Green Hair?????????????? HELP........

[Will C]

I had the same problem. Cut back on the mh lighting, weekly 10-15% water changes, Rowaphos and an algae blennie did the trick. My phosphates were up. The rowa and w/c's keep it at trace levels (is zero possible). I had posted a thread back in Jan, by the end of Jan/beginning of Feb my tank was clean. This stuff is difficult to siphon out - but give it a try. Yours is still early, mine was a MESS! good luck

 

[ABOOGIELIVE05]

Be On Point Of Your Water Changes And Of Course The Primary Elements That Make Up A Good Aquarium. Im Assuming U Have An Ro/di Right?

 

[jschottenfeld]

I've been battling HA too. Growing Chaeto in my fuge has helped further reduce nitrates that my phosphate reactor doesn't remove. I find now that much of the hair that is left is partially dead or dying. You have to stay on top and contstantly remove whatever you can.

I have noticed over a number of weeks that it is getting slowly better in my tank. Still battle it on a weekly basis, but it is getting better.

 

[Sandyp1]

I dont think its unfair to the seahare to put him in a tank full of green hair algae. As far as I see it, if you had a problem as extreme as I had, its OK to put one in your tank as long as you dont have intentions of keeping it. I agree, it would be unfair and "inhumane" to keep one as a full-time inhabitant, but, if its there for the sole purpose of helping rid of algae and you intend to pass it on to another reefer or back to an LFS store, what is the harm ?
Ive had mine in my tank for about two weeks now, and my hair algae has gone from waving grass, to a few tufts on some rock. Granted, my tank was just redone, and Im going through a normal cycling period, but I dont think its wrong to try to clean it up with a creature born to do just that.
As long as you are doing regular water changes and are using RO water, I think its OK to add one temporarily.

 

[Master Shake]

There are three things are needed for hair algae. Water(obvious), Light and nutrients. Water can obviously not be taken away. Sea hares do a prety good job taking down hair algae, but they are delicate and do not usually last too long in an aquarium. Mexican turbos may do the job, but probably not. You can try to kalkwasser dose it like aptasia, or just turn off the white lights and keep the actinics on for a while until it goes away. Next time you water change vacuum the gravel lightly with a python. You do not want it on full blast, but enough to see it tumbling in the python's vacuum. Keep your hand on the hose to kink it if the sand gets too high. This will get all the stale sediment from under your sand bed adn lower your phosphates ( what usually causes hair algea).

 

[kbt 17]

hi u might what to get some seacocumbers they are like underwater slugs. they are ugly but they sould help you with your problem. they only eat hair algae if you loose all your hair algae and you have no more he will die because of no food.

 

[damian05]

my tank was like that got a seahare and now its for sale it finished my tank 125gal in less than a week..... amazing!!!

 

[seldin]

I heard that Kent Magnesium supplement will get rid of it. Raise your mag up to 1600 for a week and it melts away. There's a bunch of threads on RC about it.

I tried Kent magnesium for green hair algae. There is a nice thread somewhere on Bryopsis (which the Kent Magnesium, works well on). For me the magnesium did nothing for my green hair algae. I had 0 phosphates and 0 nitrates. What got them down tremendously is a good cleanup crew of hermit crabs, emerald crabs, etc. That did the trick.

 

[Imbarrie]

Emerald crabs worked on mine. I had the same issue.

 

[Delmarr]

I broke down and sold my 5 year old 65gal reef after losing a battle to HA a couple of years ago. Had tried everything and just couldn't beat it.

Started a new tank about 2 years ago and once again started to get overgrown with HA. This time I attacked it hard and fast.

Instead of a 20% water change I went with 50% - 60% twice over a period of 3 weeks. This combined with manually removing all the HA I could I got it down to a point were my CUC could finish the job.

I have noticed that CUC are not interested in HA when it is in large clumps. They only seem interested when you have it down to a buz cut.

The trick is to figure out what you did to cause the outbreak in the first place. For me, it was over feeding. I had a number of seahorses in my 65 which I fed frozen mysis to. As they always seemed to miss 60% of the mysis I put in, I doubled up to make sure they all had enough to eat.
Dumb move on my part. I also noticed that HA starts its own little cycle after a bit. You can do all the water changes, or use every chemical know to man to strip you tank of nutrients but if you dont manually remove the clumps of HA it will produce enough nutrients as some of it dies off naturally to feed the rest.

Hope this helps

Delmarr