how to clean off hair algae

[Chris A.]

i just broke down the tank I bought because the hair algae tripled in a week.
what's a good way to clean the hair algae off after I scrape it off ie bleach ,vinager...?
thanks in advance

 

[GobyWanKenobie]

I use vinegar and water. Walmart sells it by the gallon at a pretty good price.

 

[IPWitan]

Besides vinegar, boiling water works too. If it is dead and outside the tank, a tooth brush works well. But if the goal is to reuse the rock, you will need to acclimate it again. And despite the scrubbing, it will still have debris on it which a clean up crew or fish will need to consume. And, if your goal is to make it so hair algae never grow in the tank, then none of this will solve that problem. I was told algae spores are in the air, so a tank cannot prevent hair algae from growing if there is an nice environment for it to grow....very deep thought here.

 

[Cpage101]

I it is used live rock it may be full of phosphates this could be the reason for the increased gha. I had to clean and soak used rock for over a month changing the water weekly until tested water read 0 phosphates. No more GHA growing now.


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[Chris A.]

I broke down the tank , so there's no issue of hurting anything. Just want to get rid of it completely before I set it up again.
Going to cook the rock and want to disinfect the tank

 

[Arthur1]

GHA is a wonderful addition to an aquarium, cough cough. On a serious note, as someone mentioned, the live rock could have been saturated with phosphate. How we used to do it in the "old" days, late 90 early 00s was exactly what Cpage did. We'd receive live rock, submerse it, skim the water and change out the water completely, once a week. I think a lot of places do not do that anymore (not cost effective to the retailer). If you disinfect the tank, just use vinegar or buy a bag of lemons, cut each in half and rub everything down that route.

 

[Intheflesh]

If im not mistaken, won't a bath in muriatic acid release the phosphates?

 

[JohnK]

If im not mistaken, won't a bath in muriatic acid release the phosphates?

The idea is that the phosphate becomes bound to the surface of the rock. By soaking in acid, the outer surface of the rock dissolves taking the phosphate with it. So yes

 

[Arthur1]

Beat me to it John!

 

[Chris A.]

I'll try too "cook" the rock first since I haves lot of time now. If that doesn't work I'll need to know the ratio for the acid wash.

 

[letoan]

I'll try too "cook" the rock first since I haves lot of time now. If that doesn't work I'll need to know the ratio for the acid wash.

10:1, the normal muriatic acid, not the green/eco version.


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[dilligaf29]

if u decide to cook the rock do in a well ventalated area. try not to do in your house

 

[s_kelley]

Ya make sure you don't use an acid soak inside

 

[capecodder]

In the past, I've had tangs, blennies, sally lightfoot, hermits, snails... I recently got a lemon peel angelfish and my tank is clean.
He's unbelievable.