hair algae

[hemi18]

not sure if this is the proper forum for this topic, so sorry if it isn't..anyway...i've been having a hair algae problem for a while now. maybe 4 months. been doing water changes...added flow. nitrates never seems to drop from about 40-50. all other parms are zero. (ammon and nitites). I pull the stuff off and it just seems to grow more. I've heard that the hair eats the nitrates so when i get rid of the hair the nitrates spike b/c the nitrate comsumption is out of wake. does this make sense at all. it's a 220 gallon tank with about 300 pounds of LR and lots of corals, so im not to keen on taking the rock work out, scrubbing it and all that. i've tried adding 3 yellow tangs...they don't even touch it...i have a LM blenny, snails...the whole nine yeards...any advice? i shortened my photo period, and got all new bulbs. im stumped.. any other suggestions would be great. i don't want to resort to any chemicals...thanks,

greg

[BoiseStateFan]

Get a sea hare, or an army of them for a tank that big. Hair algae is all they eat, and they're reef safe.

[bguile]

*step away from the sea hare*...j/k. I'm having the same issue right now. My problem is phospates. Yours may be the same, have you checked? Purchasing animals hardly ever remedies algae issues because they never eat ALL algae, only a certain kind. So find the source of your problems and remedy that. It will save you $$ and grief in the long run.

[hemi18]

phosphates are 0. ya i have a FOWLER with a purple, mimic and dejardini tangs..if i take a rock out of the reef and put it in there..the algae is gone in a day...im just not sure if they can keep up with it in the reef...

[bguile]

I apologize. I just looked over your original post and you did say that your nitrates were up. What all do you have in your tank. It sounds like there are no nitrate exports. Do you have a skimmer or refugium on this system?

[GQ22]

the problem with me was i used tap water to fill my tank and never properly cooked my rocks. Anyway i had crazy problems with hair algae till i hooked a phosphate reactor connected to a carbon reactor and dosed 3ml of vodka combined with 2 tsp of sugar. Did this 4 times in two weeks and now everything is gone. You will need a good skimmer to pull off the vodka dosing trick,

[hemi18]

i have a skimmer 30inch by 10 inch diameter reaction chamber...that pulls out a good amount of crap...im interested in this vodka thing...what does this do? is it bad for anything in a reef? inverts, anemones etc...?

[Untamed12]

Rather than fight what your system wants to do...why not just give the hair algae a place to grow? Setup a separate tank...put a flourescent light on it 24/7 and let it fill up with hair algae.

Worked for me. I think the simplist solutions are often the best.

Keep trying to eliminate the nutrients sure...but meanwhile, let nature work for you.

[fuzz1974]

I also had a hair algae problem.. I got a foxface and a seahare. I already had plenty of snails. It went like this..

The foxface would come along and eat it up till it was short, then the seahare would move in then finally the snails. After about 3wks it was all gone.

The foxface also will eat frozen foods like mysis and arcti-pods so no harm to him once the hair algae was gone.....

Fuzz