AAAARRRRRGH Hair Algae Please Help me!!!!!!

[Tim Marvin]

Another note, I dose a lot of Kalk!

[georgeortiz]

Thank guys!

[bprewit]

The question in this post has already been answered but wanted to say I had hardcore hair algae in my tank until recently. Never had algae problems but tank crashed when away, restarted tank and poof man I had bad algae. So bad you couldnt see the rocks due to the huge amounts of algae that would grow to 6" in length and coverd almost everything in the tank. I ran carbon, refugium, water changes, increased alk, new skimmer, reduced light cycle, scrubbed the rocks, phosphate remover, everything I could think to try and everything I had ever read to try. I finally got online and ordered mexican turbos. I called premium aquatics and asked them to ship me two dozen of the largest they had. Holy smokes man they delivered big time and some snails were over 3" across! I turned all lights off for two days, scrubbed and pulled as much algae as I could, and added the snails. Started lights with reduced cycle on the third day and by the end of the first week I honestly had no algae left in my tank. Traded half of the turbos back to LFS and a month later everthing is looking good. I dont know exactly what caused the huge bloom to start but I do know that no matter what I did it wouldnt go away. My nitrate readings were less than 3 during all this, phosphate was almost non-existant, and all other parameters were as close to perfect as I could get. Even bought all new test kits thinking maybe I was getting bad readings and missing the problem. I know that probably nitrates or phosphates started the initial problem and the algae quickly used up the nutrients so when I checked the levels it all seemed great but still once I started growing it was very hard to stop. Bad thing about the huge turbo's is they are pretty **** strong and will topple rocks and corals like a mini powerlifter. One other thing to mention is my macro in my fuge wasnt growing all that well, though it wasnt dying off it just didnt grow anywhere near the amount the hair algae was. I started to add iodine which I know is a nutrient for hair algae as well, but it caused my macro (feather calupera) to grow at a amazing rate! This may not work in every tank and maybe I was just lucky and recieved really hungry starving snails, but it definatly worked in my tank. Best of luck!

[Ram_Puppy]

bprewit, you probably had a high load of organic phosphate, or is it inorganic, one does not show up on test kits, the other does, also, if your hair algae bloom was large enough, it would pull the phosphate right out of the water befor eyou had a chance to test it, i.e. it was still getting fertilized, enough to stay allive and grow, but you just couldn't see the fertilizer. novel solution.

[DeAngelove]

Hey George -
I agree with the majority on here... but have one little thing to add.

Do you have any plants in your tank or sump/fuge?
I was having a serious hair algae & bryopsis problem this summer, then I added a few mangroves to my nano tank. I also did the whole wc & add critters bit, as well. It cleared up pretty quickly, thankfully, and hasn't been back since!

I think I saw a rule somewhere that the average was 1 mangrove pod/per 10G of tank volume. I have 2 in 10G nano... just as a reference.

HTH

DAB

[DeAngelove]

LOL... and I forgot to add that I like Gary's theories & discussions on the "C" word that I'm not supposed to use around him! ;) :P

I know I've learned alot from them, and my tank has definitely benefited!

[GaryP]

Just a note about adding herbivores to your tank. I may have been misunderstood earlier.

By addressing the water quality issues you can limit the amount fo further growth of the algae. However, it won't go away on its own. There will always be enough nutrients for it to stay alive. This is where the herbivores come in for some remedial action.

I fought smome major hair algae battles for years and unfortunately was forced to follow the advice of an LFS, because of a lack of any other good resources. Then came the internet and I found the GARF site. They basically originated the clean-up crew business. I got a shipment from them and was hair algae free for the first time within a few weeks. I know some folks here aren't real big GARF fans, but they have done a lot in terms of education and management of hair algae. Those dwarf hermits they sell are still the best thing I have ever seen for the control of hair algae. IMO hair algae management requires physical, biological and chemical methods to get complete control.

Gary

[mathias]

tasting saltwater bad.....

[Chip]

The GARF clean up crew is awesome!!!