the hair algae won't go away!!!

[phislet]

Suddenly about 5 months ago I had a nasty outbreak of hair algae. My 125 gal of 3 years has never had this problem. Now five months later I still have the problem. I have tried everything to keep the phosphates at or near 0.

Feed fish only every 3 days and carefully.
Have a refugium with tons of macroalgae which is thriving.
Used Kent Phosphate sponge faithfully.
Tried Phos-Zorb from Aquarium pharmaceuticals
Tried Phosphate magnet from Marc Weiss
Tried Tropical Science red/hair algae pads
Added more snails, emerald crabs and lettuce nudibranch
Always use poly pads
Have done several 25% water changes (about every two weeks). Vacuumed the gravel each time. I always use RO water.

The algae is only getting worse. Starting to seriously affect my stony's.

Any ideas? Help.

 

[mrrrkva]

I had a similiar problem and the only way I solved it was to change the filters in my RO filter and Adding a DI filter to it. After 3 water changes of 30 percent in 5 weeks, it really started disappearing. I also got a toothbrush and brushed all the rocks and removed the floating algae with a small net. I did this about every third day. I also made sure my calcium was in the 450 ppm range and that seemed to help too. I dont know if the last step had anything to do with it but who knows. Hang in there, mine was so bad I almost started over. Mine was growing 3 inches high and couldnt even see the rocks. Now mine is getting back to normal.

 

[Henry1]

On top of what mrrrkve suggested, you may also want to clean out your pumps and power heads which may have lost efficiency over time, thus reducing flowrate.

I will look to increasing circulation flowrate, getting the SG to 1.024 and manually removing the algae when they reach maximum growth.
Build up of detritus (under rocks and dead spots) over time can contribute to algae outbreak. As much as possible, create maximum circulation to reduce dead spots.

I found that adding a uv steriliser helps too. I get one that is rated slightly above my tank capacity.

Happy reefing.

[ November 19, 2001: Message edited by: Henry ]</p>

 

[95galReef]

Looks like you have been concerned about your phosphates but not nitrates. Did you test for nitrates? that can cause hair algea problems too.

 

[reefhope]

I tore down my 46gal reef this week due to uncontrollable algae, for the most part. I too had gravel(CC) for substrate. My system was up for almost 2 years.

I could not believe how much gunk was in the gravel, below rocks and in areas that I was unable to vaccuum regularly. I'm sure this was the culprit for the algae.

You may want to consider rearranging your rock and vaccuming areas you cannot regularly get to.

 

[rh]

Phislet -

Sounds like you've been working primarily in the preventative area, which is good. A couple of things:

1) Try not to siphon your gravel when you're removing algae from your system. Ideally you want to keep your sandbed and any established microfauna intact. They're only helping your system to efficiently process waste.
2) Call your local water utility, and request a listing of additives to your local tap water. Many utilities add "ortho-phosphates" to the local water supply. If this is the case (and you do mention using RO water - but deionization's important as well), you might want to purchase an RO/DI filter.
3) I'd stop doing water changes as a means of curbing the problem. If the water you're putting in is contributing to the phosphate level, and it usually is, you're not really helping the system along.
4) Remember that a lot of the chemical absorption pads and products are typically one-time use only and very limited in terms of what they can take in. IMO you'd be better off ditching all of those products and spending your money on some other sort of preventative or maintenance measure, like an RO/DI unit or herbivore, respectively.

Your algae amounts do sound excessive, but remember that a certain amount of algae is always going to be present in any system, and the realistic goal is to control it vs get rid of it. Usually the best strategy toward keeping algae in control involves preventative measures combined with maintenance practices. With that in mind, you might want to give some thought to purchasing some/additonal herbivores for general maintenance. I've tried crabs, snails, and have had a yellow tang in the system for some time now, but I've really had a great deal of success keeping algae under control with our lawnmower blenny.
Great fish, relatively inexpensive, not a whole lot of color as they're kind of camouflaged, but great personality - mine's gone through hair and various types of macroalgae like you wouldn't believe.

Good luck, keep your chin up & hth

 

[SteveP]

One other thing, most grazing snails will leave hair algae alone if it gets too long. Manually remove as much it as possbile so they can nibble on the "stumps." Trochus (or Mexican turbo) snails zoomed right thorugh my hair algae regardless of its length.

Steve
8{I

 

[phislet]

Thanks everyone! A few asked about my other parameters:
Nitrate 0
Amonia undetectable

I upped my salinity a bit recently. Due to the phosphate level I have had trouble keeping snails alive.

Lights are all regularly rotated with none of them older than 8 months. 660 watts of VHO

I have tested my RO water and the levels are always undetectable.

Arggg.....

 

[dvmsn]

Phislet,

You didn't mention anything about the design of your system.

Do you have a deep sand bed or a plenum system. I find that many people with algae problems
do not have there sand beds designed properly. There is an abundance of information on this
area on the Internet. I find most people have a sand bed that is to shallow. Whether you use a
plenum or not, one inch is not deep enough.

I would also recommend that you break down your system and scrub your rocks off in a separate
bucket of tank water. Disgard this water when you are done.

Herbivores work best to control algae before it turns to hair.

 

[phislet]

My tank is a 125 gallon.
Approximately 140 lbs of live rock and about 4 inches of live sand from several sources; figi and florida. I just added more live sand today.

All parameters are fine except phosphate which is around .5

I use only RO water for water changes and top-off.

Skimmer is a Berlin with Mag 7 pusing water.

660 watts of VHO lighting with no bulb older than 8 months.

 

[Anonymous]

I swear by kalk. And my blue tuxedo urchin helps too.

 

[danmhippo]

Urchins graze on "anything" present on rock surface. And yes, that includes a small amount of coralline algae. But which is worse? Hair algae, or urchin?

 

[Fish Guy]

I have kept urchins in my 240g tank for years and yes they do eat coralline but it just grows right back even faster than before. FYI I keep a common carribbean urchin (Echinometra Viridis) and a blue tuxedo. The Tux urchin get about 1-1.5 inches around and thus is not to much of a corraline pig. I believe that the bare rock left by a grazing urchin is ideal for coralline to regrow on. It my also help that I keep tangs/snails/scarlet h. crabs in this tank that prevent the hair/other algae types from growing back where the urchin has stripped the rock. This combo of algivores has resulted in one totally pink and purple tank for me.

Right now I have way to much coralline(it is my back pane's background). I am adding urchins every so often to see what effect they will have. I just added a large 4 inch variegated urchin(Lytechinus Variegatus). So far he has left a white strip on the rock

. Hopefully he will climb the glass.

 

[stevescg]

TANGIRL Does that urchin also eat coralline algae?

 

[Anonymous]

You said the algae in your sump/refuge was growing good. Do you crop it back?

If you don't remove some of that algae every once and a while you are not exporting nutrients.

 

[reefhope]

phislet

your first post mentions vaccuuming gravel but your later post states your have DSB, which is it? You are not vacumming a DSB, are you? If so you shouldn't.

If you have large gravel (such as crushed coral) then I would recommend vacumming as it will only trap debris that cleaner crew critters cannot get at. Learn from my experience. When I tore down I could not beleive what came out of the crushed coral, underneath areas that I couldn't vaccum actually looked like mud (and that was after only 2 years). Good luck.