Waging a war with hair algae...

B

bigploch

Fan of Water
I am about ready to grab a jug of algeacide from the pool shed and throw it in my tank. Nothing has worked for me to rid me of this nusiance algae.

I have an algae blenny, emerald crabs, cleaner shrimp, 20 hermits, 50 snails, and two wrasses that i didn't expect to eat the hair algae but do.

I switched to an RO/DI unit and have done several water changes. I have removed rocks and scrubbed them with brushes, gotten them cleaned off and a few weeks later more algae will grow.

I have manually removed much of it, and the rate of grow back is greatly reduced from what it once was but it continues none the less.

I have read some about MARINE SAT and it sounds good to me but how much do I need to treat a 110 gal tank?

Where can I get this stuff? I have googled it and only found it at one Online Fish Store or $50. Is this a accurate price?

Anyone had any success with SantaMonica's algae scrubber? This guy seems to be everywhere on the net.

Please Help...
 
you can also raise your alk above 12DKH and that will help also marine SAT has worked for many people. and the third thing is ryan and alex are testing the elevated mag leves to gombat hair alage.
 
The SAT will help.But at 50 bucks,that would have to be a gallon sized jug before I'd buy it.
I'll bet I can beat that price.Give me till monday or tuesday and let me see what I can get you a bottle for.
The way I dosed for algae,was one capfull for 25gals,every day.While manually removing as much algae as possible daily.
 
And after all that, turn your lights off for a few days, and skip feedings. the algae is feeding from the extra nutrients/food in the water and the lights. Good luck!
 
I also have one of my MH bulbs going dim. Is it true that this can encourage algae growth?

Regarding everyone's comments...

As far as tangs, I had a hippo that died, but he didn't go after the algae too much. I have heard that yellows are eat much more algae though. I guess it's time to go fish shopping. Any specific suggestions as to which tang ate much algae??

Daugherty, how specifically can you raise DKH? Is there an additive like pH+ you can add?

Thanks Yote! I've waited this long, I got no problem waiting a few more days.

I got 2 turbos Zip. Maybe more are needed. THe ones I have just chill up top at the rim of the tank. No jumpers, they just hang there at the waterline.

Thanks Biffy for the link. I guess the price I saw was for the gallon.

Smitty, Thanks for the tip. I have had this method reccomended before. I just have a hang up with putting $1000 worth of fish and corals in the dark. I know my concerns are unfounded, I tried once but couldn't go through with it. Thanks again though, I am weird like that.
 
It'd actually be good for your tang to be left dark ever so often.Its not bright and sunny on the reef every day.
 
haha; the foxface affliction is really no joking manner. Please contribute to the foxface club for men. I'm not only the president...I'm a client.
 
LMAO. You guys are funny. At least no one can accuse this forum of being too serious. Good stuff.

Yote, you make a good point I never thought of it that way.

I thought about the sea hare. Have you had any trouble keeping it alive since the algae is gone, C24?

I want to add a tang and a foxface. Possibly a hippo, maybe an atlantic blue if I can find one. Would that be too much fish with a sailfin algae blenny, 6 chromis, 2 clowns, and 2 wrasses?
 
I've been in the same boat for about 2 months. I pull gobs of hair algae out of my tank daily. It covers everything. It clogs my powerheads and filter intake.

1) I've been faithfully using RO water for changes and top offs. Have been doing weekly water changes the past several weeks changing about 20 - 30% of my water. No impact.

2) I added several large turbo snails to my cleanup crew a couple weeks ago. No impact. They spend all of their time happily scouring the bare glass. Seem to ignore the lush algae on the rocks. My hermits will work the rocks but they can't even begin to keep up with the amount of algae I have growing.

3) I wanted to add a fish anyway so I recently added a yellow tang. The last one I had years ago would eat huge amounts of green matter - you name it - algae, lettuce, nori...... This one will spend hours nipping at seemingly bare spots on my rock and glass but competely ignores the lush green algae covering everything.

4) I have a Heraldi Angel. All of the literature says they need plenty of green matter in their diet. Like the Tang it too largely ignores the algae in the tank even though I feed it very lightly.

I'm at a loss. I'm willing to put time, money and effort into a solution if I can be confident it will work. Soon however I'm going to end up with a couple hundred bucks in salt, fish, clean up crew etc. with no results to show for it.

For those who had luck with Marine SAT - did you use it when you had a bad algae problem or did you use it as a preventative?
 
The sea hare will starve very quickly after the algae is gone. They eat A LOT. So if you get one, make sure you are able to bring it back to the fish store once it's done its job.

I started using Marine SAT when I had a bad algae problem. It went away very quickly, and now I only dose it about once a month for maintenance/preventative.
 
No, he seems to find what he needs to keep alive. My first sea hare got too close to an anenome that i had and was eaten..I parted ways with the anenome..lol
 
Try a phosphate removing product like phosban. It's working for me. Oh and cutting the lights back by an hour is helping too. Good luck.
 
I feel your pain montoya. It looks like a sea hare or marine SAT. I think at this point the Marine SAT is cheaper and we won't have to worry about keeping it fed or taking it back.
 

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