How I got my hair algae under control

[120gallons]

I know a lot of people struggle with it. Here's how I got it under control.

1. Hand scrub rocks to manually remove hair algae
2. Weekly water changes
3. Add hermits (red legged, blue get too big and agressive)
4. Add snails
5. Add a phosban reactor if you don't have one
6. Add a refugium if you don't have one.

There's no magic powder or fish or hermit that will eat it all. It just takes patients and time and removing the nutrients that causes it to grow.

Now for the past 8 months the only algae outside of my sump is coralline and the bit of hair algae in the overflows and on 2 snails how see to enjoy getting haircuts. 8 months ago there was hair algae everywhere though it was a relatively new tank.

 

[joeman]

Hi 120, I am on the edge of buying a Phosban Reactor so would like you input on the following:
I have recently used my first bag of Phosban to attempt elimination of Hair Algae (despite Phosphate readings of zero) - and it worked.
I placed the bag of Posban in the return box from my UV sterilizer (simply an open-topped box suspended over the water containing a simple sponge to dampen the return - intended as the return from a SuperSkimmer...)
I realize that this does not force the water through the media (as a Phosban Reactor would) but relies on gravity to pull it through... nevertheless it seems to have worked.

The downside to a Phosban Reactor would be another pump (heat, power, reliability, etc).

Thoughts or advice?.... thanks

 

[120gallons]

You can use a small powerhead, so it's not a huge outlay for the pump. I used the bags before and like the reactors better...I use one for carbon and one for phosphate remover and daisy chain them.