Massive hair algae and drastic measures

[beckbrass]

So I have a 125 none reef ready tank I have been running for around 1.5 years which in the lase 5 months has devolved into a huge hair algae farm.

For the last 4 months once a week I have been removing about 100 lbs of rock scrubbing it and doing a 25 gallon water change at the same time. One other time a week i do a "pull as much algae as i can water change of" 25 gallons The tank has about 300 lbs or rock in it. This has become old and sucks to do as the stuff grows back every week. I have cut back on feeding and light as well and this has done nothing. I also am now running gfo.

So now I will be removing between 1/4 and 1/3 of the rocks and cooking them in rubber made containers and installing them into a new tank I just got used when it's done cycling. I also purchased new Marco sand and some new Marco rock to replace some of the rock. I will then move over some of the live stock and re cook more rock and cycle it then move the rest of the live stock over. Oh the new 125 is rr so that's a big bonus to me. This sucks to do and I'm hopeing it works. I'll try and keep posted..::

 

[jpnasty]

try a tang mine LOVES hair algee

 

[beckbrass]

I have a purple. Tried sea hairs, turbos, lettuce nudis, and hermits. Did nothing for me. Also tried multiple algae blennies. No luck. I believe I have phosphates bound up in the rock. I did not use ro/di for about a year now I do. My tap water is about 45 TDS before ro/di after it's 0.

 

[jpnasty]

whats your phos levels?

 

[beckbrass]

On hand held Hanna it 0. But in think it's being bound up in the algae. I'll be taking some water into b to be checked on a better machine.

 

[jpnasty]

idk that sucks id run a canister filter and just scrap it off

 

[beckbrass]

Tried that to. Did not do much it was an eheim pro III. There is so much that it clogs quickly and needs to be cleaned very often. Hopefully this new more drastic method works.

 

[Sapooloo]

algae scrubber?

 

[JayM]

sea hare, turbos, nutrient export (skimming, water changes), patience

 

[algaefarmer]

I had a big hair algae problem for years and found biological controls to be almost totally ineffective. My water district uses phosphoric acid to neutralize the lime used in water purification. Tapwater additions definitely add phosphorus to the aquarium. I started running GFO and found that after a month the hair algae was dead or gone. Hang in there your on the right track.

 

[beckbrass]

Its been 4 months of this. I've been running gfo for 2 so far its only getting worse id say 95% of rock is covered thus the tank switcharoo. Hopefully this works. I dont have an algae scrubber I do use a skimmer though.

 

[JayM]

skim wet....even if you have to empty it every day. consider cutting back on your feedings.

you ARE putting 0 TDS water into your system for topoff and as a precursor fro your water change water, right?

 

[ava420]

i had allot of hair algae a few months back almost every rock had some... i went and grabbed 3 kinda large emerald crabs from jay's and man these little guys have cleaned it all!!! there's almost none left and i haven't scraped, cut or scrubbed anything!! they haven't touched any of my corals ether...

 

[stingythingy45]

I have a purple. Tried sea hairs, turbos, lettuce nudis, and hermits. Did nothing for me. Also tried multiple algae blennies. No luck. I believe I have phosphates bound up in the rock. I did not use ro/di for about a year now I do. My tap water is about 45 TDS before ro/di after it's 0.

This will do it.Actually,this has been 1 year 4 months coming.Don't waste your time on trying to solve this problem with critters that eat HA.I've never had any luck with a critter that could keep up with it.Also,how old are the bulbs in you lighting?
If you have removed the rock from the system try soaking it in ro/di that's 0 tds.
Swish it around from time to time and change the water frequently.Even put the rock outside to help kill off the HA initially.As Jay mentioned"time" and good quality water will help straighten this out.You'll have to re-cure the LR again before introducing it back into your system.
If at all possible get a refugium set up with chaeto.I had my fug. offline for only a month and my nitrates went from 5ppm to over 30 ppm.

 

[snowmaker]

patience

Amen Brother

By "cooking" do you mean killing off the rock? This might lead to dead organisms on / in the rock that will decompose and just add more excess nutrients or give the algae something to grow on.

Only my opinion, but 300# seems like an awful lot of rock for a 120 and maybe impossible to get enough water movement around it to keep it healthy. The problem though is likely due to a combination of factors.
Your being diligent now and I'm sure it will start to get better for you. It may not be reasonable to expect a 5 month old problem to be better in 1 or 2 months.
I think most of us have been where you are now.

One thing that gave me a clue as to why I still get HA in a few areas - I like to occasionally hold a mj1200 in the display and blow any detritus off the rockwork. After a while I can tell that the almost dead spots of water movement are the exact areas where the HA grows. These areas are where the detritus falls out of suspension and collects. The more often I blow it out of these areas the less HA grows there. So even though I can get 0ppm PO4 and NO2 readings - those tests are measuring the P or N that is dissolved in the water. The detritus (only area of HA) is obviously not dissolved in the water.
edit: I think I now have over 8000gph movement / flow in display (120g) including return, vortech and Koralias / Tunzes. I'd guess less than 100# rock. sps dominant. 1 modified Tunze shoots 4" across the back glass. The sand bed found it's own levels throughout this display as you can imagine.

Of course I may be barking up the wrong tree here (polite way of saying "Talking out of my a$$").

I think growing chaeto or having an ATS is a big help for dissolved nutrients. I am harvesting a little more than a quart size mass of chaeto monthly growing under a 9w lamp.

 

[SteveDola]

I would just set up new rock. cycle it and be rid of the headache. I think that sometimes the dry rock we get is bound with phosphates that continually leach out. My fathers tank is like that...HA on the rock and sand. He eventually setup biopelets and it cleared up the algea but did funny things to the corals after a while. Now take the pellets off line and the algea is slowly starting to come back. Didnt change much in tank. In fact added a better skimmer and more water volume and is still coming back. Ive come to believe that the rock I bought for him was JUNK.

If it gets as bad as it was (completely covered with HA) Im going to do exactly what youre doing so I dont have to hear him complain about the algea ever again. For now, Ive had him reduce feeding (didnt overfeed in the firstplace) and do larger WCs weekly to combat the HA invasion but its still looking bleek.

 

[beckbrass]

By cooking I mean putting rockin in a 44 gallon brute container filling with saltwater, adding an air stone, heater and power head. Once a week move rock to new saltwater brute container and swishing rocks off and moving. I believe this will kill all algae all and with moving it around get all the traped stuff out of the rock crevices. I believe this will take months but, as great as waving hair algae looks, will help get rit of it. I will then be putting the rock, as described above, in a new tank and cycling it.

I use 0 TDS for top off now.
It might be slightly less the 300 lbs but it's a lot I might go with less in the new set up.
As for flow I have 4 Korallia evos in the tank, 2 X 1400 and 2 X 1050 on a wave maker as well as the eheim return pump 1262 (910gph) total flow about 5810GPH before any minor head loss.
Feeding I am doing it every other day.
Lights on for 5 hours, running 10 36 inch t5. They are about 5 months old or so.
I have 5 emeralds that don't like it. I will be adding chaeto to the new tank.


I don't think there is much else I can do to the tank. I also tried lights off for a few days to see if it did anything, nope.


Here is an article which is simmilar to what I will be doing.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-07/nftt/index.php

 

[somewhereinri]

i had allot of hair algae a few months back almost every rock had some... i went and grabbed 3 kinda large emerald crabs from jay's and man these little guys have cleaned it all!!! there's almost none left and i haven't scraped, cut or scrubbed anything!! they haven't touched any of my corals ether...

+1 on the Emeralds, also try a Hector's Goby.

 

[stingythingy45]

I will be adding chaeto to the new tank.
I don't think there is much else I can do to the tank. I also tried lights off for a few days to see if it did anything, nope.

I had some HA in a QT tank in the basement that I shut the light off for a month.HA came back within a week of turning the lights on.
Emeralds may work on bubble algae.But for a large HA bloom they would be worthless.Even if you could add 100 to the tank they would just find a nice place to sleep in the HA.
Same goes for a Blenny.They just don't eat enough to make an impact.
HA can be very hard to get rid of once established.

 

[Turbosnail]

Are you sure its hair algae do you have a pic of it?