Here is how I got rid of ALL of my hair algae!

[alligator]

I have to share this, in hopes that it will help someone else.

I had a 55 gallon tank with four 110 watt VHO lights, and a HUGE mess of green hair algae. I tried everything to get rid of the algae. Nothing worked.

Here is what other people told me:
1.) Remove all nutrients from the tank and the algae will die off. Everything I tested for came up within normal limits.
2.) Reduce the light. This had zero effect on the algae once it become established. I tested this by completely covering my tank, without lights, for weeks. When I removed the cover the algae looked exactly the same as it did before.
3.) Change the current in the tank. Current has zero effect on the algae. I had the same amount of algae where the nozzles of my powerheads in my tank pointed. Plus, they were always clogged with the stuff.
4.) Buy something to eat it. I could not find any type of animal that would eat it. Tang's, snails, crabs, conchs, algae blenny, stars, urchin's, slugs, etc. None of them ate it.
5.) Pulling it out every other day only made me fell good after, but the tank still looked bad the next day. Plus, I couldn't every possibly pull all of it out. I scrubbed rocks, and still it remained.

Here's what I did that made the difference:
1.) Made sure my skimmer was working correctly. I increased the flow, cleaned out the venturi, and cleaned it in general just about every other day.
2.) Cut back on feeding my fish from large portions to smaller portions.
3.) Increased my salinity to 1.026
4.) Did weekly water changes of 20%
5.) The one thing I used that made the absolutely biggest difference was the use of AZ-NO3!

After using AZ-NO3, within the first 2 weeks I was able to see a difference in the growth of the algae. It stopped growing. At about week 6 it started to turn gray/brown. My skimmer was going crazy foaming like mad. I actually had to clean out the collection cup twice a day and the foam was very dry and would actually raise through the hole in the lid.

Around week 8 the stuff was falling off the LR and floating around the tank and getting trapped in my sump. I started using filter pads to catch the stuff and cleaned them daily. By week 12 the tank looked 100% better than it did in almost 6 months. After that, it all died out, and I continued the treatment for almost another month afterwards just to make sure it didnt come back. Then I slowly decreased the amount to get my tank back to normal.

Now it has been off the stuff for a long time and no signs of hair algae in my tank anywhere. Plus, for some reason I don't have to clean my glass as often!

I know most people hate to put chemicals into thier tanks, but this is the ONLY stuff that worked for me. It was not cheap. I bought 3 bottles, each for $19 a bottle. I had corals, fish, and snails in my tank during the treatment. None were affected.

Here are some photos:

(Close up photo of right corner of tank with hair algae.)


(Close up photo of same right corner of tank without hair algae. This is only 3 months later!!!! Yes, I added a coral - which didn't mind the AZ-NO3.)


(Whole tank photo with hair algae.)


(Whole tank photo with most of the hair algae gone. Again, this took 3 months! Now, after 5 months, it is 100% hair algae free!)

Remember, it takes 3 months or so for it all to die off and go away, but IT DOES GO AWAY!

Have faith and good luck! You CAN beat this stuff. I did!

[Gusto]

Alligator,

Where do you get this stuff

[zooqi]

Thanks for sharing and the photos are great. People like you who take time to take pictures and share thier experience with others are who make this hobby great. I never had any hair algae problem because I have big skimmers and don't feed much. What kind of skimmer do you have?

[ravenmore]

what is az-no3?

[MattG]

az-no3 is a nitrate reducing chemical

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewIt...roduct=KTAZNO3

[zooqi]

is Zero - Nitrates that
read about it here
az
or here

[grizz]

sounds interesting... anyone else have any experience with it?

[alligator]

Sorry, I purchased AZ-NO3 at Marine Depot.

I used a run-of-the-mill Precision Marine protein skimmer.

I realize some people will disagree with me, or claim that all chemicals are bad. I just hope this post reaches those people who are frustrated with their algae and don't know where to turn. As you can see, it worked perfectly for me.

I think more local stores should stock this stuff.

[Dopler125]

Man thanks for the heads up on this,I've been fighting hair alge on and off for a year and a half.I ordered the AZ-NO3 and the PO4-Minus from:
http://www.marine-monsters.com/front...add_azno3.html
My reef devil kicks butt,but i guess its not enough,I also cut back on feedings and lights.Right now theres a very little bit in the tank so i hope with this it'll be gone forever

[dendronepthya]

Do you think you would have had this kind of success if you had just performed 20% water changes weekly over 5 months? By my estimation, you would have had a 400% turnover in new water in that time. In your first post, you did not mention how long you were performing large water changes before you tried this chemical.

[Sally]

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience...and best of all the pictures.

[oz]

I wonder if AZ-NO3 would kill my Macro Algae, caulerpa, etc in my refugium ? I have a little bit of hair algae, not out of control or anything.

[SPC]

Glad to see you got rid of the hair algae alligator.

It could have been the AZ product that made all the difference, but to be fair, you also were employing techniques that others have found to be successful in eliminating hair algae.

1.) Made sure my skimmer was working correctly. I increased the flow, cleaned out the venturi, and cleaned it in general just about every other day.
2.) Cut back on feeding my fish from large portions to smaller portions.
3.) Increased my salinity to 1.026
4.) Did weekly water changes of 20%
Steve

[alligator]

For background purposes:

1. I had tried on and off to reduce my feedings. I even tried once every other day, with no luck prior to the AZ-NO3.

2. As for my water changes, I did anywhere from 10-20% per week prior to the AZ-NO3. Once a month, I made sure my changes were 20%. I increased almost all of my changes to 20% when starting AZ-NO3 because I was concerned about adding chemicals to the tank. I figured this was the safe thing to do.

3. My salinity was at 1.024 - 1.025 prior to the AZ-NO3. Now I keep it at 1.026.

4. My skimmer has always worked, but I paid LOT more attention to it when I added the AZ-NO3. Plus, it produced a LOT more foam than ever before. The foam doesn't break down that well, so I had to clean my skimmer daily. It was a huge pain, but ultimately worth it.

[Harold]

Alligator, I'm going to jump in here and say that my experiences are parallel to yours. Since December, I've been battling a severe outbreak of bryopsis in my 8 year old 180 gal. reef. I tried the classic recommendations with little effect. Granted, I'll concede that efforts to cut back on feeding, making sure that skimming was adequate (PM Bullet 3 becket skimmer), water changes, PO4 remover, etc probably helped over the long run......but the most dramatic thing that I did was to try the AZ-NO3 ! My results were very much like yours....before using it I would prune and scrub using a toothbrush only to watch the stuff grow back within a week or two...and this went on for months...after dosing the AZ-NO3 the bryopsis growth slowed dramatically and began turning a grayish color. After another week some of it was grayish with a brown tint to the base. I didn't wait for it to turn loose, and did another scrubbing with the toothbrush. The grayish/brown areas came off very easily. If there was a hint of green in it, it was still somewhat alive and needed harder scrubbing to get it off. Right now I'm in week number 4 of dosing and my tank is pretty clean of algae, with very little regrowth occuring. I'm planning on reducing my doses soon (I had worked up to 3 tablespoons mornings and 3 evenings). This is overdosing, but it did not have any visible effect on any of the corals or fish. Without a doubt, the AZ-NO3 was a very useful tool in my battle. And yes, I have virtually no glass algae right now while using it. According to Julian Sprung, bryopsis and other algaes actually store nitrates in their cellular structure in case availability becomes limited. It's my opinion that the AZ-NO3 converts the Nitrates before it can be utilized by the algae, thereby forcing it to use up it's reserves and causing it to crash.

[oz]

So if you have a refugium full of caulerpa, you should not use this AZ-NO3, right ?

[Sally]

What kind of corals did you all have in your tank? Did any of you have leathers, xenia? I'm just wondering what effect this product would have on certain types of corals?

[blureef1]

I had a similar experience the last 3 months. My 100g tank had been plagued by Hair algae for the last 3-4 years. Basically every 1-2 months I would have to take every rock out of the tank and scrub it with a toothbrush. I tried every technique anyone offered and it never made a dent.

3 months ago, I started using Phosguard which considerably slowed the growth, and made it recede in other areas. I then replaced my Turbo floater with a Euroreef 6-2 which caused it to die off even further. 3 weeks ago I broke down the whole tank to move it, which resulted in a thorough clean of everything and a massive water change. While I still had a little bit of hair algae left after the move, it does not seem to be growing, and has disappeared in areas.

[alligator]

The corals that were in my tank that were unaffected are: an open brain; one tall xenia tree thingy (I don't know the name, it was a frag given to me); and one bubble coral. My fish that were also unaffected were: bangaii cardinal, yellow-headed jawfish, three fairy wrasses, and even a diadema urchin. Nothing in my tank showed any signs of stress that I could see.

I still want to caution everyone, that you should use this stuff at your own risk. While it worked for me, I didn't invent the stuff, so I don't know all of the risks. Again, I wanted to let people know about an option that could be used, and hopefully it will save a few people from quitting a great hobby!

[Toutouche]

In the past, I was also completely against using any type of chemicals. Recently, I had a heatwave shock happen to my tank that threw the whole equilibrium out of whack, I had a major cyano and hair algae problem. About 2 or 3 weeks ago I used the Ultralife Red Slime Remover and my tank has since bounced back. The only thing I have still is some of the short fuzzy turf algae on the rockwork. I would also like to try this product, but my concern is that my tank is a fully stocked mixed coral tank. Lots of SPS, LPS and a few softies. My big concern would be for the corals utilizing algae in their systems. I'm pretty sure this product cannot distinguish between the good algae and the bad. It would probably do major damage to my corals.

[Harold]

Oz....very good question. I am not running a refugium, so I cannot comment on whether the AZ-NO3 would be problematic. Since it does neutralizes the nitrates, it could have a negative effect on other plants/algaes as well. My tank did not have other algaes in it (other than glass algae). In my opinion, Those who are growing macro algaes should use caution ! (or do further research before using the product).

[Harold]

Sally....I have a large clump of pumping Xenia, as well as finger leathers. There have been no signs of stress in either of these. Other corals include mushrooms, zooanthids, open brain, bubble coral, fungia plate, ricordea, favia, octopus coral, frogspawn, pagoda cup, and a large umbrella leather. None of these seem to have been effected by using the AZ-NO3.

[Periette]

So, is the consensus that most coral seem unaffected and the good algae (refugium or otherwise) may be?

[Harold]

Periette...exactly. The AZ-NO3 was instrumental in helping me conquer what seemed to be an impossible bryopsis battle without bothering any of my fish, corals, or inverts. However, I cannot attest to its use with good algae or refugiums.....it may very well cause problems for those. Only a guess on my part.

[Periette]

Hmm, well maybe that could be overcome by moving refug calerpa to a quarantine tank for the duration of treatment. If the problem was bad enough to warrant this type of solution, I probably wouldn't mind reorganizing things until everything settled down.

I've not decided that I want to pursue this just yet but I like the option and will follow the thread to keep an eye on things.

Thanks for the input, all.