Help! Tips and Remedies

[Tiny's Nano]

Hello fellow reefers. I am throwing the towl on this slight battle with hair algae. I'm not giving up but instead seeking some help. I have a few spots on my sand bed and rocks that have hair algae. What could I use or do to completely win the battle? I'm running a protein skimmer, filter Floss changed 3x's a week, clean up crew, strict 8 hour light schedule, chemipure, phosguard. Any help ?

 

[bvega789]

Get some fish that eat it

 

[Tiny's Nano]

Get some fish that eat it

Any recommendations for a nano tank?

 

[NYreefNoob]

peroxide. but have you tested your ro/di water ?

 

[Czynot]

Manual remove as much as you can. Peroxide will kill GHA rather quickly.
Dose vibrant to kill off remaining GHA. Vibrant works but slowly.
Most likely you have high no3 and po4 that is fueling the GHA. You must keep the no3 and po4 low to keep GHA coming back after you get it under control.

 

[Tiny's Nano]

peroxide. but have you tested your ro/di water ?

Manual remove as much as you can. Peroxide will kill GHA rather quickly.
Dose vibrant to kill over remaining GHA. Vibrant works but slowly.
Most likely you have high no3 and po4 that is fueling the GHA. You must keep the no3 and po4 low to keep GHA coming back after you get it under control.

Which peroxide is safe to use ?

 

[Czynot]

any 3% hydrogen peroxide is ok from pharmacy (riteaid or walgreens). they all the same 3%.
Drip few drop of peroxide over the GHA. let it soak for 30 second and return the rock back into the tank. you will see the GHA bubble up. GHA will turn white and die off next day. You may need to do it few times. Peroxide wont harm corals at low levels.
I assume you have alot of GHA. NO3 and PO4 will show low on your test kits. This is false reading because GHA is growing and taking up all nutrient. Fix your tank nutrient or GHA will come back.

 

[Czynot]

How old is the tank. When is the last time your vacuum clean your sandbed. Looks like your high nutrient problem may be from the sand bed.
You got coarse sand. Coarse sand are detritus trap (nitrate factory).

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Herbivores will keep that at bay, though there aren't too many things that like to eat the dark hair algae, they prefer the bright green, fast growing hair algae, which is much softer and less fibrous. I've trained a few fish (tangs and rabbitfish) to eat that, by microwaving it, they tossing it back in.

Anyway if you had enough hermit crabs, snails and possibly one small 2"-urchins, they would have kept that from growing in. As for the easiest treatment, lights out will starve the hair algae out, though it would be about a week till the hair algae gets soft enough for your clean up crew to eat. You can repeat that a few times after your corals recover back to normal. Your zoos and LPS won't be affected too much. SPS on the other hand probably can't go without light for more than 4 days.
If you did a total black out, it would probably be more effective, but that may be too much effort.

Oh, BTW since I maxed out the power of my light output, I've switch from growing the dark green hair algae (which is more of a low light species) to the faster growing brighter green, tasty algae, which fish like to eat.

 

[Tiny's Nano]

How old is the tank. When is the last time your vacuum clean your sandbed. Looks like your high nutrient problem may be from the sand bed.
You got coarse sand. Coarse sand are detritus trap (nitrate factory).

Tank is going for 1 1/2 years running and to be completely honest. I probably haven't cleaned the sand bed since June 2020. I was really get a false reading then because I was using the Hannah Instruments. They're digital pretty hard to make a mistake I figured better to get those.

 

[Tiny's Nano]

How old is the tank. When is the last time your vacuum clean your sandbed. Looks like your high nutrient problem may be from the sand bed.
You got coarse sand. Coarse sand are detritus trap (nitrate factory).

Also I wasn't running a clean up crew until recently ? (February 2, 2021) 20 hermits crabs, 10 snails.
2 Scarlett Shrimps (March 7)

 

[Tiny's Nano]

Herbivores will keep that at bay, though there aren't too many things that like to eat the dark hair algae, they prefer the bright green, fast growing hair algae, which is much softer and less fibrous. I've trained a few fish (tangs and rabbitfish) to eat that, by microwaving it, they tossing it back in.

Anyway if you had enough hermit crabs, snails and possibly one small 2"-urchins, they would have kept that from growing in. As for the easiest treatment, lights out will starve the hair algae out, though it would be about a week till the hair algae gets soft enough for your clean up crew to eat. You can repeat that a few times after your corals recover back to normal. Your zoos and LPS won't be affected too much. SPS on the other hand probably can't go without light for more than 4 days.
If you did a total black out, it would probably be more effective, but that may be too much effort.

Oh, BTW since I maxed out the power of my light output, I've switch from growing the dark green hair algae (which is more of a low light species) to the faster growing brighter green, tasty algae, which fish like to eat.

Do you think an anemone could survive 5 days without lights? I only have one sps frag inside the tank. Didn't seem to be doing wheel because of placement. So at this point I willing to go aggressive on the algae. I'm going to dose the tank with the 3% peroxide today.

I wasn't running a clean up crew. Wasn't a believer of them before due to an article I had read previously. But I purchased a nice army recently. Hopefully this would eventually get rid of it completely.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

An anemone would have no problem without light, it's just going to fade a bit and get longer tentacles. No clean up crew? heh, thats like saying you don't want weeds/grass growing on your lawn, having a bare patch of earth, while the sun is out and you get rain every week. I personally use a mix of all the creatures I've mentioned.
I like banded trochus snails (work horse for mass cleaning, and they breed), dwarf cerith snails (hermit crab resistant, since they are too small for them, and hide in the sand, and they breed) and hermit crabs for eating anything that grows too long for the snails. The urchin is also hermit crab proof, but needs lots of food.

If you get too many big snails, they will starve out if the tank gets too clean. the cerith will eat tiny bits of algae thats in the little spaces and you can never have enough of them. the crabs will also eat pellets and such, so they can live if there is no algae to eat. except for the astrea turbo snail, I don't think the other snails will touch your hair algae. That's only going to be eaten by very, very hungry hermit crabs, and only if you don't feed the tank anything else. (I'm not familiar/aware with the cleaning capacity of scarlet shrimps.)

If you going with the H2O2 method mentioned by others, don't worry about the lights out, the hermit crabs will likely finish off the soften/weakened hair algae and prevent future growth.

 

[Czynot]

Go slow. Dont rush it. GHA didnt show up over night.
Pull out as much GHA as possible during water change. take the rock out and drip peroxide on the algae area (after you pull out as much as possible). CLEAN YOUR Sand Bed.
GHA is not dino. Dosing Peroxide in water column will not work. It is too low concentration to be effective. Dosing vibrant is better option.
Black out for 3 days wont do anything for GHA. GHA is not Dino.
CUC dont touch long GHA. They will eat short GHA. People may recommend 100 CUC in a small tank. When these CUC finish eating all the GHA, they starve and die. 100 dead CUC will decayed that will fuel for more GHA.
Fix your primary cause of GHA. Which is high nutrient. Turn off your led RED channel. Algae love red color.

 

[Tiny's Nano]

Go slow. Dont rush it. GHA didnt show up over night.
Pull out as much GHA as possible during water change. take the rock out and drip peroxide on the algae area (after you pull out as much as possible). CLEAN YOUR Sand Bed.
GHA is not dino. Dosing Peroxide in water column will not work. It is too low concentration to be effective. Dosing vibrant is better option.
Black out for 3 days wont do anything for GHA. GHA is not Dino.
CUC dont touch long GHA. They will eat short GHA. People may recommend 100 CUC in a small tank. When these CUC finish eating all the GHA, they starve and die. 100 dead CUC will decayed that will fuel for more GHA.
Fix your primary cause of GHA. Which is high nutrient. Turn off your led RED channel. Algae love red color.

Quick Update. I spot dosed H2O2 on the areas with the most green hair algae. Last night I noticed the hermit crabs start to pick at the loosened pieces. I adjusted my lighting schedule and completely turned off my RED LED channel. I set it time aclimate slowly and ramp up to a high peak after four hours of running and slowly decrease in the remaining four hours of the schedule.

Unfortunately I noticed my clownfish didn't like the H202 dose and started to breathe a little heavy and started to get fizzy. But my corals just closed up and the other 2 fishes and 2 shrimps are doing fine. I have a gut feeling the clown won't make it. I guess no sacrifice means no victory ?. I will update weather or not he survived when the lights go one today.

I would like to thank you guys so much for the helpful knowledge and advice.

 

[Czynot]

Sorry to heard problem with the clown. It should not effect fish. Unless you over dose the tank with peroxide. Hydrogen Peroxide (H202) Break down into oxygen (0) and water (H20). It will increase the oxygen in the tank.