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#51
03/05/2006, 07:36 AM
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As for your second question about HLLE I have been experimenting with vitamin "A" for many years and it seems to reverse the disease. If the fish eats flakes, put a few drops of tank water in a container with one drop of either "cod liver oil" or vitamin A from a capsule. It is fish oil and it will float. put some flakes in it and let it soak in. Feed this to the fish about twice a week. Your skimmer will not work for about an hour afterwards.
As to the algae, if you don't want to spend any money I have a solution for you. Actually Sean has the best Idea with the refugium but If you don't want to buy one just build a trough out of plastic. I use vinyl fence posts from Home Depot for about $12.00. Slice it in half longways and find a way to mount it to your tank above the water and to the rear, just slightly under the lights. Put it on a tilt so the water flows away from the skimmer outflow. Put a plastic window screen in it and let the water from the skimmer run over it. The algae will grow in there and hopefully not in your tank because the conditions are better in there due to the water flow and light. Save your money on crabs, snails, tangs and all that stuff. You will need a few of them but don't get crazy, they will not do anything for your problem unless you can teach them to poop out of the tank (let me know if you can do that.)  You can easily roll up the screen to clean out the algae. This is an algae trough that was just cleaned.  Here is the prototype trough filled with algae, there is none in the tank. Good luck Paul 
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#53
03/05/2006, 05:37 PM
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my experience with Hair Algae
I had a really bad hair algae problem. I took out my LR and scrubbed it like crazy! Then I added a tang, and a few emerald crabs, and they are going to town on the HA. Once I got rid of all off the long/big stuff, these guys helped a lot. But I also did 5 gallon water changes (65 gallon tank) once a week with a RO water. The RO does make a difference. I buy it from my LFS, for about 4.50 for 6 gallons.
These changes have worked for me! I was afraid I had lost a green star polyp to the HA which just covered it! But the emerald crab, seems to be delicately picking the HA from it. It is a relatively new set up, but I was able to put in very well cured LR from my other tank, so I think part of the HA problem was just a regular cycling issue - but I had also used tap water for top offs (I know - really dumb!) |
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#54
03/09/2006, 09:16 AM
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Quote:
-SHAN820(GIRLFRIEND OF JSB5776) |
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#55
03/09/2006, 09:31 AM
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Yeah Lawnmower Blenny's don't eat anything that resembles HA. Our personal one didnt eat it and Ive never hear of any real success stories. What does work is a sea hare. within 10 days he has completely cleaned my tank of ALL Hair algae, and red slime, and is doing a great job keeping the sand clean.
However buy the smallest one you can find because the big ones work too fast and leave themselves without any food. I am going to try to feed him Nori today. If you have HA... buy or borrow a sea hare and from my experience it will go away. Then you can get a new start with a fuge and macro so it won't take off again. |
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#56
03/09/2006, 04:54 PM
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I too must attest to the Se Hares' effectiveness. However, you want to watch them closely. If they die in your tank they get rather funky.
__________________
The worst thing about an unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it. |
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#57
03/09/2006, 05:14 PM
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Quote:
Typing in all caps is quite rude. It's the BB equivelant of SCREAMING AT US. People tend to respond more favorably if you approach them with a "could you please help" attitude, rather than demanding something from people that owe you nothing. Perhaps the caps lock has given me the wrong impression of your post?
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LARRY "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." Albert Einstein I'm pretty sure it's Mike's fault..... |
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#58
03/09/2006, 06:19 PM
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Typing in all caps is quite rude. It's the BB equivelant of SCREAMING AT US. People tend to respond more favorably if you approach them with a "could you please help" attitude, rather than demanding something from people that owe you nothing.
Perhaps the caps lock has given me the wrong impression of your post? [/QUOTE] But its ok for mandarin mamma the person I was quoting and responding to??????? |
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#59
03/09/2006, 06:31 PM
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Quote:
No, it's not. That was my error. I didn't realize that when I quoted your post, the post quoted within your post would not appear. It was my oversight, and what I said was directed at both posts that were made in all caps.
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LARRY "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." Albert Einstein I'm pretty sure it's Mike's fault..... |
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#61
03/09/2006, 06:53 PM
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Agree, caps posters are clowns.
 Everyone take a breath.
__________________
Unattended children will be given double shot espresso and a free puppy. |
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#62
03/09/2006, 07:47 PM
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If you pull hair algea off does it spread?
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#63
03/09/2006, 08:06 PM
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Some say yes... But what can you do just let it keep growing? until it gets really long and covers everything??? You have to trim it. If you have a cansiter filter you can suck most of it right out of teh tank as you pull it. It works pretty good.
If you have it and not a lot of super agressive fish / lobsters, buy a sea hare and save yourself the headaches... |
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#64
03/09/2006, 08:23 PM
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Do sea hares poop, and if so what is the net effect of feeding them hair algae that just turns into more poop? Whatever energy is used to help them crawl around is the answer -- so the net effect is just a little less hair algae.
Buying critters to "cure" hair algae is just addressing symptoms, not the actual problem -- which is phosphate stored in your water, live rock, or sand -- or all three. Get the phosphate out of your system, you won't have hair algae problems -- with the added benefit of seeing growth in your stony corals and coraline, which is severely retarded or non-existent in a phosphate rich system.
__________________
Unattended children will be given double shot espresso and a free puppy. |
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#65
03/09/2006, 09:44 PM
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I completely agree with you and I mentioned that in one of my previous posts. It doesn't remove the problem, just the HA. The only PO4 that the sea hare will remove from the system is what gets incorporated into new cells as it grows. However some times its just difficult to remove HA, and this is a great way to do it while I figure out why it kept coming back. Ive been coming up with 0 on my PO4 and NO3 for a while, but the HA didnt go away. Now its gone and if it comes back I'll now something is still wrong. Also its fairly easy to clean up after the sea hare and remove a significant amount of nutrients from your tank.
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#67
03/10/2006, 09:17 AM
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I know this has been suggested already, but I had a tank set up like yours at one time and I took out the cc substrate and replaced it with sand. It took me a whole afternoon to do it, but it was well worth it. The HA problem I had really subsided quite quickly. I did get a better skimmer and it ended up going away. One thing I did realize was how filty the cc gets. This does require a time investment, but I was rewarded.
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#68
03/10/2006, 09:49 PM
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There are 2 types of sea hares I have seen for sale and the smaller one does not release the funky toxin. Most say that it is rare the big ones do, but it is a risk. I have read threads of people handling their hares without problem. My trouble is finding a place to buy one.
__________________
Drew I'm growing older but not up My metabolic rate is pleasantly stuck Let those winds of time blow over my head I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead--Jimmy Buffett |
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#69
03/13/2006, 09:16 AM
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Unfortunately my Sea Hare had an accident with my power head sometime over the weekend. He didnt make it. Fortunately for the tank he didnt release any ink. As I was unsticking him from the power head in a bowl, I did see the dreaded purple ink. Its really concentrated and if he had inked in the tank, the whole thing would be purple and probably dead.
I am going to continually work on my water quality issues, and will watch for the return of the HA. I will probably buy another as they are amaizing creatures. But first its time to buy a cone for the power head intake. 
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#71
03/13/2006, 10:20 AM
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I feel for ya with the H/A... Been there done that, very painful, lost lots of fish and even coral due to it... Hubby wasn't budging on the RO unit, said it was tooo much $$$...Finally he agreed to the RO unit, began using it for w/c until we were for sure all the water in the tank was RO water, anyways we ended up tearing the whole tank apart, drained the water into big garbage cans, removed the Sand Bed, scrubbed every piece of rock, (which we did for weeks straight ahead of time with w/c) put cc in, ran the water back into the tank going through a diatom filter... After every piece of our tank went back in I just prayed and prayed it would work... I cut back on my feeding from basically daily to every 2-3 days, only what they eat, I take my time and not just dump it in...Rinse my food after it's thawed b/f feeding. Only RO water for top offs, keep our lights on from 10 am til 6 Pm... And our tank is coming back again
... Slowly getting it to where we are happy with it... Please take the advice we are all offering to you, we only want to help ya  ... We also recently added a refugium to our system as well...Before  Hair algae~sorry the photo is so small   the tear down  right after all went back in  If you want me to post a more recent one I will do that, just turned the lights on ... TheBimbo...
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i look damn good in it too, i'll have you know- Nina... Look at all those forced smiles. They probably all hate each other!- Debi... She can kick all their butts and can write her name in the snow in cursive!- CRP... so...what are you wearing...? panties...? lace panties...? that's what I'm wearing - ScubaDave and the telemarketer... Life can be short, just like me... Live it to the fullest!!! Family is always there for you NO matter what, just like a "true friend" would be... A cheat is a cheat, and are always busted... |
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#73
04/07/2006, 04:31 PM
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UPDATE:
Sorry for the long delay. Here is what I tried, and the results. 1: Bought a mini cleaner package. Hermits, snails, emrald crab, etc, etc. The kit was $30 and included 3 XL Turbo snails. These three snails, mowed down the HA. Within a week it was gone. During that week, I did the following.... 2: 25% water change. Took water from gravel cleaner into bucket and replaced with fresh salt water mix. 3: Changed carbon in filter. 4: Removed hood and cleaned off salt deposits with water and vinegar. That's all, and now it has been almost a month with no HA. I know what goes in must come out, but those snails did wonders. I would recommend them. If it comes back, I will bring back this thread to let everyone know, but my guess is my tank was going through some kind of 14 month cycle period or something, and it finally just went away. |
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#74
04/09/2006, 10:01 PM
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I should also say I stopped adding garlic to my nightly feedings for a while. Could garlic cause hair algae? I used three drops per night, about 6 nights a week. On the 7th I used .5 ml of Selcon, which I kept up on this whole time.
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