saltyrogue Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 I bought a Algae Blenny and a Tomini Tang but they barely touch it. Any ideas would be of great help. 100 gallon tank, 3 -175 watt halides, large protien skimmer, 2 - #4 Kolaria pumps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nwcoralfarm Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 What kinds of corals do you have in your tank? Is the breakout REALLY bad? I think from what I have seen that most anything that eats hair algae is good for maintanence but not for wrapping up a breakout. Your best bet may be to dump in a ton of baby blue leg hermits, a few hundred. Then cut back the lights to a few hours a day and scrub anything that is left off with a toothbrush. I seen a deal that a guy made once where he drilled a hole in the head of a toothbrush, inserted small tubing just even with the bristles and the start a siphon so when you scrub it sucks out the algae with it. It works so so, but it is a good start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RLaForce Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 The other thing you could do is take a sample to your local shop and ask them to put in the algae in with the tangs and other stuff that might eat the algae. Then buy which ever one eats it. You might want to check your water and see if anything is out of wack. Also how much do you feed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saltyrogue Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 I have a large Leather Toadstool, Finger Coral, Frogspawn, Bubble Coral, Green Stars, Daisy Coral, Pearl Coral, assortment of Mushrooms and Polyups. The breakout is bad! I think it started with a Urchin I had a while ago that ate parts of my largest rock down to to white. The hair has been thriving in all those areas to where its spread to most of the top of the rock. Would cutting the lights down to a couple hours be ok for the coral that I have? and would tiny Zebra hermits work? The rock is just to huge and the main part of my tank to take out and scrub or bleach. I'm thinking about going back to the Urchine to try to mow this down some, is'nt that ironic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RLaForce Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 I had a huge outbreak of that awhile back and I just did bigger water changes and bought the tang that ate the most algae at my LFS. That and increased my water flow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saltyrogue Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 I feed daily a frozen mix. I would think this Flame finned (Tomini) brissel toothed tang would do the work, but hes mainly grazing on everything but the main grass on the large rock. Mabey I should give him more time. My water tests fine I did just add the second Kolaria pump mabey not enough flow and to much feeding and lights were getting old, just replaced them a month ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nwcoralfarm Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 Some urchins eat coralline algae and the coralline was inhibiting the growth of any other algae. So once that was gone the hair algae was free to take over. As long as you are not growing any sps you will be able to cut your lighting back, just do it slowly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowpunk Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 Emeralds help, red leg hermits too, but if you get 2 seahairs they will actually do some damage like no other animal will. Once the algae is gone though they will starve very fast so be ready to trade them off. I'm an experienced Hair algae fighter to say the least. Also to cut the phosphates you should run some type of phosban type product and carbon also. Buy if from a sealed container as the bulk stuff can actually carry phosphates after being exposed to air for a long time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coralreefer Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 I would love to find a cure for my hair algae... 1) Replace bulbs if too old 2) GFO in phophate reactor 3) Feed less 4) Lights reduced time 5) Dose vodka/sugar/vinegar 6) Weed, weed, weed 7) Increase snails/crabs/sea hare 8) Use only RO/DI water reading zero on TDS meter 9) Use denitrator 10) Use zeolites 11) Get a foxface 12) Upgrade to a better skimmer 13) Dose bacteria 14) Increase flow 15) Consistent water changes 16) Change out live rock How's that!!! DrMerle...sometimes, even all that doesn't eliminate the problem(wife) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saltyrogue Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 Woo! thanks Reefer I do use vinegar on any Aiptasia kills them right away. I use DI water, I'll look into Zeolites and GFO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nwcoralfarm Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 I would love to find a cure for my hair algae... 1) Replace bulbs if too old 2) GFO in phophate reactor 3) Feed less 4) Lights reduced time 5) Dose vodka/sugar/vinegar 6) Weed, weed, weed 7) Increase snails/crabs/sea hare 8) Use only RO/DI water reading zero on TDS meter 9) Use denitrator 10) Use zeolites 11) Get a foxface 12) Upgrade to a better skimmer 13) Dose bacteria 14) Increase flow 15) Consistent water changes 16) Change out live rock How's that!!! DrMerle...sometimes, even all that doesn't eliminate the problem(wife) That pretty much sums it up:) however just keep in mind that something that doesn't work for other tanks might in yours and visa versa. Just keep trying things until something works. Macro algae in the sump will starve the algae of the nutrients they need to thrive as well, however I have never seen it work on that level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
undrtkr_00 Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 I did a few things to knock out my hair algae outbreak, and it was pretty bad. Reduced feeding to every other day (most important IMO) Reduced lighting to about 6 hrs/day (from 12 normally) - my chaeto growth took off like crazy, stealing nutrients from the HA. Increase refugium lighting to 18 hrs/day (reverse cycle from the display) Bought lots of different kinds of hermits and snails (margarita, trochus, turbos, etc) - this actually helped a lot. I probably added 50 snails and a couple dozen hermits above what I already had. Spent a couple of hours each week manually removing the stuff, being sure to get as much as possible OUT OF THE TANK and into the garbage can. If you have an excess of nutrients in your system a HA outbreak is actually a great opportunity for nutrient export! Curse the algae on a regular basis (hey, they say plants like it if you talk nice to them... why not the reverse?) It took a little while to get under control, but I have been HA free for several months now. Things that did not help so much: Increased my feeding really quickly when I got excited about some new food stuff (actually, I think this is what started the outbreak) Forgot to change out my phoslock I got a yellow tang that mowed down HA in dsoz's tank, but he was pretty much worthless in mine... go figure. Bought three different sea hares at different times, each of which perished within days of being put into the tank (for different reasons, including the fact that they are suckers for koralia screens). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saltyrogue Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 I really like all that u wrote undrtkr I'll try it and see if that works. Thnks a bunch everybody! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wegotjs Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 I had the same problem. The easy way is to go buy as many emerald crabs as you can . I had around 10 in my 30 gallon for about 3 months. They ate almost 99% of it . You will have to get rid of most of them after that as there wouln't be enought to eat for all of them. Most lfs will do a bulk buy on crabs.I now keep 2 crabs for maintnance. Jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePremiumAquarium Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 Let me know if you need any critters to help mow down that astro turf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lowman Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Also, if you can get your magnesium levels up around 1450, that could help. A few questions here: Are you using RO/DI water? What is your Phosphate level? How old are the bulbs in your lighting? Do you have a refugium? If so, what is in it? I have found that the best hair algae eater is a scribbled rabbitfish. But that is in my experience. But getting the magnesium levels up has ALWAYS worked for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr S Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 The funny thing about this issue is that we all have different solutions but also most of us have some common solutions. 1. Cut down on feeding 2. Check water parameters 3. Cut down on lighting I have had great luck with sea hares and manual removal if possible. Hermit crabs also worked for me. I also had good luck with a Kole tang and yellow tang. Whatever you choose to do remember it is going to take awhile. It won't be solved in a short period of time. good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twitterbait Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Ok, hold the phone... are you sure it is hair algae? Hair algae is usually long and slimy and is not usually like astro turf. it sounds like you have something much worse like bryeropsis. feel the algae and let us know how it feels. a picture would be good too. if it is hair algae then the step above are a good move. if it is bryeropsis then you will need to take a much more aggressive stance since i have never found a critter that eats it with enough speed to get rid of it. to kill it now i recommend the following. -Buy a blow torch -pull your live rock out and scrub as much off as you can under freshwater -let it dry for about 5 minutes -take it outside or in the garage -put on some leather work gloves -light the blow torch -burn every living thing on the surface of the rock till it is black and the surface is hot -drop the rock in a bucket of cool saltwater and let it cool down for 5 min -scrub the surface once more to clean the ash off, if you find any more non-burned algae on it then burn again -place the rock back in your tank this will cause a mini cycle but i have found it to be very effective at killing EVERYTHING you don't want. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
undrtkr_00 Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Consistently very high magnesium (1500+) for an extended period (weeks) will kill bryopsis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twitterbait Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 yes but it can have other negative side effects too. why wait weeks for what you can burn off today? fire is great, it works on algae, mojano and aptasia anenomes, flatworms, even problem corals. it is readily available and not expensive at all. who could possibly need anything else Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saltyrogue Posted December 5, 2009 Author Share Posted December 5, 2009 Bryopsis is slimy right? This is *****ly stuff really short field grass type stuff. Wow, Twitterbait pretty agressive approach there! This rock is about a 40 to 50 pound rock with lots of good creatures all over it I could'nt torch them too. I did buy 3 large Emerald crabs and Electric blue legged Hermits they and the Tomini Tang thinned it down really good but there are still patches on the top that I dont think they could ever get all the way off. All my photos are mixed with family shots and my slot in front of my tower is not excepting my camera's memory card or I would have a pic of this stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saltyrogue Posted December 5, 2009 Author Share Posted December 5, 2009 The word they blacked out is pr!ckly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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