My solution to an ongoing problem?? Picture Added

[DOGMAI]

Ok I have the worst outbreak of Hair Algae you have ever seen. I will try and post a pic on here later. I look at other tanks on here that say they have bad hair algae and laugh at what they call bad. Lol. I have had this problem for over a year and am very tired of it. My solution is this: Take out all my Live rock and put it in a Rubbermaid garbage can with water of course. I will keep the water moving via a pump and also put in a skimmer. Absolutely no light will get in. In the main tank with no LR I will do 50% water changes to try and rid the overflows and the sump of what’s left of the hair algae.

Will this help to rid the HA?
Will the HA come back after I reintroduce the LR?

I am running a sump/refuge on a 120 gallon tank. I have about 12 Mangroves and a basketball size “bunch” of cheto. I have a very low Bio Load. 6 Very small fish and a few crabs. One spiny Oyster and 1 Clam. I have Coralline algae growing on everything but the LR. I run a skimmer non-stop. It pulls out quite a bit of stuff, about 44oz of skim a week. I have dual 175 Halides; bulbs are about 4 months old. The LR consist of about 65 pounds. The sand bed is about 1-1/2” deep. 3” in the sump.

Thanks,
Shane

 

[Anonymous]

Hmm - Read my post did ya?

I feel your pain. I have the same thing going on, I have no fuge. So I guess the Plant life is NOT the answer.
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Brazilian Forum

 

[Anonymous]

Could it be the water there in Los Baños has extra nutrients? sorry bad joke.

Seriously though, is your source water RO/DI or what? Have you tested it for phosphate etc? Because it sure sounds like you are doing a lot of things right - desirable plants for nutrient export, aggressive skimming, moderate bioload.

Check out a couple threads "My algae tank" and "Bringing my tank back from the brink" for lots on this topic.

Good luck, I am finally algae-free myself after months and months of struggle and man does it feel good.

 

[sediener]

Will this help to rid the HA?

people call this "cooking rock". It does get rid of the algae but will only be a semi-long term fix if your HA problem is because your rock is full of detritus. During the "cooking" make sure you properly remove that detritus.

I say semi-long term because it will come right back unless you take care of your rock by blasting it to remove the detritus on a regular basis.

Will the HA come back after I reintroduce the LR?

If you are nutrient loading the tank by some other means, bad water, overfeeding, etc... then yes, it will come right back. If your problem is detritus, on the rock and you clean that off, then you have a better chance.

- steve

edited for gibberish/bad english -- probably still some in there but oh well

 

[Anonymous]

It is kind of hard to say what it will take to fix your hair algae. There are so many things that can contribute to nutrient in your water that I think it is best to attack from as many angles as possible.



A while ago I had terrible hair algae, worse that anything I have ever seen in any photo, all my rock and overflows were covered with a thick mat of one inch long flowing algae. I still have it in some places in my refugium. I know what you mean when you say you laugh at what other people call bad algae, it was just unreal what I had.

At one point I took out my sand bed and realized it was full of "mud". I guess over time it accumulated detritus and I blame that partly on my high nutrients in the tank. Despite maintaining the tank exactly the same as I had for years, I had phosphate levels in the tank and could not figure out why, I now partly blame it on the junk that had accumulated in the sand bed. So it may be worth thinking about how dirty your sand may have become over time and if it might now be releasing phosphate into the water.


With regard to putting the rock in a dark tub, I think that is a good idea, but you also want to get rid of all the excess nutrients the soon to be dead algae will leave behind. I would do water changes on the rock tub, as well as swish the rocks in a bucket of water in an attempt to flush out as much detritus as you can, you not only want to get the rocks algae free, but also get them clean. You will be amazed at how much crap comes out of older live rock if you have it in a separate container and do water changes on it.

 

[DOGMAI]

Would it be easier (not cheaper I know) to just buy new live rock? Maybe like 100 pounds. I am only running like 60-65 pounds right now.

My water comes from a 6 stage RO/DI. Fairly new.

When I "cook" the rock I will Syphon the sand bed.

 

[Anonymous]

Would it be easier (not cheaper I know) to just buy new live rock? Maybe like 100 pounds. I am only running like 60-65 pounds right now.

.

Might be.

I do believe the rock just kind of "fills up" with junk over time. We took our tank down and re set it up with no sand. You could see piles of "crud" appear under the rock, in unreal quantities, on the bare bottom.

We have replaced a good portion of the rock in our tank. I am curious to see if the old rock still grows algae, as some folks believe that algae can uptake nutrient right out of the rock. I am not sure what I think about that, but this will be a good test I suppose.

Keep up the good fight.

 

[DOGMAI]

I am thinking that the rock is the problem. This hair algae is only growing on the rock. It grows in the overflows and the somp only because it has gotton stuck in those places.

Its like a war of territories and nobody wants to invade. My coralline will grow on the glass and plastic but not on the rock. The HA will grow on the rock and not on the glass or plastic. I wish the coralline would invade the rock and end the HA reign over my tank.

Thanks,
Shane

 

[Anonymous]

Here's several threads on Rob's tank all discussing hair algea

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=68144

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=66789

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=65364

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=64161

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=63348

 

[Anonymous]

Sure It'll kill all the algae on the rocks.

But unless the conditions in the tank are corrected, the algae will just return. Including the conditions that allowed all the nutrients to get in the rock to begin with.


But with a refug full of other plant life, the algae on the rocks can be indefinately controlled.

 

[ChrisRD]

But with a refug full of other plant life, the algae on the rocks can be indefinately controlled.

Maybe you missed this part of the first post...

I am running a sump/refuge on a 120 gallon tank. I have about 12 Mangroves and a basketball size “bunch” of cheto.

 

[Anonymous]

But with a refug full of other plant life, the algae on the rocks can be indefinately controlled.

Maybe you missed this part of the first post...

I am running a sump/refuge on a 120 gallon tank. I have about 12 Mangroves and a basketball size “bunch” of cheto.

Yep you're correct I missed that. Hopefully that refug will be enough. The key it to get a balance where the fuge consumes the nitrates not the display algae. One way is to remove all the lights to the display algae as he is doing. Hopefully, the refug will be able to keep up after.

 

[Anonymous]

Yep you're correct I missed that. Hopefully that refug will be enough. The key it to get a balance where the fuge consumes the nitrates not the display algae. One way is to remove all the lights to the display algae as he is doing. Hopefully, the refug will be able to keep up after.

ROTFLMAO

Now that there is plants there its time to kill the lights?
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Hispanic / Latino Forum

 

[Anonymous]

Yep you're correct I missed that. Hopefully that refug will be enough. The key it to get a balance where the fuge consumes the nitrates not the display algae. One way is to remove all the lights to the display algae as he is doing. Hopefully, the refug will be able to keep up after.

ROTFLMAO

Now that there is plants there its time to kill the lights?

Basically you got it. IMO the worse things you can do is to simply eliminate all the ugly algaes without having other plant life there ready to replace the benefits of the algae being removed. People have lost fish, and experienced tank crashes with that formula. But with other plant life able to keep the tank going, the losses and crashes are avoided.

 

[Anonymous]

Dogmai, if its any consolation, my tank was at least that infested for quite a while. I was embarrassed to have company in the house.

 

[Anonymous]

Just looked at your picture, you have the same problem I had, although I can see rock poking through! There is still room for more algae LOL!

What we did (I say we because this is my husband's tank too and he actually does most of the work, I just supervise!!):

Added a DI cartridge to the RO system, brought TDS down to 2 from 25.

Removed sand bed and all sand from the system. (it was filthy, totally filthy)

Tuned skimmer to skim as wet as possible.

Frequent small water changes removing the detritus that collects in corners and under rocks, that now I am able to see as I do not have sand to hide it.

Blow off the rocks with a powerhead, then suck out the detritus as it settles.

We also added tons of snails, and harvested much of the HA by hand.

Unfortunatly I feel I cannot fully comment on the state of our tank now, as we took down the display down a little while ago and set up a new display tank, which is currently algae free. We did just leave the sump and refugium running in the basement which is about 170 gallons total. Once we got the algae under control there was such a renewed intrest in the tank we decided to get a new tank. It has half old rock and half brand new rock, so I will let you know if the HA comes back at all, or only on the old rock, but I am very happy to report that I do not see any signs of algae starting.

I feel your pain man, keep at it!

 

[Anonymous]

Have you tried turbo snails?

 

[Anonymous]

First you suggest to add plants. Like Dogmai has in his refugium.

Now you have to remove the lights on the display?

Is next week removing the water from the display? How about putting plywood around all 4 sides of the tnak so you dont see and algae?
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Ferrari 250