War on Hair Algae, Charge ! ! !

pledosophy · 04/20/2006, 08:51 PM

I have been batteling Hair Algae for months.

I have a 65g tank which I keep seahorses in. For equipment I have a 20g refugium filled with macro's, a remora protein skimmer, an aquaclear UV sterilizer, a Fluval 304 with phosban carbon and biomedia, I also have a phos reactor. I have about 35 snails of various species and 15 scarlet reef hermits.

My phosphate level is undetectable. The only thing I feed my tank is calcuim and live ghost shrimp. I use RODI slat water and RODI top off water.

I do have a variety of soft corals.

For the past few months I have been manually removing the lr and scrubbing it, perforimng 50% WC's weekly while syphoning out as much HA as I can, I have also reduced my photoperiod to 6 hours with the atnics on alone for 4 of those hours.

I cannot use tangs, or various crabs because of the seahorse. I am worried about seahares decimating all of the frags in the tank.

Is there anything left to do other than removing all of the rock to a rubbermaid for a few weeks and moving the corals to my prop system?

pledosophy · 04/21/2006, 09:06 AM

Bump

Craig Lambert · 04/21/2006, 09:11 AM

There has to be a source of excess nutients. How heavily stocked is the tank, and how much/often are you feeding? What is the flow? (I guess with sea horses it has to be relatively low). Is the hair algae growing in "dead spots"? What is your Alk level. I would keep it high 10-11 dKH, as algae doesn't like high alk.

omni2226 · 04/21/2006, 09:11 AM

Stop using ro/di and use tapwater and up the lighting period to 12 hours.

Craig Lambert · 04/21/2006, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by omni2226
Stop using ro/di and use tapwater and up the lighting period to 12 hours.

Is that suppose to be funny, or just detrimental to his situation?

lakebound · 04/21/2006, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by omni2226
Stop using ro/di and use tapwater and up the lighting period to 12 hours.

Wow, thats a bold idea. I have never heard anyone say to do that... is this from experience?

omni2226 · 04/21/2006, 09:19 AM

Nope I mean it. Up the photo period to 12 hours. And use tapwater with decholrinator.

Soft corals? Seahorses? And hair alga.

Upping the photo period will allow the soft corals to use up eccess nutrients. They feed off the same thing the alga does and reducing the lighting period gives the advantage to the alga.

RO/DI removes everything including the Oxygen. There is nothing left, no minerals no earth elements, nothing.Wheres all the good stuff the animals like the soft corals need to thrive?

Do what ya want but I think you will be battling alga for a long time by reducing the photo period and using sterile water.

omni2226 · 04/21/2006, 09:25 AM

Oh and the reason you wont see any traces of phosphates is because the alga is using it up as fast as it goes in so testing for it will show no traces.

Craig Lambert · 04/21/2006, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by omni2226
Nope I mean it. Up the photo period to 12 hours. And use tapwater with decholrinator.

RO/DI removes everything including the Oxygen.

.

There must have been a major Chemistry discovery that I missed. I thought water was "H2O"

worlds under · 04/21/2006, 09:47 AM

Iron oxide removes po4 thus hair alga
if used as dirrected it wont effect zooalga
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-11/rhf/index.htm

Puffdragon · 04/21/2006, 09:47 AM

Move some of your macros to the main tank. I have them all over
my horse tank. Hair algae gone and I use tap water. Macros grow like crazy though.

omni2226 · 04/21/2006, 09:54 AM

Well I dont know about chemistry but try dropping a guppy in some ro water without stirring/aerating it and see what happens.

omni2226 · 04/21/2006, 09:58 AM

I was reading a post on wetweb where a guy lost 3 tangs doing freshwater dips and he was saying they should quit recommending it to people cause it killed his fish.

He was using ro water without an airstone or small pump to put the o2 back in it.

So gallon of ro and dropped a guppy in it. 3 minutes later it was floating. Stirred it up real good and the guppy was fine.

HowardW · 04/21/2006, 10:05 AM

<<< RO/DI removes everything including the Oxygen. There is nothing left, no minerals no earth elements, nothing.Wheres all the good stuff the animals like the soft corals need to thrive? >>>

In the salt mix and proper additives.

omni2226 · 04/21/2006, 10:13 AM

Well I am one of those crazy people who do planted tanks with nothing but a heater and shoplights with daylight bulbs so I carried over my habits to saltwater.

I see no reason to spend a lot of money to ro/di my water then spend even more money to put the stuff back in it I just took out.

But Like I said Im crazy. And I went through all the "must have the latest gadgets" phase years ago so I try to stay as natural and gadget free as possible.

Dont get me wrong, there aint nothing bad about having all the latest high tech toys it just aint my thing.

HowardW · 04/21/2006, 10:16 AM

<<< I see no reason to spend a lot of money to ro/di my water then spend even more money to put the stuff back in it I just took out. >>>

You are not simply putting the same stuff back in, and the RO/DI takes a lot of stuff out of tapwater that you most definately do not want.

omni2226 · 04/21/2006, 10:27 AM

Ya well see I would use ro for humans living here if anything, and if my water was that bad Id move.

The alga problem this person has...there will always be a dominant organism. Engourage the one you want to be dominate.

Get the soft corals to thriving and see if you can reduce any excess iron. Soon the green hairy will fade out.
Also double check your alk and calcium, keep those levels up and consider raising PH above 8.4 This will kick the corraline alga in the butt and help it outcompete the hairy.

Now I know nothing of seahorses so raising PH and alk levels may have effects on these animals, so double check with people in the know.

pledosophy · 04/21/2006, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Craig Lambert
There has to be a source of excess nutients. How heavily stocked is the tank, and how much/often are you feeding? What is the flow? (I guess with sea horses it has to be relatively low). Is the hair algae growing in "dead spots"? What is your Alk level. I would keep it high 10-11 dKH, as algae doesn't like high alk.

The tank stocking consists of 1 reidi seahorse, 1 yellowwatchman goby, one diamond goby, one manderin goby, 35 various snails, 15 hermits, 1 cleaner shrimp, and 6 peppermint shrimp and now a lawn mower blenny in QT.

I feed 8 live ghost shrimp a day. I dose calcium once a week on average try to maintain 450. I do 30% WC's weekly to replace other trace elements.

My flow is kinda high for a seahorse. It is about 14x an hour. I utalize a spraybar strucure through my rocks to elininate all dead spots in the rock.

The hair algae is growing on all visible portions of the rock, there is not really any dead spots. Between the return, the Mag3 rock structure spray bar and the 2 powerheads, everything moves a little bit all day long.

I have never tested my alk level. I have no idea what it is. I don't have a test kit for it.

I do have a ton of macro in the display. I actually thinned it ot a bit because the prolifera was so thick, I hadn't seen the sand gobies for months and I thought it was contributing to the dead spots. The HA was growing all over the prolifera.

There is some prolifera, suction cup, halmedia, red grape, and 2 unidentified species of macro growing in the tank as well.

Nothing new has been added to the tank in 10 months, except a cherry picker zoo frag and a clove polyp frag. I did add the nitrate filter about a month ago.

Omni, my tap water is unuseable. It not only contains chloramine, but also trace metals and test extremely high for phosphates, I wouldn't drink it, I'd never put it in my tank. My corals are thriving, everything is growing extremely well. I make frags about once a month. IME hair alage is a more efficent feeder and has a faster reproduction rate then the soft corals I keep. I do not think it is possible for the corals to outcompete the algaes for nutrients.

Thanks to everyone for your help.

pledosophy · 04/21/2006, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by worlds under
Iron oxide removes po4 thus hair alga
if used as dirrected it wont effect zooalga
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-11/rhf/index.htm

Thanks for the link. I found the article intresting. I am currently using phosban in the cannister filters which is one of the products the article discusses.

iboard2 · 04/21/2006, 10:16 PM

Rainford Goby, they look awesome, extremely peaceful, and love hair algae. Give it a month and one of those guys will have mowed a huge amount of hair algae down.

omni2226 · 04/21/2006, 10:21 PM

Sorry to hear about your water being that bad.

Mmmm get a KH test kit and check your alk level. Boosting the macroalga so it can compete with the hairy will help a lot.

Is raising the PH harmful to seahorses? That would help too if you can do that.

pledosophy · 04/21/2006, 10:33 PM

I don't feel comfortable raising the PH more than it is.

I will get a test kit for alk.

I have more than the average amount of macro. I wish I could post a pic, the tank is full of it.

Rainfords are very cool, but my impression was that they do not actually eat the HA but the pods that reside in it. IYE does your rainford eat the HA. I have wanted one but didn't want to add anything until I got the problem cleared up.

Craig Lambert · 04/22/2006, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pledosophy
The tank stocking consists of 1 reidi seahorse, 1 yellowwatchman goby, one diamond goby, one manderin goby, 35 various snails, 15 hermits, 1 cleaner shrimp, and 6 peppermint shrimp and now a lawn mower blenny in QT.

I feed 8 live ghost shrimp a day. I dose calcium once a week on average try to maintain 450. I do 30% WC's weekly to replace other trace elements.

My flow is kinda high for a seahorse. It is about 14x an hour. I utalize a spraybar strucure through my rocks to elininate all dead spots in the rock.

The hair algae is growing on all visible portions of the rock, there is not really any dead spots. Between the return, the Mag3 rock structure spray bar and the 2 powerheads, everything moves a little bit all day long.

I have never tested my alk level. I have no idea what it is. I don't have a test kit for it.

I do have a ton of macro in the display. I actually thinned it ot a bit because the prolifera was so thick, I hadn't seen the sand gobies for months and I thought it was contributing to the dead spots. The HA was growing all over the prolifera.

There is some prolifera, suction cup, halmedia, red grape, and 2 unidentified species of macro growing in the tank as well.

Nothing new has been added to the tank in 10 months, except a cherry picker zoo frag and a clove polyp frag. I did add the nitrate filter about a month ago.

Omni, my tap water is unuseable. It not only contains chloramine, but also trace metals and test extremely high for phosphates, I wouldn't drink it, I'd never put it in my tank. My corals are thriving, everything is growing extremely well. I make frags about once a month. IME hair alage is a more efficent feeder and has a faster reproduction rate then the soft corals I keep. I do not think it is possible for the corals to outcompete the algaes for nutrients.

Thanks to everyone for your help.

What is the source of your RODI water? Are you producing this yourself, or purchasing it from another source? I would check the water you're using with a tds meter to ensure it reads zero. If you are producing your own RODI water and it has a tds reading above zero, it may be time to change out the membranes and resin. (Your tap water would likely reduce the lifespan of both).
Let us know your ALK reading.

pledosophy · 04/22/2006, 09:31 AM

I purchase from a store. The TDS reads zero.

Like I said I'm really stumped. I don't understand where the extra phosphates are coming from. I have done everything I can think of, still I have this green hair forest.

I'm thinking of picking up some more snails, but QT for snails is still 6 weeks.

Airman · 04/22/2006, 10:43 AM

It sounds like you have a cleaning crew. I don't think that you need any more snails. Once the LMB in your tank he will go to work. Remove as much of the hair algea by hand that you can. Once your cleaning crew starts to eat the algea your tank will be spotless. Important slow down on the feeding until the LMB adjusts to eating the algea. If he gets to where he likes the food you feed by hand then he will ignore the hair algea (HA). How many kids will eat their peas and carrots if they have a plate full of mac & cheese, french fries, etc. Do not worry about your fish unless their bellies become sunken in. If you feed once ever three days that will get your herbivores going to town on the HA. I am not sure about the seahorse because I have never raised them. After about two weeks your herbivores should have a taste for the HA and you can increase your feeding. Remember it will take a month or two for your tank to balance out. Don't expect a clean tank in one week. HA is a good because it is pulling excess nutrients out of your water; we would prefer our maco-algea to do that. I believe you are going the right direction. Keep the faith brother.

04/20/2006, 08:51 PM	#1
pledosophy Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Beaverton Posts: 5,290	War on Hair Algae, Charge ! ! ! I have been batteling Hair Algae for months. I have a 65g tank which I keep seahorses in. For equipment I have a 20g refugium filled with macro's, a remora protein skimmer, an aquaclear UV sterilizer, a Fluval 304 with phosban carbon and biomedia, I also have a phos reactor. I have about 35 snails of various species and 15 scarlet reef hermits. My phosphate level is undetectable. The only thing I feed my tank is calcuim and live ghost shrimp. I use RODI slat water and RODI top off water. I do have a variety of soft corals. For the past few months I have been manually removing the lr and scrubbing it, perforimng 50% WC's weekly while syphoning out as much HA as I can, I have also reduced my photoperiod to 6 hours with the atnics on alone for 4 of those hours. I cannot use tangs, or various crabs because of the seahorse. I am worried about seahares decimating all of the frags in the tank. Is there anything left to do other than removing all of the rock to a rubbermaid for a few weeks and moving the corals to my prop system?

04/21/2006, 09:06 AM	#2
pledosophy Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Beaverton Posts: 5,290	Bump __________________ 120g mixed reef 90g QT

04/21/2006, 09:11 AM	#3
Craig Lambert Premium Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 2,897	There has to be a source of excess nutients. How heavily stocked is the tank, and how much/often are you feeding? What is the flow? (I guess with sea horses it has to be relatively low). Is the hair algae growing in "dead spots"? What is your Alk level. I would keep it high 10-11 dKH, as algae doesn't like high alk. __________________ "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will spend all day in a boat drinking beer." Current Tank Info: 75G Tank, 29G Sump, 100lbs LR, AquaC EV-180, Iwaki MD-20RT return Tunze nano streams 4X54 t-5/Icecap Ballast & SLR's 2x110 vho actinic

04/21/2006, 09:11 AM	#4
omni2226 Premium Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Middle Florida Posts: 774	Stop using ro/di and use tapwater and up the lighting period to 12 hours. __________________ I know enough to know I know nothing. Current Tank Info: 55 Marine. 29 Freshwater planted.

04/21/2006, 09:25 AM	#8
omni2226 Premium Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Middle Florida Posts: 774	Oh and the reason you wont see any traces of phosphates is because the alga is using it up as fast as it goes in so testing for it will show no traces. __________________ I know enough to know I know nothing. Current Tank Info: 55 Marine. 29 Freshwater planted.

04/21/2006, 09:19 AM	#7
omni2226 Premium Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Middle Florida Posts: 774	Nope I mean it. Up the photo period to 12 hours. And use tapwater with decholrinator. Soft corals? Seahorses? And hair alga. Upping the photo period will allow the soft corals to use up eccess nutrients. They feed off the same thing the alga does and reducing the lighting period gives the advantage to the alga. RO/DI removes everything including the Oxygen. There is nothing left, no minerals no earth elements, nothing.Wheres all the good stuff the animals like the soft corals need to thrive? Do what ya want but I think you will be battling alga for a long time by reducing the photo period and using sterile water.

04/21/2006, 09:47 AM	#10
worlds under Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Fayetteville, Arkansas Posts: 223	Iron oxide removes po4 thus hair alga if used as dirrected it wont effect zooalga http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-11/rhf/index.htm __________________ believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.........(buddha) [url=http://www.marineplantedtanks.com/forum/][img]http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/1962/1001936aa5.jpg[/img][/url] Current Tank Info: what day is it???

04/21/2006, 09:47 AM	#11
Puffdragon Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Indiana Posts: 297	Move some of your macros to the main tank. I have them all over my horse tank. Hair algae gone and I use tap water. Macros grow like crazy though. __________________ The definition of an expert "Someone who has done something for so long that they can not see a new way to do things." Current Tank Info: 350 gallon mixed reef system

04/21/2006, 09:54 AM	#12
omni2226 Premium Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Middle Florida Posts: 774	Well I dont know about chemistry but try dropping a guppy in some ro water without stirring/aerating it and see what happens. __________________ I know enough to know I know nothing. Current Tank Info: 55 Marine. 29 Freshwater planted.

04/21/2006, 09:58 AM	#13
omni2226 Premium Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Middle Florida Posts: 774	I was reading a post on wetweb where a guy lost 3 tangs doing freshwater dips and he was saying they should quit recommending it to people cause it killed his fish. He was using ro water without an airstone or small pump to put the o2 back in it. So gallon of ro and dropped a guppy in it. 3 minutes later it was floating. Stirred it up real good and the guppy was fine. __________________ I know enough to know I know nothing. Current Tank Info: 55 Marine. 29 Freshwater planted.

04/21/2006, 10:05 AM	#14
HowardW Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Aurora, IL Posts: 1,763	<<< RO/DI removes everything including the Oxygen. There is nothing left, no minerals no earth elements, nothing.Wheres all the good stuff the animals like the soft corals need to thrive? >>> In the salt mix and proper additives. __________________ Florida live rock addict

04/21/2006, 10:13 AM	#15
omni2226 Premium Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Middle Florida Posts: 774	Well I am one of those crazy people who do planted tanks with nothing but a heater and shoplights with daylight bulbs so I carried over my habits to saltwater. I see no reason to spend a lot of money to ro/di my water then spend even more money to put the stuff back in it I just took out. But Like I said Im crazy. And I went through all the "must have the latest gadgets" phase years ago so I try to stay as natural and gadget free as possible. Dont get me wrong, there aint nothing bad about having all the latest high tech toys it just aint my thing. __________________ I know enough to know I know nothing. Current Tank Info: 55 Marine. 29 Freshwater planted.

04/21/2006, 10:16 AM	#16
HowardW Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Aurora, IL Posts: 1,763	<<< I see no reason to spend a lot of money to ro/di my water then spend even more money to put the stuff back in it I just took out. >>> You are not simply putting the same stuff back in, and the RO/DI takes a lot of stuff out of tapwater that you most definately do not want. __________________ Florida live rock addict

04/21/2006, 10:27 AM	#17
omni2226 Premium Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Middle Florida Posts: 774	Ya well see I would use ro for humans living here if anything, and if my water was that bad Id move. The alga problem this person has...there will always be a dominant organism. Engourage the one you want to be dominate. Get the soft corals to thriving and see if you can reduce any excess iron. Soon the green hairy will fade out. Also double check your alk and calcium, keep those levels up and consider raising PH above 8.4 This will kick the corraline alga in the butt and help it outcompete the hairy. Now I know nothing of seahorses so raising PH and alk levels may have effects on these animals, so double check with people in the know. __________________ I know enough to know I know nothing. Current Tank Info: 55 Marine. 29 Freshwater planted.

04/21/2006, 10:16 PM	#20
iboard2 Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Gilbert, AZ Posts: 239	Rainford Goby, they look awesome, extremely peaceful, and love hair algae. Give it a month and one of those guys will have mowed a huge amount of hair algae down.

04/21/2006, 10:21 PM	#21
omni2226 Premium Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Middle Florida Posts: 774	Sorry to hear about your water being that bad. Mmmm get a KH test kit and check your alk level. Boosting the macroalga so it can compete with the hairy will help a lot. Is raising the PH harmful to seahorses? That would help too if you can do that. __________________ I know enough to know I know nothing. Current Tank Info: 55 Marine. 29 Freshwater planted.

04/21/2006, 10:33 PM	#22
pledosophy Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Beaverton Posts: 5,290	I don't feel comfortable raising the PH more than it is. I will get a test kit for alk. I have more than the average amount of macro. I wish I could post a pic, the tank is full of it. Rainfords are very cool, but my impression was that they do not actually eat the HA but the pods that reside in it. IYE does your rainford eat the HA. I have wanted one but didn't want to add anything until I got the problem cleared up. __________________ 120g mixed reef 90g QT

04/22/2006, 09:31 AM	#24
pledosophy Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Beaverton Posts: 5,290	I purchase from a store. The TDS reads zero. Like I said I'm really stumped. I don't understand where the extra phosphates are coming from. I have done everything I can think of, still I have this green hair forest. I'm thinking of picking up some more snails, but QT for snails is still 6 weeks. __________________ 120g mixed reef 90g QT

04/22/2006, 10:43 AM	#25
Airman Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Boise, ID Posts: 643	You are going in the right direction It sounds like you have a cleaning crew. I don't think that you need any more snails. Once the LMB in your tank he will go to work. Remove as much of the hair algea by hand that you can. Once your cleaning crew starts to eat the algea your tank will be spotless. Important slow down on the feeding until the LMB adjusts to eating the algea. If he gets to where he likes the food you feed by hand then he will ignore the hair algea (HA). How many kids will eat their peas and carrots if they have a plate full of mac & cheese, french fries, etc. Do not worry about your fish unless their bellies become sunken in. If you feed once ever three days that will get your herbivores going to town on the HA. I am not sure about the seahorse because I have never raised them. After about two weeks your herbivores should have a taste for the HA and you can increase your feeding. Remember it will take a month or two for your tank to balance out. Don't expect a clean tank in one week. HA is a good because it is pulling excess nutrients out of your water; we would prefer our maco-algea to do that. I believe you are going the right direction. Keep the faith brother. __________________ What is man, that thou art mindful of him?...:) Current Tank Info: 55 Gal, DSB, protein skimmer, UV light, Sump/Refugium