Hair Algae

[whatsareef]

What have you found to be the best cure for removing hair algae? I am starting to see a little build up in my main tank and more of it in my refug. I have always used RO water and this is the first that I have seen of it since having my tank.. Any suggestions? Has any one had any luck with using some sort of critter or something that eats this stuff? Maybe I will just turn the light off in my refug and clean it really good and hope none grows back. let me know.

Thanks

Jason

[alexwolf]

i had great luck with a lawnmower blenny and lettuce nudibranch's, i had a BAD breakout of it......no trace now.

[whatsareef]

Guess I need to start putting my lawnmower blenny in time-out for awhile for not doing a good job.....

[1salt]

Yellow Tang always works...

[alexwolf]

i sent you an email....

[prof]

Ditto on the yellow tang.

I really like my emerald mithrax crab but some people report problems with crabs.

I have had two lawnmower blennies but they always seem to starve to death. They seem to be very picky eaters.

Dave

[R_S_C]

number 3 for yellow tang...my tang is the only reason my 55 looks so good. as you've seen the difference between the 20 and the 55 when you were at my house.

[alexwolf]

hey does a Scopas tang eat the same as a yellow?

[Sherri]

When your algae is gone...more than likely so is your lawnmower blenny. Great little fish but lost mine to starvation after algae was gone....My snails cleared out my algae prob.

Sherri

[whatsareef]

interesting... I have had my Lawnmower blenny for about 8 months now and he is still fat as ever, I feed him formula 2... As for the Tangs go I have a salifin and a Purple so the yellow is out of the question.

Thanks

[Sherri]

Good for you...I also use Formula 2...Formula 1....brine...nori...etc. Mine would not eat anything I fed the tank...just pick at the rocks & algae till it was gone....I really miss the little guy...really neat personality. Hope he stays fat for ya. :)

Sherri

[GaryP]

As a veteran of the hair algae wars I would like to recommend that you go to the garf website, www.garf.org, and check out the info they have on control of hair algae. I had tried every kind of critter fish and snail until I found garf and tried their reef janitors. Reef janitors are actually a mixture of Mexican dwarf hermits, cerith snails, and nerite snails. I have seen thme clean up a moderate outbreak of hair algae in less than 48 hours. I hope this is of some help.

Gary

[GaryP]

One more thing about the snails I mentioned in my previous msg., they reproduce real well in my tanks as opposed to turbos or astreas which I have never seen reproduce in my tanks. They are certainly a lot cheaper than turbos or astreas.

Gary

[OldSalty]

Ditto again for the yellow tang. If fact for me they have been the only tang that eat the stuff. I had one for 9 years utill last month when my grees brittle star killed him. :oops: Got another and that one picked up where the last one left off.

P.S. Does anyone know what will eat cyno? Got a little of the stuff but cant find anything that eats it!

[GaryP]

OldSalty, try mexican dwarf hermit crabs, Clibanarius digueti, for cyno.

[GaryP]

The best thing to control cyanobacteria is to just increase the tank circulation in the area that it is growing. It likes stagnant areas of the tank.

[whatsareef]

Gary,

Funny you mentioned garf, i was just reading what they had to offer. Thanks for all the info. hmmmm yellow tang with salfin and purple might equal death..... Guess I could keep him in my refug..

[alexwolf]

hey if you are going to order some let me know, im starting to have some in my 135

[GaryP]

GARF is a great organization and one of the best resource websites out there. I was having such bad hair algae problems I was about to hang it up when I found their site. If you order more than $100 from them they throw in a couple of frags. They are real big proponenets of captive propagation, even for things like cultured live rock. The proceeds go to supporting their projects. I was just reading something on their site about using Copper Banded Butterflies for Aiptasia control in reef tanks. That is something I would have never considered in a million years.

Gary

[Instar]

Every tank gets the pleasure of an algae bloom before it settles and becomes stable with coraline algae. From diatoms to hair to whatever we get from spores. Don't go nuts over it, just get some critters to eat it down some. There are lots of things that eat it. Algae worms, snails, tangs, little blue legs, urchins, crabs, foxfaces, angels, to name a few. Check specie preference for the type of algae you have. The nudibranchs will probably end up in your refugium as they don't fare well in the currents of a reef for long. If the algae disappears, so will they.

[oceancube]

ok ok im going crazy now, i really don't wanna ask but...... what in the world is cyno???? what does it look like and what are the effects of it!!! sorry i had to finally ask!!

[Instar]

Cyanobacter is a dynoflagellate organism that loves lower grades of white light, or light at the 10,000 K temp and above. Often described as half algae, half microb. It will grow in dark red slime mats over things under certain conditions of deteriorated light bulbs, low current, high organics (water needs maint) and at lower dKh values. Ocassionally it grows in the best of conditions. Most often it will look like its gone after the lights have been out for a couple hours. Most people say to increase your flow, but there can be more to it than that. The algae like red slime can really adapt after a little while and can be hard to get rid of, even in a tank that has good maint. Looks like trash in a reef tank. Looks like green slime/mat algae kinda, except its dark red/maroon. I had some that would ooze up into the water column if I shut off the pumps at all. Nasty looking stuff. It can cover things you don't want covered. Hard to beat sometimes. Best to get it before it gets a good hold.

[GaryP]

Cyanobacteria are actually a photosyntheitc bacteria, not a dinoflagellate, which is a true algae (it has a nucleus). They used to call it blue-green algae back when I was in school. Cyanobacteria are thought to be one of the most ancient forms of life. One thing that is really bad about a bad infestation is that it produces oxygen during the day but will use it at night and can result in very low oxygen levels. Of course a bad outbreak of hair algae can do the same thing. The term that is used for that in nature is called eutrophic.

[Pizazz]

I bought a reef tank with a problem and put a couple of corals from that tank into my big tank, now I have lot of bright green in both of tanks. The hair algae is a pretty significant problem. It seems like someone (reefer?) was saying that he had bought a really large sea hare that took care of the problem in less than a week. I am also waiting to hear from Garf, but am thinking a sea hare or two would be a lot less expensive. Tanks still dressed for Halloween are the 226 and the 72.

Also, I have some pretty cool macro algae - will a tang (yellow or otherwise) destroy it along with the hair algae?



Thanks,
Janice

[GaryP]

Janice,

I have had tremendous success with the reef janitors from Garf. Algae eating fish are OK for small problems but its been my experience they are mostly useless for a major problems. I've never used nudibranchs but my question is what are you going to do with them after they have cleaned up the hair algae. The reef janitors will just switch to another source of food. If the nudibranchs die in your tank they can take the rest of the tank with them.

I've fought major hair algae problems in the past and now my tanks are pretty much hair algae free. Some folks will probably tell you there are problems using the hermit crabs but I have never really seen them. Mostly you will hear about them killing snails. The dward hermit crabs are not real big predators from what I have seen. I have also had good experience with the Nerite and Cerith snails reproducing in my tanks. The larval snails make good zooplankton food for the corals and those that survive will give you a steady supply of snails.

Gary