spectra Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 Ok have some nice green polyps and have some hair algae growing around them. What is the best way to remove it? Blenny wont touch it and the friggen tang just waits for the food to hit the water. Also have hermits but they wont touch it either. Any info is good as these are spendy polyps and do not want to lose any. Thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reef-fisher Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 Ouch! Wish I had some advice, my tang eats EVERYTHING! Maybe a dip that would help? How small is the frag? Can you frag whatever the polyps are on? Hopefully someone chimes in. If not, you can borrow my tang. Hes about to grow out of the tank anyway;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spectra Posted June 6, 2008 Author Share Posted June 6, 2008 Unfortunatly the frag is glued to a 10lb rockDOH! I fragged the polyps a few months back and glued the rest to the rock and now hair is growing from it(flame) These are meen green zoos and do not want to lose the little guys. Started with 1 polyp and now have a bunch even after fragging. Pulled a big chunk off tonight and what do I find polyps under the algae. Well at least they were there. As for the tang I think yourtank is close to the same size as mine so do not think it would work. Plus dont want to get involved with the tang police:D Actually am thinking a nudibrach or whatever it is called(laugh) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reef-fisher Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 I am on the lamb from the tang police. Thankfully, he is small. I think what you are looking for is a sea hare. Travis gets the occasionally, as does Joel, if I remember correctly. They are algae eating monsters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsoz Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 I just bought a sea hare to try to get rid of the last of my algae (before the July tank tour). I don't know what happened, but it did not last 12 hours in my tank. Maybe it was that it took me 2-3 hours to get home, then once I was at home my wife was rushing me out the door so I did not have any time to acclimate it, so I just floated the bag for 5 minutes, and then put it in the tank. Salinity was only 0.001 different between the bag and the water, so I thought that it would be OK. WRONG! It did crawl half way across the tank (about 2 feet) before it died. :( $24 down the tubes. Make sure you drip acclimate it if you get one. dsoz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishiefish Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 oh wow sorry for your loss...when I was having bad algae i used those little teeth cleaning things to go around each head....tedious yes but affective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffP Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 in my experience the lettuce nudibranch did a much better job than my sea hair at algae removal, and lived about 40x longer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spectra Posted June 7, 2008 Author Share Posted June 7, 2008 I would love to find a nudi. Figures I used to see them all the time at the LFS but now they are not aroundDOH! If anyone sees one please let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siskiou Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 I had a horrible hair algae phase a while back, and nothing I did seemed to help. Finally, I got a sally lightfoot crab (female), one small rock boring urchin, and a LMB. Both my tang and rabbit fish didn't eat this type of algae. The algae started to very slowly disappear, but I have the feeling time had more to do with it than the three animals. I also did regular water changes and less feeding. All the hair algae is gone now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mister crabs Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 pop the frag off the rock and cook the rock. superglue doesnt hold THAT well. in fact some of the frags I put in the tank get popped off by hermits or my cleaner shrimp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spectra Posted June 7, 2008 Author Share Posted June 7, 2008 pop the frag off the rock and cook the rock. superglue doesnt hold THAT well. in fact some of the frags I put in the tank get popped off by hermits or my cleaner shrimp. Not going to happen. Frag is nuclear green zoos and they are growing all over the plug. The only place the problem algae is unfortunately is on the zoos and aorund them. This might not even be a form of hair algea but just want to get rid of it. So am going to pull out some tweeezers and start trimming. Only need to get rid of a 2x2 patch of this stuff. There are a couple of other ones around the tank but they are not around anything that can be hurt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mister crabs Posted June 8, 2008 Share Posted June 8, 2008 Good luck with the trimming. U could always take a chisel and break off the rock where the zoos have spread. I did it a few weeks ago to seperate some dragon eyes from the xenia that was overtaking the rock. I just covered the zoos in wet paper towels to keep any dirt or debris off them and to keep them moist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spectra Posted June 9, 2008 Author Share Posted June 9, 2008 Yeah might try that if worse comes to worse. Am going to pick up a little Tang from Reef Fisher next weekend and see what damage it can do first(laugh) Will post up the results. Thanks for the info(rock2) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kriswaters Posted June 10, 2008 Share Posted June 10, 2008 I have ONE frag that has hair algae and that is my sun coral. I lift it up about twice a month and trim it off. My cyano is finally hitting the end of its cycle so I am hoping the hair will follow. The fox face (RIP foxy) didn't touch it. Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biomekanic Posted June 10, 2008 Share Posted June 10, 2008 Taking a different tack, how are the phosphates in the tank? Something is fueling the algae, maybe finding that and cutting it out would help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spectra Posted June 11, 2008 Author Share Posted June 11, 2008 Phospates are almost nill. Have a reactor and had the water checked this weekend they were at almost 0. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowpunk Posted August 26, 2008 Share Posted August 26, 2008 I was told sometimes they can read 0 because they are being consumed by the hair algea to stay alive. I had a bad outbreak of it. When I say bad I mean BADDDDD.:eek: I was pulling out 5 inch long clumps for 10 minutes regularly. Almost lost a lot of stuff at one point. I bought Phosphate Control by blue life, and have been overloading it in my tank for a month or more and it has all disappeared. My urchins clean up a lot of the dying stuff too but the phos control did the real deed. I have been overloading my tank with it at 30 drops a day(75g with lots of hair algae) and the only thing it affects is the hair algae for me. Consult an expert of coarse but I swear by it now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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