Hair algae on Black Sun Coral

[justthewife]

My black Sun Coral seems to be prone to green hair algae. Does this happen to anyone else with their black sun coral? If so, how do you get rid of it without killing the coral?

[Nemato]

Which is it placed (current, height...)

You can shade it and give it stronger current.

As extreme cure if you keep feeding it too, you can put it in the sump for some days. Later shade it and try to improve water parameters to avoid algal growth.

[KirbyBTF]

The same thing happens to mine, hair algae on the skeleton/stalk. Whenever it starts to get out of control I just pick it up, grab a soft bristle tooth brush, and brush off the hair algae. Be careful not to touch the flesh of the coral with the bristles though. They sun coral would not appreciate that. I do all of this out of the tank so the hair algae cant spread even more. Your sun coral can be out of the tank for 10 min no problem. I do this often, never had a problem.

[hypostatic]

Run some GFO and kill the algae at it's source

[justthewife]

My black sun coral is at the bottom of the tank and has good flow. The reason for the algae, I think, is we got new lights on the tank and they were in high growth acclimation mode. We only have the algae on the sun coral, two hermit crabs are walking around the tank with hair extensions of it and a small tuft in the back on the rocks. We changed the lights to natural reef mode and most of the algae is not growing out of control anymore except the sun coral. I was worried it meant it wasn't doing well but it seems to be coming out at night and all. I have had it about 8 months. It just bothers me that the algae is growing there. We run GFO and all are params seem fine. It's hard to get that algae to scrape off of it. I wondered if it was a common occurrence with the black sun coral.

[noy]

I don't think black sun corals attract hair algae anymore than other corals. I have quite a few colonies and have never had hair algae on them.

Unfortunately hair algae is fairly peristent once you get it. If you physically remove it - just be careful you get all of it out - a small patch loose may catch elsewhere.

I like the sump method but i'm not sure how portable your sun corals are.

Try sticking a snail on it to see if goes for the HA.

[justthewife]

I may try the sump method as my sun corals are very portable. I am also looking into more info on the phosphates and GFO. Right now I do not have a reactor. I just put the GFO and carbon in a bag in the sump. My phosphate reads 0 but not sure about that reading since I have algae. Thanks for the suggestions. :)

[noy]

I may try the sump method as my sun corals are very portable. I am also looking into more info on the phosphates and GFO. Right now I do not have a reactor. I just put the GFO and carbon in a bag in the sump. My phosphate reads 0 but not sure about that reading since I have algae. Thanks for the suggestions. :)

The Phosphate reading could be 0 because your algae is consuming it.

When I get new frags I find the plugs often have a bit of hair algae on it. If you have 0 or close to 0 phosphate levels the hair algae on the plugs often just brown out and die. I would assume if you aggressively bring down phosphate it should kill the hair algae in the tank.

The best thing about using a reactor is that you can measure the PO4 levels in your tank and then from the effluent from the reactor to see if the reactor is doing anything (or whether the GFO has been depleted).

[justthewife]

Just got a Hanna Checker and it checked .04. Husband installed a new GFO Reactor. YAY!!!!!!!