Hair algae!!!Not my tank

[Diesel3443]

Hey guys my father is having a severe problem with hair algae. The tank is covered entirely. His water tests fine but it still grows like a weed. We are at our wits end with this and need some help. There is such a wealth of knowlege here and lets see if we can get to the bottom of this. By the way, no Zeo and it is a softy tank

Nitrates:20
phosphates:0 on test kit.
Sal 1.026
ca 420
dkh: 9.0
mg :1200

[Aquatic Image]

Boy I tell ya hair algae is a tough one to get rid of. As if you didnt already know that. I think that just b/c the water tests out good it does not mean that it is. The algae can use up those nutrients very quickly which may lead to false readings from tests. My suggestion would be ZEOvit
Or lots and lots of small water changes (every other day/few days) and manually removing as much as possible with each change.
I have heard great things about these herbiverous sea hares. Just do not know how well the little critter would do once all algae is gone.

[nyfireman3097]

yellow tangs eat it also
Nick

[Diesel3443]

he has a yellow tang, and a Lawnmower blenny. Aquarist, that was my conclusion. he is also running phosban in the sump but we are thinking that it needs a reactor to be effective. I have also been telling him to remove the bio balls in his sump that can be contributing to the nutrients as well

[nyfireman3097]

yes it could i had a kole tang that loved it also
Nick

[Heinz]

lose the bioballs, feed less, get a bigger skimmer, and dont tough the HA, just starve it,

[CosmoKramer]

Sean heres what i did to get rid of the hair.Removed and cleaned all foam pre filters.Keep cleaning them every other day.Clean all the hoses and over flows.Heavy wet skimming.Phosban,even passive will help.If you can pull the rocks,scrub them and cook them.Of course Zeovit.Get rid of the bio balls slowly.I did all this and have one small patch of hair thats dying out,slowly but its going.I'm doing battle with calupra now.In the past week it hasen't grown at all and i actually see some of it dying.I finally got my dosing with zeo right.I also siphon out the crud that settles in the sump weekly,thats also when i do the water changes.I do between 3 to 5 gallons a week.I hope this helps,it's gonna take awhile

[Diesel3443]

well zeo is out of the question for him he is not a suitible candidate . I ll try all of those things. And when I say this stuff is all over im not kidding, you can barely see the live rock

[CosmoKramer]

well zeo is out of the question for him he is not a suitible candidate . I ll try all of those things. And when I say this stuff is all over im not kidding, you can barely see the live rock

I had it the same way.Heinz is right you have to starve it.You'll be surpised how much the nitrates drop by just keeping the pre filters and hoses clean.If your running carbon change it out weekly

[Diesel3443]

Thanx guys tomm we will put it into effect

[Todd March]

Sean, you shouldn't be at your wits end trying to figure out hair algae problems with a N03 reading of 20ppm...! Is this correct...?!

I would do several 50% water changes over a couple of weeks to knock N03 down, then figure out where this is coming from (is this a new-ish tank?)... Is he running the bio-balls in a wet/dry?! Submerged, they could be a little problem, but... I agree with you that he should get them out of there regardless...

If you want NO algae, N03 and P04 have to be low, low, low... You'll never get absolutely ZERO P04 (nor do you want to. Corals need a tiny touch of P04), but you can, and should, get N03 to as close to zero (undetectable) as you can.

[Diesel3443]

The tank has ben running for 6-8 years, this is the problem he is getting now, he has no DSB just crushed coral that we will be changing out as well I was also thinking of hooking a refugium to it to see what happensas well