Hair Algae

[OneTimer]

Just started cycling my tank and I noticed hair algae bloom on one of the rocks. Rock was supposedly live-

is this normal?

I forgot what eats hair algae?

 

[jdnumis]

Sea hare but it will need more algae after he is finished

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[jscarlata]

Mexican turbo snails usually mow down gha pretty well, they also eat the red cottonball stuff too, can't remember the name. You don't need many

 

[cowfish]

Just started cycling my tank and I noticed hair algae bloom on one of the rocks. Rock was supposedly live-

is this normal?

I forgot what eats hair algae?

Yes, this is normal. Let the cycle finish (no ammonia, nitrite or nitrates) and then add you clean up crew. Turbo snails (large or small) should eat the hair algae, an urchin will clean the rock, but good water quality will do the trick.

Please don't add a nudibranch or sea hare which will starve after solving your problem.

 

[SteveZz]

I have a hair algae problem as well bought some turbo snails they seem to help but not nearly enough. My hair algae continued to explode throughout the tank. After much reading and many different attempts I'm come across a few things I've decided to try I haven't quite yet gotten to see results as this is still a new attempt but maybe I can give you some ideas. Reef Geniuses feel free to correct me if I misspeak.

The turbo snails eat some but slowly. Great addition anyway.

Hair Algae feeds off of high nitrates and phosphates in the water. Keeping feeding to a minimum can help keep the water quality in a place to starve HA (hair algae).

I also recently placed my circulation pump in a new location the best spot I could find that would keep detris and other debris in the water column in order to get it into the filter. The longer debris stays suspended the less likely it is to build up in your sand bed and produce what the HA needs to survive.

HA also tends to perpetuate the problem by trapping phosphates so removing some by hand might also be helpful (if you get to a point where you have a lot in your tank).

During water changes siphoning the sand bed can also help.

While I am using all of the above my favorite answer albeit a new addition to my tank in order to combat HA is the Algae Blenny.

This fish is awesome although sometimes they don't have a taste for HA. I got lucky, my algae blenny loves to eat HA but also tends to kick up a lot of detris off of the rocks which kicks it back up into the water column. It seems as though this fish would help in either case for a HA problem. While they're not the most beautiful fish they are very entertaining to watch.

I hope this gives you some ideas and I hope I didn't mislead you in any way but this is what I've learned so far.

Also if you still have the chance you may want to clean the rocks outside of your tank by soaking them for a while and continually changing out the water in order to release any phosphates.

 

[BobNY]

Emerald Crabs eat HA also.

 

[bizzarro]

If it is only on that one rock and it doesn't have corals on it, take it out and scrub it clean or remove it and dry it out.

It's worth drying one rock out than getting the entire tank infested with HA later on.

Starving HA by not feeding seems to have detrimental effects on the pods and other things that rely on extra food but yoru tank is new so it doesn't matter.

My Emerald crab doesn't eat this stuff.