the answers to my questions we can begin to offer you ideas on how to overcome it.

[squibley2]

Sorry slowcobra I know most of the cmas guys know my setup by now I did not think to include everything but here goes.

60G display with about 80lbs of LR and about 70-90 lbs of live sand.
20G sump which is just for equipment, chiller, heaters, skimmer (Aqua C Remora Pro with drain and running a mag 3), and return pump.
1 Yellow tank about 2", 2 Mandarins also about 2" and 1 Tomato Clown about 1"
Cleanup crew is fairly diverse so I am not going to go into everything but crabs and snails of mostly the normal stock.
A ton of Coral in the tank and a Large piece of Macro Algae to control the hair algae but it has not worked yet been in there for a few months now but I like the way it looks.
Temp is always between 79-76.
Salinity is 33-34.
PH is 8.2-8.1.
Ammo 0.
Nitrite 0.
Nitrate .01 per several Salifert test from different people.
Phosphate 0.
Mag 1280.
Alk 7.8.
Calc 410.
I don't think I forgot anything but I could have.

[squibley2]

Oh lighting

2 x 250W Reef optics 14k bulbs about 2 months old
2 x 96W Hamilton Actinics about 6 months old

[mbierzyc]

I have a foxface and he's been mowing down on all the algae in my tank.

[SlowCobra]

Well everything appears to be in check, given everything else I will make the fatal mistake of assuming you are using RODI.

My 210 had a massive algae outbreak both hair and dinoflagellettes(sp?)

The course of action I took was the following:

Manually removed as much as I possibly could. Yes it is a pain in the *** but removing as much as you can gives you the best chance of overcoming it. My overflows both inside and out were chock full of hair algae. The picture is just what I removed from the overflows.



Raise the magnesium level to around 15-1600

Start dripping Kalk to crank the PH up and keep it up as high as you can.

Phosphate reactor

I did all of this in addition to 3 days with no lights as well as my fuge with a reverse light cycle for the cheato.

I currently have a very small amount of hair algae in the tank but it is in no way out of control.

[squibley2]

Yes I am using RODI water that when it comes out it is about 1-2 PPM of TDS. I do not run a phosphate reactor but I do put phosban in a bag in the filter sock to try to remove it before the algae can get to it. I drip Kalk for makeup water but nothing else. I have been leary of raising the PH above 8.3. I think I might put in an order for a new set of Actinics but I don't really think that the Actinics would cause the HA which I have been fighting for many months now. Hence my last ditch effort to kill the lights for 3 days.

[sugartooth]

Squib, have you tried to grab the clumps at the base and pull them out....repeatedly?

These are super easy to yank out compared to other algae. I have had this and I just kept pulling it out (in a smaller tank). Then, it just stopped.

Also, there is a giant thread about raising magnesium levels to fight it. I think it was for the same algae as your picture.

If you want another fish option, I had a spotted rabbitfish that chowed on this as well as Tomini tangs. I have also seen scopas eat it too. They seem to like it when it's shorter though, so you should pull out as much as you can grab and the fish should take care of the rest.

Good luck!

[squibley2]

As I seem to recal the thread about Mag was for Briops (sp) which is not what this is it appears to be just your run of the mill hair algae but what do I know? I have seen yellow eat it in other tanks but mine does not touch it. I would consider a living solution cause I have tried all the other options I can think of. I have some emeralds in the tank and some blue legged crabs and some red legged crabs and some scarlets and some .... but nothing is eating it. I think that is the major problem it is just not having anything that wants to eat it in the tank cause I remove it but it keeps coming back and the other algae the macro algae is growing well but not well enough to kill the hair algae. If everyone thinks a foxface would work I will try that, not to get rid of the algae but cause I really like the fish as well.

[-=Efrain=-]

I went with mbierzyc to pick up his Foxface and he just posted above that the Foxface is eating his hair algae. I went to see his tank yesterday before we got the fish and his haiir is just as long as yours. PM him to see what the progress is.. I know getting a fish to take care of a problem is hit or miss so think about it. Also these guys can get pretty big.. Again do your research..

[squibley2]

Well the fish getting big is not a problem. I am upgrading from the 60 to a 180 in about 3 months and then from that to a 600G with about 1000G of fuges and frag tanks and sumps in about a year so he can get as big as he wants. I just want to get rid of the algae from the first new tank so I don't have to deal with it in the new tank and I am not about to put anything into the 600G that would cause something like this cause I am not going to scrub 600+ lbs of rock cause of algae.

[jdhanover]

My tank - same problem(s) plus one.
My foxface - not interested in eating this algae.
Going to go the manual scrub / removal route. Also trying a lot of water changes.
Very frustrating though. My overflow box and sump are clear of it. Refugium sand looks cleaner than the tank sand.
And I have a rust colored algae too.
My tank parameters also show no issues and TDS is from RODI water.
Only feed once a day.
Such a major pain.
Sure wish there was an answer.........

[squibley2]

So I could go with a fish or something else to controll it but only if it is a proven eater of said algae? Cause I have tried everything else and I really don't want to rip the tank down and start again.

[jjjimmy]

From the pics that you posted, it looks just like the maidens haor algae that I had in my tank. This algae is toxic to all fish and they will not consume it. After searching for 6 months to find something to rid my tank of this scourge I finally resolved to myself that breaking the tank down and getting rid of everything was my only solution.

[Sullyman]

I have had an algae problem in my 125, after trying a lot of things I started really blowing out my rock work after every weekly pruning. It still comes back but less and less every week, it seems to slowly going away.
I ran a denitrifier on the tank to be sure there wasn't much for the algae to use, it just seems to need light to grow, but my guess is my rock work leaching stuff back into the tank.
Take a small power head to your rock work, turkey baster doesn't do it as well, worth a shot?

[squibley2]

I always blow off the rocks and around the base before I do a water change and I do my water changes about every 2 weeks (5Gals)