Seeing rise in green hair algae

[jnguyen4007]

My tank been up and running for about a month now, and starting about 2 weeks ago, it was then that I had the MH lights on for 8 hours a day and the blue arctinic lights on for 10 hours a day. Since then, I notice a slow rise in green hair algae in my tank. Is this a cause for concerns right now or is it part of the cycling process? If it's a cause for concern, what can I do?

 

James

[jamal]

your tank is pretty young so i wouldnt worry. its normal toget nuisance algaaes at this stage in your tank's development

[Guest NSC]

Normal cycling process, my advice as I have recently been through it is if there isn't any thing alive in your tank I would not even turn on the lights. This will be a temporary fix, for the nitrates which feed the algae however without the light it will die off. Let your readings come 0's, add your cleanup, use the actinics as there is no need for the MH until you add corals that require the output. Save yourself the electric bill! Lord knows when this heat will let you go with out that A/C!!!

[rrubberbandman]

Hi,

i have had my tank up now for @ 1 3/4 years.......i have had to battle brown slime, red slime, and a dam robust crop of HA.....i battled HA for over 4 months!........it was so bad i couldnt even see my rocks.....i tried hermits, snails, nudi's, yadda yadda...and repeated again again........nothing helped......then i switched my l lighting to t-5 and it even got worse.....then finally with dripping kalk and raising my alk to @ 11ish and constantly running the "brown phosphate remover" it magically dissapeared.....i have been HA free now months.

i echo what others say......its a cycle, but WOW mine was a killer crop of HA

Bryan

[Grav]

My take is that while it is "normal" I would be concerned. HA is difficult to beat once it has a foot hold.

 

Cut back on the food and light, bump up flow and filtration, check your water source, add more cleaning critters (I like turbo snails and burg / red tip hermits for hair.) Remove what you can by hand.

[YBeNormal]

I agree. While it is part of the "succession of algae" that most of us go through with a new tank, it should be a minor phase and should not be allowed to take hold.

 

In addition to the advice that Grav offered, take a close look at what you are feeding. Algae requires light, nitrates and phospahates to thrive. Many flake foods, especially the cheaper ones, are high in phosphates. Buy and use high quality flake foods. If you are feeding frozen foods like mysis or <shudders> brine shrimp, thoroughly rinse the food before feeding it to your fish. The juices from frozen foods are often very high in nitrates.

 

You've added fish and coral before your tank has had a chance to really get established so I'd bet that you will have a hard time controlling algae for the next few weeks or months. It's hard to do but you might consider holding off on any more purchases of fish or coral for a while.

[jnguyen4007]

I've been feeding the clowns with mysis shrimps. Didn't realize they were so high in nitrates, so I will definitely have to rinse them out from now on. As far as the lighting goes, do I need to cut back on them as well?

 

James

[jamal]

i cut my lights when i had no corals and it definately gets rid of the algae and saves you some money before you add the corals. your bill will tell you the difference.

[dandy7200]

Assuming you don't have coral in the tank yet just run your actinics for 2 weeks. Problem algae hates blue light, while coraline loves it. I took this advice from GARF many moons ago and it has never failed me.

[Sugar Magnolia]

Just thought I'd throw this out there...I came across a product manufatcured by Aquatic BioControl called Marine SAT and it is supposed to eliminate hair algae. http://tlc-products.com/pages/1/index.htm Wish I had found it last year, I would have given it a try. You could browse the site and read through thte testimonials and so forth. Just a thought.

[rsarvis]

i have had my tank up now for @ 1 3/4 years.......i have had to battle brown slime, red slime, and a dam robust

 

How'd you get rid of the slimes? Same strategy? I don't have any hair algae, but I do have the slime.

[jnguyen4007]

The hair algae I have isn't really a whole lot. Just a bit here and there. I just want to do what I can to control it before it does become a problem. I took Bob's advice and rinse the mysis shrimp before I feed them to cut down on the nitrate that is in the food. I don't think nitrate is a problem because my nitrate reading is .5. I haven't been feeding the clowns with dry food except for couple of times where I used the ora sample that we got from the meeting so I also don't think phosphate is a problem unless something else is causing it. I can't cut back on the lighting too much because I do have some corals in it. Right now, I have MH running for 8 hours and blue arctinic running for 10. I'm thinking of cutting the MH from 8 to 6 hours unless someone thinks I can cut back more. I'm also be stopping by BRK this weekend and pick up a few more blue hermit crabs and some turbo snails. Hopefully that will do the trick.

 

 

James

[treesprite]

Hmm.... now I'm thinking part of my nitrate issue going on and on has been because I wasn't always rinsing frozen food.

 

Do you know if emerald entree needs to be rinsed? It's got greens in it so I was thinking it didn't, and was only rinsing frozen brine "sometimes" (used the encapsulated stuff - I've been thinking it's better nutritionally than the regular stuff - is it?).

 

Im not using those things anymore since I've got all the food from the foodmaking party, which will last me a very, very long time. I have been assuming it doesn't need to be rinsed, but am I wrong?

Edited August 16, 2007 by treesprite

[dbartco]

just a note/point, excuse if I am stating the obvious to you.

 

nitrate isn't necessarily "in the food". It is the uneaten tiny ground up bits that are not eaten that quickly foul and are broken down to nitrate. much as skimmers don't remove nitrate, they remove the minute bits in the water column quickly before they have a chance to break down. If it is in the food, you are feeding hotdogs...

 

Phosphate are a different story.

[rrubberbandman]

How'd you get rid of the slimes? Same strategy? I don't have any hair algae, but I do have the slime.

i used ultralife red slime remover...but as you will find out alot of people here dont suggest this stuff...but i was almost ready to give up and sell out due to red slime......the only effect it had on my tank was it lightened some of the corraline......pods and other critters acted fine.

i had no corals at the time also.

Bryan

[Brian Ward]

I had good luck with the slime algea by doing several large water changes - about 3 20% changes in a week. The HA is a different battle ...

 

~Brian

[treesprite]

I had emerald crabs before the couple hermits and they got rid of green hair algae suprisingly fast.

 

just a note/point, excuse if I am stating the obvious to you.

 

nitrate isn't necessarily "in the food". It is the uneaten tiny ground up bits that are not eaten that quickly foul and are broken down to nitrate. much as skimmers don't remove nitrate, they remove the minute bits in the water column quickly before they have a chance to break down. If it is in the food, you are feeding hotdogs...

 

Phosphate are a different story.

 

Ah, ok. I thought is was in the water that is sometimes in frozen food (it separates out if the stuff thaws a little, so I know it's there). My new skimmer is working great now, so it's keeping loose particles out of the water (I had no idea how great these things are.... I should have spent my money on it a long time ago instead of a filter that I didn't know would be a nitrate sink!). I have no measurable phosphate.

 

Good analogy with the hotdogs. One more reason to be a vegetarian!

Edited August 16, 2007 by treesprite

[YBeNormal]

Doug,

 

Thaw out some frozen brine or mysis and test for nitrates. You might be surprised...

[mling]

Just thought I'd throw this out there...I came across a product manufatcured by Aquatic BioControl called Marine SAT and it is supposed to eliminate hair algae. http://tlc-products.com/pages/1/index.htm Wish I had found it last year, I would have given it a try. You could browse the site and read through thte testimonials and so forth. Just a thought.

 

So where do you get Marine SAT ? Does any one know if one of our local LFS has it ?

 

My 3 year old FOWLR tank used to not have any problems with Hair Algae. Ever since I lost my yellow tang to a tank crash about a month ago, I have been having a problem with Hair Algae. My water parameters are all zero and I do a 15% weekly water change.

Besides a Yellow Tang, what other fishes would do a good job with Hair Algae. I do have a Fuzzy Lion so inverts might not survive long.

[Rascal]

So where do you get Marine SAT ? Does any one know if one of our local LFS has it ?

 

My 3 year old FOWLR tank used to not have any problems with Hair Algae. Ever since I lost my yellow tang to a tank crash about a month ago, I have been having a problem with Hair Algae. My water parameters are all zero and I do a 15% weekly water change.

Besides a Yellow Tang, what other fishes would do a good job with Hair Algae. I do have a Fuzzy Lion so inverts might not survive long.

 

If the choice is between adding a beautiful and interesting fish (so what if it's common and hardy) and adding an unknown chemical that supposedly kills a specific type of algae without harming anything else . . . seems like a no brainer to me. Ctenochaetus (i.e.-Kole, Tomini) tangs usually eat hair algae as well.

 

More likely than not you lost more than your yellow tang during that tank crash. Whatever parameters were upset enough to kill a hardy fish like that probably took a lot more life as well. My guess is you are dealing with both an excess of nutrients (from a die off) and a shortage of herbivores.

[jnguyen4007]

I had emerald crabs before the couple hermits and they got rid of green hair algae suprisingly fast.

 

 

I bought one emerald crab, one turbo snail (that thing is huge), a few more nassirius snails and a few more of the red legged hermit crabs on Sat from BRK. Both the emerald and the hermit crabs can eat. It's interesting watching them going about their business.

 

James

[mling]

If the choice is between adding a beautiful and interesting fish (so what if it's common and hardy) and adding an unknown chemical that supposedly kills a specific type of algae without harming anything else . . . seems like a no brainer to me. Ctenochaetus (i.e.-Kole, Tomini) tangs usually eat hair algae as well.

 

More likely than not you lost more than your yellow tang during that tank crash. Whatever parameters were upset enough to kill a hardy fish like that probably took a lot more life as well. My guess is you are dealing with both an excess of nutrients (from a die off) and a shortage of herbivores.

 

U got that right about the tank crash, it was electrical, killed every thing except for one bumble bee snail ! I have since change everthing, substrate, etc... in the tank except the live rock. I think I will get a larger emerald crab for now. There is a strong possiblity that I have to move, so no point in getting additional fish for the time being.