Best hair algae Fish anyone?

[J_G]

Does anyone know what a couple of the best hair algae fish are?

[GaryP]

There really is no such thing as a good hair algae fish IMO. Are there fish out there that will graze on it. Yes. Are there fish that will totally eliminate it from your tank? No. For that you need to go to invertebrates. Snails and hermits.

In the wild, they have noticed that schools of fish will actually cultivate algae gardens. They graze on it, but will move away and eat something else. They never actually wipe it out. That makes sense to me. I have 5 of the "best" hair algae fish in my 125 and guess what just popped up. You got it, hair algae. I just put 75 hermits in there.

For the record, I have 2 hippo tangs, a purple tang, a foxface, and an algae blenny in the tank.

[saltcreepette]

ditto. try to improve your skimming, make sure your ca, ph, dkh, mg are all at normal levels, drip kalkwasser, feed as little as you can get away with and still keep everyone fairly happy, keep up with water changes, and if you can grow some macroalgae. I recently had a hair algae outbreak and I employed all the methods listed above and it is not coming back. it is not eliminated, but it isnt multiplying like it was.

there's a guy on RC who has tanks he's had running for 30 years who swears that tanks go through 'normal' albeit annoying various algae cycles. just do the best you can and dont stress too much.

[GaryP]

The only thing I will add to saltcreepette's excellent advice is to use a phosphate scavenger. Algae blooms are really just a symptom of water quality issues. By this I mean excess nutrients. We add nutrients to the system every time we feed or add some supplements. The key to nutrient management is to export as much as you import. No single strategy, such as adding grazers, is usually adequate to handle it. The grazers will just eat the algae and poop back a lot of the nutrients. Fish in particular have very inefficient digestive systems. If you have ever watched fish eat, you will probably notice that they are pooping while they are eating. It goes straight through and very little of the nutrients tied up in the food is extracted. Address that problem first as part of a systematic approach to the control of water and algae issues. Hair algae is always indicative of high phosphate levels, whether you can test for them or not.

When I said export earlier I meant things like skimming, mechanical filtration, carbon filtration, phosphate scavengers, refugiums, water changes, and siphoning. These are the keys to nutrient control.

[saltcreepette]

Hey Gary, please elaborate on what you mean by 'phosphate scavenger.' are you referring to a product, or to an 'animal?' I would like to use a phosphate reducer like phosguard on the reef but have heard that the corals dont react well to it...

[gjuarez]

It could be anything that eats up phosphates wether it be rowaphos, phosguard or any other binders and perhaps some macro algae.

[saltcreepette]

if anyone here has used phosguard on their reef I'd like to hear the corals you kept and if they were affected, thanks. Ive used in on my freshwater planted tanks with good result but never tried it on the reef....the packaging says to be sure to rinse it well so the dust doesnt irritate the corals.....

[GaryP]

Yes some people saw some negative effects in SPS reef tanks. However, these were systems that already had low phosphates to start with. Taking phosphates down to 0 ppm is not something you really want to do. Corals need phosphates too. Remember that corals are symbiotic with an algae (zoanthellae). In a system that has an algae problem its obvious that phosphates aren't too low. High phosphates can also negatively effect corals as well. Phosphate acts as a calcification inhibitor. Remember that I said the goal was to manage nutrients. I didn't mean to totally eliminate them. Everything in moderation.

[saltcreepette]

I didnt know that phosphate acts as a calcification inhibitor (I assume its just too much phosphate, since you said corals need some phosphate..)...what exactly is the process in this...is it that too much phosphate in the water column makes the ca be in a form that corals cant uptake? or is it the phosphate affects the coral itself making it unable to uptake the calcium? I wonder how much phosphate is too much and how much is just enough. just curious.

[hammondegge]

i just used phosguard with some disturbing results. i usually use Phosban in the reactor but ran out and could only find Phosguard. most of the zoas closed up immediatly so i shut it off and did some reading. after reading so much about the aluminum released from the Phosguard i decided that i did not want to risk it. i went back to Phosban (iron based). I do not know if the Phosguard would have continued to give me trouble, but i dont really want to know. anyone want an almost unused container of Phosguard?

[matt]

Dripping KW right into your skimmer intake is supposed to be a very effective way of removing phosphates.

[GaryP]

Dripping KW right into your skimmer intake is supposed to be a very effective way of removing phosphates.
Also a very good way to scale up your skimmer pump solid. Pumps are usually the first place to scale up in a tank, and the high pH and calcium levels from the kalk will just make it more so. I'm not saying its not a bad idea, but just keep an eye on the pump and clean it regularly. There is another advantage to this though. The water going to the skimmer will have a higher pH. You get better foaming in the skimmer with the higher pH.

Calcium Phosphate will precipitate at high pH, like you get immediately around the point that the kalk drops hit the water. Once the Kalk drop is dispersed, the high pH area is quickly dissipated with it. Since this such a localized effect I don't think it should be the basis of your complete phosphate management strategy. It is, however, another tool in the tool box.

[GaryP]

I didnt know that phosphate acts as a calcification inhibitor (I assume its just too much phosphate, since you said corals need some phosphate..)...what exactly is the process in this...is it that too much phosphate in the water column makes the ca be in a form that corals cant uptake? or is it the phosphate affects the coral itself making it unable to uptake the calcium? I wonder how much phosphate is too much and how much is just enough. just curious.
Discuspro from here is actually doing a research project for school on this. Maybe he will jump in. Take a look at phosphate levels in natural seawater as a guide. Phosphate is a very rare comodity on a reef. Phosphate in the water is quickly recycled by plants, corals, and bacteria. NSW contains around .1 ppm phosphate. That's not zero, but pretty close to it. I think you can see that if you have a tank with already low phosphate levels, it would be easy to get to zero with the addition of a very effective phosphate abosorber like the iron based products.

What makes our tanks different from reef water is that facts that the winds and tides create almost constant water changes. Open ocean water flows through the reef constantly. This water has almost no nutrients in it. The plankton in this water has long ago used up what nutrients in it. The reefs produce a lot of nutrients because of the feeding and excretion of fish, but these nutrients are swept out of the reef area by the currents and tides. Delbeek and Sprung discussed this whole topic of reef nutrient cycling in one of their books. It was very interesting but maybe a little to technical for most reefers. They quoted a lot of scientific studies that have been done in this area. One thing that has been heavily studied are a couple of the south pacific islands which used to contain phosphate mines. The runoff from the mines has totally destroyed the reefs surrounding these islands.

What makes this even more complicated is the fact that its diffcult to accurately analyze for phosphate. Phosphate exists in two forms in our aquariums. What we test for with most kits is ortho phosphate (inorganic phosphate). Ortho phosphate is very readily used by plants, bacteria, and corals and only tanks with a pretty major phosphate problem will have much show up on a test. The other form of phosphate is meta phosphate (organic phosphate). This is the majority of phosphate in the tank. its the result of fish waste and organic decay. Meta phosphate can be converted into ortho phosphate by bacterial degradation of the organic molecule that the phosphate is attached to. There is a kit that tests for both, but its pretty expensive and a bit complicated for the average hobbyist.

As I said earlier, sometimes the best test kit is seeing lots of green fuzzy stuff growing all over your tank.

[GaryP]

Here's an article on the inhibition of calcification by phosphates.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/apr2002/chem.htm

Here is a quote from that article.


This inhibition of calcification takes place at concentrations frequently attained in reef tanks, and may begin at levels below those detectable by hobby test kits. For example, one research group found that long term enrichment of phosphate (2 mm; 0.19 ppm; maintained for 3 hours per day) on a natural patch reef on the Great Barrier Reef inhibited overall coral calcification by 43%.23 A second team found effects in several Acropora species at similar concentrations.