Update! Hair Algae; Situation Improving

[georgeortiz]

Hi,
I am going to start another thread on hair algae prevention:
My tank is going on 7 months now and I am getting some hair algae. It is starting to worry me a little. I have tried to deny it light to starve it but, it comes back and I know that this will not be a long term solution and detrimental to my corals. I want to avoid adding additives to the water. I tested my nitrates last week and this came back clean. I do need to test for phosphates. I don't have a kit so I will have to pick one up.

I will get to the point I am running refugium with calupera and it is doing well. The little clump Brewercm gave me months ago has not filled the tank so shouldn't this be absorbing the phosphates and nitrates in the tank? Nitrates are low so if my phosphates are high what is a holistic alternative to the Hair algae problem? Mangroves? I do have room to add mangroves in my sump. I believe the rule of thumb is 1 per every 10 gallons.
I think I read in a thread by GaryP that a typical stage in all newly established tanks was a Hair algae bloom. My snails and Yellow tang are consuming some of it but, I am afraid it is going to get out of control and hide all that beautiful color I am getting in my seeded live rock.
I add 1 to 1/2 gallon of RO/DI water daily so I don't need to do percentage water changes.
Help me out I would like to get some ideas on how to control this nuisance algae.

[JimD]

Whether or not your adding RO/DI daily to compensate for evaporation doesnt mean you dont have to do "percentage" water changes, water changes are very important and sometimes necessary to control algaes. I would start there, check the TDS of your make-up water, prune your refugium occasionally to export nutrients, drip kalk to precipitate any P04 that may be available and resist the urge to over-feed. Hair algae can most certainly be a stage in a newly set-up system and in most cases will go away on its own with proper conditions. Manual removal and getting water parameters in check is your best defense. HTH, good luck..

[GaryP]

There are also a lot of nutrients and waste in your water that aren't detected by any test kit. Your problem is nutrient export. Your macroalgae simply out competing the hair algae. Cutting back on light is never effective and probably does as much damage as it does good. Most algae outbreaks are usually only a symptom of some other water quality problem.

I would suggest weekly 5-10% water changes, running activated carbon, and a phosphate absorber until the hair algae is under control. Increasing the number of algae grazers, especially snails might also be helpful.

[georgeortiz]

I have been reading about the phosphate abosorber but, which one should I use? I have also been thinking about using carbon. What brand is best?

[Ram_Puppy]

I hear phosban is the best o fhte new breed of phosphate absorbtion, I am planning on putting a phosban reactor on new tank.

[Instar]

Geroge O - JimD is right. Just replacing evaporated H2O with H2O (your RO/DI water) doesn't change the water it just keeps the salinity constant. You still have to do percentage water changes each month with new fresh made artificial salt mix and at least 10% each month. If you change 20% its even better. Then some animals that consume hair algae are indispensable. AW got rid of their hair algae by blowing a large fan across the surface of the water 24/7. I didn't try that because of the evaporation potential. I already have to add 2 to 5 gallons of ro/di a day on my 125 with 2 little fans. I have no hair algae, although I don't think its because of the fans. It had its hair cycle and I got critters to eat it and now the refugium is packed with macros to help out as well.

[RobertG]

George I have had good results with I think it is seachem phosgard. I do feel your issues will work themselves out with the water changes. Strongly agree with Jim & Larry.

[Ram_Puppy]

me 2, didn't see that you weren't doing water changes... infact, you may want to do those changes slowly, not sure what your running for lights, but if your water clears up to fast the increased water clarity could shock your corals... but I think it's probably a judgement call on your part...

also remember, it's not just water changes to take waste out of the water, that is a freshwater tank mentality, it's water changes to take out, and PUT BACK IN, your critters use elements out of your water, skimmers remove good stuff like iodine as well, so water changes keep you in balance. the holy grail of tank husbandry.

[StephenA]

I'd do what GaryP said, Do 5-10% water changes weekly for about 2 months. Add Carbon and seachem phosgard.

[GaryP]

Carbon will temporarily remove phosphate, but only if you change it every couple of days. That gets expensive. The problem is that the bacteria will eat the organophosphate compounds and some of the phosphate will be released back into the water. Inorganic phosphate is too small to be trapped in carbon. Usually its only larger organic compounds that are trapped by carbon. Carbon acts like a sponge filter, but only on a very small (molecular) level. There are some pretty complicated chemical interactions that occur as well, but I won't try to put you you to sleep with that info.

PhosGuard and the phosphate pads are the older technology that are based on aluminum chemistry. The newer technology from Germany (Phosban & Rowaphos) is based on Iron Hydroxide. The reports I have heard are all very good. There was some very good analytical tests run on them that I won't bother you with. Larry is probably the only one that would understand them :). Their only down side seems to be availability and cost compared to the silicate products. CB Pets is the only SA area LFS that I know of this is stocking them. Rowaphos is a sludge and from what I have read seems to be a little more difficult to use.

I'm not putting carbon down. It is very good at some things. Especially reducing the Total organic carbon load of the water. That's the stuff that gives your water a yellowish tint. I also think its great for helping to reduce the concentration of txic chemicals that build up as a result of chemical warfare between corals and other inverts. This has been pretty well documented with leather corals but I think its common with other corals to a smaller degree. Larry mentioned carnation corals in another recent thread.

I susally run carbon for a few days between water changes in order to "polish" the water. I think a common mistake is that carbon isn't changed often enough. The amount of time that is required to "use up" your carbon depends on how dirty the water is to start with, how much water you push through it, and how much carbon you start with. I use a carbon scrubber attached to a power head that goes in my sump and actively pushes water through the carbon. I know others that use the old carbon in a sack method that goes in their sump or wet/dry. This is effective, but less effiient than the pump thru method.

Just for the record, I used to be an environmental manager in a chemical plant and was in charge of using carbon scrubbers that were used to prevent release of benzene to the the environment. This was on a little larger scale, however. We only used 24,000 lb. containers of carbon. The little containers were 1000 lb. I did get a good deal on my aquarium carbon though. The sales rep would bring me 30 lb. bags as a "sample".


HTH
Gary

[georgeortiz]

Well,
I went ahead and picked up a phosphate pad and read your thread too late regarding the carbon GaryP :( But, I will check into the new phosphate removal methods you mentioned and will start doing a 5% water change every week. I picked up a small 6 gallon trash can to match my other trash can under the enclosure. One will be for makeup RO/DI water and the other will be for mixing my make up water for water changes. I am trying to make my maintenance as neat as I can. I remember the days of doing 25% water changes every month and dragging a large trashcan around for my FO setup. That Sucked! I have an additional question. I have been using phytoplex to spot feed my corals could It be possible I am overfeeding and this is a contributing factor? I am only feeding this to my corals every few days during the lights off cycle.

[brewercm]

My phytoplex only ever seemed to make my glass algae up more for scraping but didn't appear to make the hair algae worst.

[matt]

George;

A couple of things pop out to me in this thread:

1. 5% water changes are not enough. I would do several 25%-40% changes initially. Changing 5% of the water leaves 95% of the pollutants in your aquarium. Once your algae is under control, you can do smaller changes. When you do large water changes, make sure that the calcium, dkh, ph, and salinity of your new water matches what's in the tank.

2. Surprisigly few animals will eat this stuff; rather than add a large fish, I'd suggest a lettuce nudibranch and/or more snails. These will increase you bioload a lot less than a new tang.

3. Phytoplex is not eaten by stony corals, and in general is not a highly thought of food. You might check out some the articles Eric Borneman wrote for reefkeeping magazine on feeding corals. A better source of phytoplankton would be DTs live phytoplankton.

4. The only phosphate removal product I'd recommend is rowaphos. It's very expensive and a little inconvenient to use; you really need a small canister that you can put the stuff in and circulate water slowly through. I used a small canister I made and pushed water up through the rowaphos with a maxijet. The old aluminum-based stuff is not thought to be appropriate for reef use. Gary's asessment of this is exactly the same that I've read other places.

5. You can easily get zero readings on a phosphate kit and still have a bad algae problem, as Gary said earlier in the thread. This is because the algae consumes the phosphate as soon as it's available, leaving nothing for the test kit. The presence of nusiance algae is a positive test for phosphates. Eventually, if you keep siphoning out the algae, the caulerpa will maintain low levels of phosphates IF it has sufficient light and water flow to grow well.

6. 7 months is still a new tank, and it's pretty typical to get algae outbreaks at this time; maybe nutrients and animal wastes have built up to the point where you get an outbreak, but the system has not developed a "balance" capable of processing the waste at the same rate as it has accumulated. You have to be patient, do lots of water changes and manual removal, and eventually it will go away. Good luck! You've gotten lots of good advice from several people on this thread, IMO.

[georgeortiz]

Matt,
Thanks for the advice. This is the type of input we will miss from you. Good Luck and keep in touch!

[GaryP]

There are two type of phosphate, ortho and meta. Hobbyist test kits only detect ortho.

The test for meta involves boiling samples in sulfuric acid as I recall. Not something that is highly recommended on the hobbyist level. Meta phosphate is the organic phosphates I mentioned in my earlier post on carbon.

I said earlier that phosguard is silicate based. That is incorrect as Matt pointed out. IT IS aluminum based. I had a case of mental gas when I typed that. What am I going to do without Matt around to keep me straight. I guess Larry is going to have to do double duty.

Here is a good article on comparative tests of both types. I should warn you, it's is pretty heavy on analytical chemistry. The good thing is that they ran the tests on laboratory type instruments, not hobbyist test kits, so the results should be more accurate and sensitive than what we are capable of.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/june2004/review.htm

Gary

[fishhawk]

I dunno, I have a 110 that just exploded with hair algae. (Newish tank) 3 emerald crabs and one lawn mower blenny with an attitude did in in almost 6 days... That blenny is amazing with a face only a mother or a reefer with hair algae could love...

[georgeortiz]

I would just like to thank all you members who responded to my thread.

After acting like a nervous hen I put some of tips I recieved into play and my hair algae is retreating.

Even though it was an old method I used a phosphate pad in the sump.
I also ran carbon for 2 days and I am again running another batch of carbon for another two days.

Today I will be doing a 25% water change on the system. This should really help me out.

In the future I will be using phosoban as a preventitive and do a 5-10 gallon water change weekly. I have not decided this will have to be trial and error.

Again thanks to all you guys who added thier two cents. This is what I really like about the MAAST organization. Reefer addicts helping each other out.

[clowntrigger]

You may want to consider adding a protein skimmer to your system. We have found that with ample skimming, hair algae simply melts away. As with the others out there, I would suggest at least a 25% water change every month with RO water. The fewer phosphates you introduce to your system, the less likely you are to have algae issues, RO water is very important.

Does the tank sit in direct sunlight? This could be contributing to your problems as well. When the tank is not in direct sunlight, you atleast have the ability to control your photo-period, and could reduce heat issues.

In the mean time, I would suggest "harvesting" the hair algae you do have - just pull out what you can.

Just my 2 cents...