some crazy hair algae, anyone else heard of this?

[dido]

I have an outbreak of some kind of crazy hair algae. It is a dark blue/green color with kind of a feather look to it. The individual hairs look like feathers. It is quite strong and difficult to harvest from the tank. I had the guy from my LFS that services tanks come out and he had never seen it before. Has anyone had any experience with it? It seems that no matter what I do to limit phosphates (running phosguard and doing water changes) and pull the stuff off of the rocks, it just keeps on growing. I think I will go cry in my beer now :lol:

 

[Bucktronix]

sounds like some kind of macro algae.

 

[dido]

It is pretty small for a macro, I think. The "feathers" are about 1/8 of an inch wide and grow to about an inch to inch and a half long. They get to be about 3/4 of an inch before they start to feather out. Up until that point they look like beefy hair algae.

 

[Len]

I think you might have Bryposis. Unfortunately, nothing really eats it. But they do have a habit of blooming and crashing over time if you have nutrients under control.

BTW, the water changes you're doing .... are you using RO/DI water? if not, you might be adding just as much nutrients as you're removing.

 

[dizzy]

I think you might have Bryposis. Unfortunately, nothing really eats it.

Len,
I beg to differ. This green lettus nudibranch (attached) loves the stuff. They get big too. I had two that reached 6"x 1.5" wide if you flatten them out. They are beautiful and interesting. The ones I got came in much smaller and grew fairly quickly. I was begged into selling them and they continue to do well for their new owners. I have some smaller ones I'm growing out again. Truly an amazingly effective control for pesky Bryopsis.
Mitch

 

[mark78]

How are they with other things like flow, and reef inhabitants? They eat other algaes I assume?

 

[dizzy]

Mine were in a tank with a Sea Swirl at each end and good flow all around. I never observed them eating anything other than the Bryopsis. I made a short video I hope to get over to DVD, and I will then post a clip on fishey.biz I have some new ones that are much smaller and more green. They appear to be eating Bryopsis as well. Perhaps the body color changes as they grow. I really wish I hadn't sold them, but people get mad when you hog up all the good stuff for yourself.
Mitch

 

[Tackett]

Every pic Ive ever seen of a "lettuce Nudibranch" it has been greenish colored. AFAIK they get some of their energy through photosynthesis as well as eating algae. Watch out for powerheads if you got 'em, probably an accident waiting to happen.