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Best Way to Get Rid of Hair Algae
- Thread starter iSwaizy
- Start date
First things first, eliminate the cause. Phosphates or nitrates are you culprit. So do what you need to do to lower that. If its not that bad, turbo snails have an extremely voracious appetite, probably the most helpful CUC addition you can make IMO. Im not kidding, my turbo ate a softball sized patch of GHA and turned it into a golfball size pile of turds in a few days. They are more for maintenance though and upkeep not an immediate solution. Tangs love GHA, ive had better luck with the yellow tangs. (dont go out and buy a tang just to battle GHA though)
Docstach
Non-member
Depending on how bad things are, spot treating your rocks/equipment with hydrogen peroxide (outside the tank) works well. Pull the rock out of the tank, pour a little H2O2 over the GHA, let it set for a minute, rinse in RO/Di water, and put back in tank. It also helps if you scrub the area first.
viking
Non-member
+1 with Danzig, nitrates or phosphates are the issue. I had this happen a couple months back when I let my husbandry slide (no water change for 4 weeks; which is really bad in my 29 gallon). Here's what I did and it worked really well:
1. Boosted by CUC with more turbos and cerith snails.
2. Started a weekly dosing regimen of Dr. Tim's Waste Away.
3. Added a dual carbon and GFO reactor.
4. Weekly water change for 1 month then switched to my normal 2 week water change.
It took six weeks or so but my tank fully recovered. Hope that helps.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
1. Boosted by CUC with more turbos and cerith snails.
2. Started a weekly dosing regimen of Dr. Tim's Waste Away.
3. Added a dual carbon and GFO reactor.
4. Weekly water change for 1 month then switched to my normal 2 week water change.
It took six weeks or so but my tank fully recovered. Hope that helps.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Honestly I don't think there's many critters in this hobby that can knock down a large HA issue.Maybe a sea hare.
I would just go directly to running a GFO reactor.
I would just go directly to running a GFO reactor.
agree on the critters, it might help a tad, but would help mask the underlying issue,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Ive always had good results from an aggressive water change schedule and increase CUC. I dont mess with chemicals or GFO...only masks the problem which is probably overfeeding or inadequate waste removal.
increased water changes:
1st Water change do a large 20-25%
next 2 weeks- (depending on the amount of HA) 10% water changes every 2-3 days
3rd thur 6th week- 1 per week.
then bi weekly WCs for upkeep.
increase CUC:
add trochus, nerite, cerith, magaritas snails.
add scarlet hermits
Finally- last step:
increase nutirent export efficiency! better skimmer or add a fuge/scrubber
Do these things and I dont think you'll be seeing HA anytime in the near future.
increased water changes:
1st Water change do a large 20-25%
next 2 weeks- (depending on the amount of HA) 10% water changes every 2-3 days
3rd thur 6th week- 1 per week.
then bi weekly WCs for upkeep.
increase CUC:
add trochus, nerite, cerith, magaritas snails.
add scarlet hermits
Finally- last step:
increase nutirent export efficiency! better skimmer or add a fuge/scrubber
Do these things and I dont think you'll be seeing HA anytime in the near future.
beckbrass
Make it fun.
What are your paramete5s? How often do you do water changes? Do you run GFO or anything else? Do you have a sump? What salt do you use and do you add anything to it? How many power heads, if you don't have enough water movement things settle out and rot? What is your Skimmer or do you have one? I think these are all questions that will need to be answered. As mentioned above good husbandry goes a long way but depending on what kind of ha it is will make a diference.
Also when you got the rock did you curew it or was it already cycled and did it have ha then? Good luck it can be a long battle.
Also when you got the rock did you curew it or was it already cycled and did it have ha then? Good luck it can be a long battle.
OP
OP
iSwaizy
Jacob
I do water 10% water changes regularly about every 3 weeks, but i just started to use a new salt called Tropic Marin and it tells me to do water changes every week to get the salt to work. This salt is used so i don't have to add any chemicals because it has the 70 natural elements from the ocean, but i still add my B-Ionics until the salt starts to work.. The parameters are fine though, everything is normal. I do not run GFO or Carbon though. I do have a sump but it is just a 20g tank with no modifications. I do want a better sump though, I want one that is bigger and has baffles and bubble traps. I don't know if i have enough flow though. I only have 1 Koralia pump in the tank right know for flow, but i have two Rio 2100 in the sump for my returns. My skimmers pump recently broke so im out of a skimmer for now. When I got this rock, it was well established and i didn't do anything to it because it really cycled my tank quick. There was a little tiny patch of hair algae on the rock when i got it, and i tried to get rid of it, but no luck. The algae has gone out of control.
STiTCH87
Saltwater OCD Victim
Lack of skimmer, probably low flow, high nutrients from over-feeding (maybe), feeding too much frozen (frozen foods can really dirty the water), not doing a WC often enough (20% a week on small tanks, bi-weekly on 55g+ is my rule of thumb), and also, even if you have ONE STRAND of GHA in a tank, that one single strand can grow into thousands, and do so quicker than you would imagine.
I had a bad GHA problem in my old 29g too. I tried every single CUC thing you could imagine. In the end I realized it was my lack of weekly water changes and my skimmer not being too great. Was also do to introducing a coral that has GHA on it already.
That's why I refuse to put anything in my tanks that have any little amount of any algae on it. And if I buy from somewhere, even if the frag is clean, if they have algae growing in their tank on anything else, I refuse purchase. It can mean losing out on great stuff, but for me, it's worth it in the end.
I have had my 5g pico set up since January and I have not once ever seen any amount of GHA, aptasia, or anything bad. Not once have Nitrate/Nitrites been high. I feed every other day and alternate between flake and frozen, and I dose daily with roti-feast for my NPS coral (carnation tree) and have never had my water params be dirty. I also do a weekly 1g waterchange with instant ocean reef crystals. I have greta coral growth, amazing coraline algae, and no crap.
Not once since set up in January also has it even gotten colder than 77.5 in my tank and never gotten hotter than 78.3, and that is in a 5g pico on the second floor of a house in MA with the sun beaming in through the window and no AC.
Just a reefkeeper set up to two small heaters, a fan, and a coolworks microchiller (the chiller has only turned on a few dozen times in the past 6 months.)
I had a bad GHA problem in my old 29g too. I tried every single CUC thing you could imagine. In the end I realized it was my lack of weekly water changes and my skimmer not being too great. Was also do to introducing a coral that has GHA on it already.
That's why I refuse to put anything in my tanks that have any little amount of any algae on it. And if I buy from somewhere, even if the frag is clean, if they have algae growing in their tank on anything else, I refuse purchase. It can mean losing out on great stuff, but for me, it's worth it in the end.
I have had my 5g pico set up since January and I have not once ever seen any amount of GHA, aptasia, or anything bad. Not once have Nitrate/Nitrites been high. I feed every other day and alternate between flake and frozen, and I dose daily with roti-feast for my NPS coral (carnation tree) and have never had my water params be dirty. I also do a weekly 1g waterchange with instant ocean reef crystals. I have greta coral growth, amazing coraline algae, and no crap.
Not once since set up in January also has it even gotten colder than 77.5 in my tank and never gotten hotter than 78.3, and that is in a 5g pico on the second floor of a house in MA with the sun beaming in through the window and no AC.
Just a reefkeeper set up to two small heaters, a fan, and a coolworks microchiller (the chiller has only turned on a few dozen times in the past 6 months.)
higorc
Call me IGOR :)
This is gonna sound like a stupid question, but you are not using Tap water for ur water changes/topoff r u? If you r that is not helping.
By the way, if you ever want to take a drive to Malden I can give you 2 - 3 big Turbo snails that can help you with that. I don't have HA anymore in my tank and these turbos are 1 - 1.5 inches long. They were like lawnmowers when my tank firs cycled. Now they just keep tipping my Clam over! And I bet they have been very hungry! It takes them less than 5 minutes to find a Veggi clip when I put it in for the Tangs!
Higor
inverted
Non-member
I've always found, as others have said, keeping nutrients down, water changes, carbon, GFO really helps. Then a few critters to help with the knock out.
I've watch mexican turbo snails devour HA. Apparently I'm not the only one, just came across this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbfm7MQuEJI&feature=youtu.be
I've watch mexican turbo snails devour HA. Apparently I'm not the only one, just came across this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbfm7MQuEJI&feature=youtu.be
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