What is good at extinguishing hair algae?

[THEFOURTHHENRY]

What is good at extinguishing hair algae? Certain crabs? Snails? Fish? Anything? Thanks for the help

[mfforeman]

A couple emerald crabs took care of mine.

[THEFOURTHHENRY]

Its growing on the outside of my hob overflow...it seems as if nothing can get to it.

[jasonrp104]

Alot of people say that Kent Tech M @ 1500 ppm will kill it. I can say that I run my tank at 15-1600 with Tech M all the time and I've never had hair algea

[tkeracer619]

Hair algae grows on phosphates.

If you have algae you need to work on reducing nutrients.

Manual removal, increased skimming, reduced feeding, and running GFO will all help to solve the problem the right way.

Using something that eats the algae does not remove it from your system.

[bazineta]

A number of things will eat it, but the key is identifying and correcting the cause, since a little now will tend to be a lot more in the future. HA needs light, nitrate, and phosphate to grow, and phosphate is likely what you want to look at.

[THEFOURTHHENRY]

What is gfo? My skimmer pulls out a good amount of waste, i feed once every 3 days, and i try to scrape as much as i can off the tank sides and overflow. Is a little bit of hair algae a bad thing? Its never been out of control but i dont want it to be either. Thanks again

[tkeracer619]

GFO is a media that absorbs phosphates out of the water.

Bulkreefsupply.com has a great price on it.

At first the media will exhaust rapidly (within hours) but as you deplete the phosphates out of the tank and the algae is gone the media will last a long time (a month or more).

[THEFOURTHHENRY]

Ok sweet, do you just put it in the sump?

[Ldesp]

Sea Hare will take care of it.

[jasonrp104]

Originally Posted by THEFOURTHHENRY

Ok sweet, do you just put it in the sump?

It needs to at least be in some sort of media bag with water passing through it. A reactor would be ideal

[djkms]

+1 on GFO - I had a hair algae problem then used GFO. Problem solved. You can get a reactor from Bulk Reef Supply shipped for less than $50. Then just buy some media and a maxijet 1200 and your good to go.

[Jstdv8]

GFO or turf scrubber or lots of cheato
anything that can outcompete the GHA in the DT for the phos and trates needed to grow will win over eventually

[THEFOURTHHENRY]

Ill have to check that out thanks guys

[aleonn]

Sea hares would starve after they're all done with the hair algae. Don't have experience with them, but I'm not sure if they're reef safe? A lawnmower blenny may be an option for you.

[sslak]

Getting my Ca and Mg levels in order by testing and carefully dosing completely fixed my GHA problem in a matter of days.

[poolkeeper1]

Originally Posted by sslak

Getting my Ca and Mg levels in order by testing and carefully dosing completely fixed my GHA problem in a matter of days.

Did Pink elephants fly out your... you get the rest. I doubt your Ca/Mg levels had anything to do with HA dissappearing........................... Seriously now
Bill

[Jstdv8]

I saw a poster on here recently posted (I think it was catpn , picture of a guy in front of a big tank)
posted that keeping high mag levels can keep HA down.

Just throwing that out there

[zigzag1]

Getting nutrients in line is the real cure for algae problems. Phosphate is key to focus on. Some have had limited success fighting bryopsis with Mg levels, specifially Kent tech-M brand. Bryopsis is more featherlike in growth pattern than hair algae. They really aren't that hard to tell apart.
IME, I think more have had success fighting hair algae with API's algaefix product. Follow proper dosing on the bottle! GL!

[Sk8r]

x 2 on the phosphate problem.
FYI, phosphate arrives in new tanks via the sand and rock, (and the water if you didn't use ro/di, and also by fishfood, especially green fishfood: read your labels.) and it takes a while to get rid of it---hence the big algae bloom.
GFO can uptake it.
A fuge can uptake it. You grow macro-algae and toss part of the crop, lighting it 24/7 and encouraging it to keep growing.
Getting something to eat it generally means you have to go on feeding the creature after the algae is gone, and the creature's food will be based on, yes, phosphate-bearing stuff, more often than not. So the best route is uptake-and-toss.

[Fishfish0001]

I've only ever had it out my Return Head, which is like an inch below the surface. It all stays nicely contained there, and is easy enough to remove.

Edit: Tuxedo Urchin mow down algae. 14 galon Biocube was cleaned in about a week by mine, gotta feed him Nori now, but they are pretty cool.

[drainbamage101]

Originally Posted by poolkeeper1

Did Pink elephants fly out your... you get the rest. I doubt your Ca/Mg levels had anything to do with HA dissappearing........................... Seriously now
Bill

I disagree-Calc/Alk/Mag are all vital in removing a hair algae problem. Hair algea in a low alk situation tends to turn much "tougher" and more difficult to remove. Critters that would typically munch on the algae will spurn it as untasty. Get your levels fixed, algae resumes being "soft" and "squishy" (techinal terms escape me, sorry ) and allows those critters to devistate the algae.
A tank with pleanty of hermits/snails that has a low alk, will see the hermits/snails devistate the algae within a couple days of the algae being edible again.

Phosphates are also vital in the prevention of hair algae growth, but those other levels are important for the removal of existing algae.

And no pink elephants here, unless you mean the Zoa

[ashtree68]

FW mollies if you convert them to full marine (take it slow) ate most if not all of my HA, quick, efficient, and look alright.

[mdodso00]

So Tech M would take care of the problem? I need to go pic some of this up as well.

[TeePee]

Originally Posted by mdodso00

So Tech M would take care of the problem? I need to go pic some of this up as well.

Tech M seems to assist with bryopsis. A chemical treatment for HA is algaefix, as mentioned above.