Hair algae - harbinger of doom

[tchalmers]

Hey all,

I have a 125 Gal reef tank w/ 100lbs live rock; 100 red legged hermits, turbos, 1 cleaner shrimp; 1 cleaner wraise; 1 baby regal blue tang; 1 coral beauty; and 1 maroon clown. My problem is hair algae. I swear I have tried everything:
1. SAT reef safe hair algae remover (Doesn't work, save your money)
2. Phosphate sponges (not that I have a phosphate problem)
3. 7 hours with a tooth brush scrubbing live rock (yuck)
4. Switched to RO water
5. Just bought a Kent Nautalus protein skimmer
6. Cut way back on food
7. purchased brand new VHO lights (Actinic and super actinic) on for 11 hours/day
8. Water is to spec

Before I give up, what else can I try? I REALLY don't want to go through the tooth brush thing again. I heat that pouring acrilic into the tank might work, but the fish would be a little less lively

-Tim

 

[teeljay]

I will probably get flamed for this answer but I solved my hair alge problem after buying a cleaning crew from 'tampa bay saltwater' where I bought my live rock. Took them about a week to clean my 150 up, most of the critters are still alive and kicking 6 mos after I put them in. A cheaper way would be to buy a few snails, maybe ( lots of folks here would disagree with this part) a few blue leg crabs. Check the web sites that sell live rock, almost all of them also sell cleanup crews. Good luck Tim.

 

[Osama]

I use cleanup crews in my main tank and a refugium in my sump. Most nutrients will be absorbed by the plants in the refugium. Sally light foot , emerald green crabs, hermits blue legged & snails have been safe in my tank. Recently I added 2 cukes that I hardly ever see. I also have a couple of serpent star fish.
Try the refugium concept if you have space. Continue with less food without starving the fish decrease any corals liquid nutrients. I stopped using them in my reef tank for a year now I have plenty of nutrients from my refugium & my surge tank all kinds ocf copepods etc.

 

[Anonymous]

How about your basic tuxedo urchin? (Or, failing that, borrow something like a Z. scopas or Z. flavescens?)

 

[Anonymous]

I agree that urchins are superb at algae control.

I have several Echinometra urchins that arrived on live rock. Once I put a derasa clam in the tank with them, both of it's shells were covered with a matt of hair algae, the two urchins went to town and in a few days the clam shells were white!.

I would add a couple herbivourus urchins, usually you can find tuxedos pretty easy.

 

[Anonymous]

tchalmers:

how old is your tank?


most reef tanks go through natural algae cycles for at least their first year, and even after that, are still not fully established/stabilized-and may continue to have issues w/algae for still some time after that-it's just part of the patience thing :wink:

for an excellent illustration of this-there is an great 'time line' chart in the nilsen/fossa book ' the modern coral reef aquarium'.

some, if not all, tanks, if properly managed, should naturally be almost algae free soon after the first year after initial set up

if not-then there may be an underlying issue at play that should be looked at-to avoid bigger problems surfacing later on :wink:

also-any change made to improve any situation will take some time to be observable-even after eliminating all nutrients for algae-it can still take awhile for it to disappear :wink:

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