Hair algae won’t go away

[teethdoctor23]

I need help…I have hair algae and possibly some small areas of Dino’s. It’s gotten dramatically worse over the past week and I’m losing my mind Let me start by telling yall what I’ve done, my parameters etc.

This is a Red Sea 525XL that’s been up and running since July 2023. Current parameters:

No3: 5.2
Phosphates: 0.01
Alk: 8.3
Calc: 450
Mag: 1353
pH: ~8.4
Temp: 78
Salinity: 1.026

I’m running 3 Radion XR30s for 12 hours a day, heavy blue early morning/evening and full spectrum for about 5 hours a day due to my acros. RSK 600 skimmer, Reefmat 1200. AquaUV 25w sterilizer running 24/7, except when I dose bacteria etc. I do 20-30% water changes every 3 weeks.

I’m tempted to implement an algae scrubber to combat the hair algae but my nutrients are already on the lower side. I feed 4 cubes of frozen food daily and 1 full sheet of nori. I’ve got 4 tangs, foxface, moorish idol, squareback anthia, longnose hawkfish, melanarus wrasse, possum wrasse, a clown fish, 3 urchins, a ton of turbo snails etc..

I dosed FluxRX about 12 days ago with zero improvement.

My corals are GROWING. This is why I’m hesitant to make any drastic changes. Torches are splitting, acros are growing, zoas are beginning to covering my rocks..things in that department are great. I’m just so sick of seeing the Dino’s and hair algae on my rocks…I’ve already posted in Mack’s Dino group and the advice was pretty much all over the place, so any advice is appreciated, thank you.

 

[Leadfooted]

you have Dino’s. The fish will not eat the GhA or graze the rocks where the Dino’s are settled. Basically the Dino’s are allowing the Gha to flourish.

You need to eliminate the Dino’s first in my opinion

 

[teethdoctor23]

you have Dino’s. The fish will not eat the GhA or graze the rocks where the Dino’s are settled. Basically the Dino’s are allowing the Gha to flourish.

You need to eliminate the Dino’s first in my opinion

These pictures are from Monday, the Dino’s have actually pretty much gone away, with just a few here and there since I slowed the flow through my UV. Again, I’m worried about the GHA smothering my corals…

 

[t5Nitro]

What rock did you set the tank up with? Mine was a hair algae mess for nearly 2 years until I added some live ocean rock. It subsequently became dramatically better and now no hair algae. It could have been just time or it could have been the rock, maybe both.

I would not start a new tank with dry rock ever again.

 

[Lavey29]

You run your lights to long and you need to get your hands wet with daily removal. Get a diverse cleaner crew with tuxedo urchin and some turbos. Bump magnesium to 1500. You phosphate is probably 0 hence the dinos.

 

[Wick]

Lavey29 is spot on. tuxedo does work in the tank but moves everything around with it. need snails too.

 

[teethdoctor23]

What rock did you set the tank up with? Mine was a hair algae mess for nearly 2 years until I added some live ocean rock. It subsequently became dramatically better and now no hair algae. It could have been just time or it could have been the rock, maybe both.

I would not start a new tank with dry rock ever again.

Yeah it was dry rock that was covered in coralline algae after about 4 months, then all of the sudden, my coralline started dying…but my acros were growing..go figure. But then I started getting GHA. Nutrients have never been out of control, and GHA was managed until recently where everything started going down hill.

 

[teethdoctor23]

You run your lights to long and you need to get your hands wet with daily removal. Get a diverse cleaner crew with tuxedo urchin and some turbos. Bump magnesium to 1500. You phosphate is probably 0 hence the dinos.

Idk if you read the post, but I’m already doing all of these. I already do daily manual removal, I have 2 pincushion urchins and a tuxedo urchin, and I have a team of astrea, trochus and turbo snails…the only thing I can do is reduce photoperiod further, and up magnesium.

 

[Lavey29]

Idk if you read the post, but I’m already doing all of these. I already do daily manual removal, I have 2 pincushion urchins and a tuxedo urchin, and I have a team of astrea, trochus and turbo snails…the only thing I can do is reduce photoperiod further, and up magnesium.

My bad if I missed that. Your tank is right in the usual time frame when GHA is present or finishing up. Typically coralline follows GHA around the one year mark if conditions are right. You can cut to 6 hours with blue and uv only no whites for 2 weeks

 

[teethdoctor23]

My bad if I missed that. Your tank is right in the usual time frame when GHA is present or finishing up. Typically coralline follows GHA around the one year mark if conditions are right. You can cut to 6 hours with blue and uv only no whites for 2 weeks

Will that have any ill effect on my acros? They’re growing so nicely

 

[jayala12]

Get yourself a sea hare. That baby will have that gha down in a week or two.

 

[Lavey29]

Will that have any ill effect on my acros? They’re growing so nicely

Not for short duration but if GHA absorbs their nutrients that will affect them.. Bumping magnesium to 1500 turns the ends of GHA white and makes removal very easy. I had a GHA jungle for 4 months early on and just stayed to course and away it went followed by coralline.

 

[t5Nitro]

Yeah it was dry rock that was covered in coralline algae after about 4 months, then all of the sudden, my coralline started dying…but my acros were growing..go figure. But then I started getting GHA. Nutrients have never been out of control, and GHA was managed until recently where everything started going down hill.

Everyone is going to give you their own personal experiences on this board. Take any of them or a combination of them that sounds best for you and go with it. Make adjustments to your plan as needed.

I would recommend against adjusting your light spectrum or photoperiod. Your benefits from algae burden might be transient, and your acros may not like you for it. Here is my experience that I can share with you:

My first tank was set up using live fiji rock. I left the hobby and returned to it after 1-2 decades in an era of dry rock startups. I started my tank with real reef dry rock and had so much thick hair algae that I should have gotten an underwater greens mower. The GHA issue was so bad and lasted into the second year of starting. I added 10 pounds of live rock (from KP aquatics, although there are other companies selling the same type of stuff - dry rock that sits in the ocean for a period of time). There must have been a major biodiversity change to some extent or I added the live rock at a coincidental time that the hair algae essentially went away. The best hitchhiker that came with that rock was a pencil urchin. It was the size of a marble and is now full grown. This is the underwater greens mower except it'll scalp the rock clean. I have tuxedos also. The pencil is an amazing algae eater. It did eat a PC rainbow acro but hasn't touched others yet. I also dose All For Reef as a 1 part supplement and my Mg is on the high side, but this wasn't a new factor since I've always used it.

I think the seeded ocean live rock and the urchin/s will take you the furthest along with time. I wouldn't too aggressively start changing your regimen.

Recommendations:
-I would try some real ocean rock from KP aquatics or TBS or other similar vendor. You get hitchhickers, some good and some bad. If you're set up to deal with them, then I'd 110% recommend adding some (shipped in water, keep it as fresh as possible).
-You could try some nitrifying bacteria, live sand activator, macroalgaes etc from indopacific sea farms. Gerald is great to work with and this may get you some degree of ocean diversity, maybe not to the extent of adding live rock.
-Add more urchins, maybe even try a pencil urchin (might be able to buy these from the ocean rock vendors like KP since they grab them as hitchhikers often). They are not generally considered reef safe, so keep that in mind. I'd still try it.

 

[teethdoctor23]

Everyone is going to give you their own personal experiences on this board. Take any of them or a combination of them that sounds best for you and go with it. Make adjustments to your plan as needed.

I would recommend against adjusting your light spectrum or photoperiod. Your benefits from algae burden might be transient, and your acros may not like you for it. Here is my experience that I can share with you:

My first tank was set up using live fiji rock. I left the hobby and returned to it after 1-2 decades in an era of dry rock startups. I started my tank with real reef dry rock and had so much thick hair algae that I should have gotten an underwater greens mower. The GHA issue was so bad and lasted into the second year of starting. I added 10 pounds of live rock (from KP aquatics, although there are other companies selling the same type of stuff - dry rock that sits in the ocean for a period of time). There must have been a major biodiversity change to some extent or I added the live rock at a coincidental time that the hair algae essentially went away. The best hitchhiker that came with that rock was a pencil urchin. It was the size of a marble and is now full grown. This is the underwater greens mower except it'll scalp the rock clean. I have tuxedos also. The pencil is an amazing algae eater. It did eat a PC rainbow acro but hasn't touched others yet. I also dose All For Reef as a 1 part supplement and my Mg is on the high side, but this wasn't a new factor since I've always used it.

I think the seeded ocean live rock and the urchin/s will take you the furthest along with time. I wouldn't too aggressively start changing your regimen.

Recommendations:
-I would try some real ocean rock from KP aquatics or TBS or other similar vendor. You get hitchhickers, some good and some bad. If you're set up to deal with them, then I'd 110% recommend adding some (shipped in water, keep it as fresh as possible).
-You could try some nitrifying bacteria, live sand activator, macroalgaes etc from indopacific sea farms. Gerald is great to work with and this may get you some degree of ocean diversity, maybe not to the extent of adding live rock.
-Add more urchins, maybe even try a pencil urchin (might be able to buy these from the ocean rock vendors like KP since they grab them as hitchhikers often). They are not generally considered reef safe, so keep that in mind. I'd still try it.

Would you not recommend a sea hare as something to potentially add? My sump has about 30lbs of live rock from a system that has been setup for 20+ years, tons of sponges, copepods etc that came from this collection of rock…I could potentially add more but I don’t have room in my display, it would have to go into the sump..

 

[Lavey29]

Would you not recommend a sea hare as something to potentially add? My sump has about 30lbs of live rock from a system that has been setup for 20+ years, tons of sponges, copepods etc that came from this collection of rock…I could potentially add more but I don’t have room in my display, it would have to go into the sump..

Sea hares can be hit or miss but if they do mow down the algae then they starve quickly and may release toxins in the death spiral.

 

[t5Nitro]

I’ve never tried a sea hare. Heard they work but with the issues described above. You try it.

Maybe you’re good on LR then given the established rock in your sump. I thought that was the biggest change made to my system, so you may not get the same benefit.

 

[Peair]

That hair algae is very difficult to remove, adding things like chemicals might slow it down, but you need to remove it, what I have done was clean the tank as much as possible, and take out all things that have hair algae on it and remove it by hand or replace, some corals carefully dip in hydrogen peroxide, it's best to try and remove as much as possible by hand, and then try and keep all your parameters in range constantly, then anymore hair algae remove it, don't let any stay, don't solely rely on some critter, for it might never go away then, this is more than that temporally ugly stage, some people have that hair algae for years, and their corals always die, it strangles corals when you let it go, you should adjust your light spectrum and time on, it's tough job, but you can do it and have a clean nice tank.

 

[Naekuh]

foxface + Lawn mower blennt + Urchin + a LOT of astrea + a LOT of trochus + a LOT of cernith + chaeto and other macro algae in the refugium.

This power housed me though my ugly stage in 6 months.


OMG is that a moorish idol i spy?
I love your fish collection...

 

[gizmodo]

I might ruffle some feathers with this one. Don't buy anything and don't use anything else other than the CUC that you have now. Patience will be key in this. My tank is coming out of a GHA outbreak and all I'm doing is being patient. The only changes I've made are, increasing water changes, monitoring my food in/out more closely for its effects on my chemistry and a little bit of manual removal. It can take months but it will get better. Keep it simple and steady. Slowly it will improve. It took me a while but I finally understand that time will solve everything in this hobby if you keep things simple and don'tgive up.

 

[ryanjohn1]

2nd on patience. I think it’s on the right track. I am kinda surprised flux rx didn’t work. I’ve had great success with it.