Help with hair algae

[oliverout]

Hi guys I've tried a bunch of different things to fix my hair algae issue in my reef, I've tried flux rx, get a bunch of cuc, lawnmower blenny, manual removal, and I have my nutrients low, my nitrates are around 5 and phosphate 0.3. If anyone can help that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Troylee]

If it’s long, pull what you can and invest in a sea hare! Mine destroyed it fast and left my rocks clean as a whistle..

 

[Topekoms]

I wouldn't get a seahare problem is once its gone they starve to death and they can ink just like a octopus or squid. Do you have a picture of the tank? How old is the tank? What inhabitants do you have in the tank? Fish invert etc? What is your feeding schedule like?

 

[Dave1993]

0.3 is not low and probs the reason you have GHA

 

[Troylee]

I wouldn't get a seahare problem is once its gone they starve to death and they can ink just like an octopus or squid. Do you have a picture of the tank? How old is the tank? What inhabitants do you have in the tank? Fish invert etc? What is your feeding schedule like?

Agreed they will starve but you trade them off when your problem is gone.. if they do happen to ink it doesn’t hurt anything even if they die they don’t nuke your tank like everyone said back in the day! That was all false!

 

[Topekoms]

Agreed they will starve but you trade them off when your problem is gone.. if they do happen to ink it doesn’t hurt anything even if they die they don’t nuke your tank like everyone said back in the day! That was all false!

I can't agree there i did have one die/ink on me in a 180gal and it did do damage to my corals. Didn't kill any fish but i did lose some corals.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi guys I've tried a bunch of different things to fix my hair algae issue in my reef, I've tried flux rx, get a bunch of cuc, lawnmower blenny, manual removal, and I have my nutrients low, my nitrates are around 5 and phosphate 0.3. If anyone can help that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Pull off as much as you can by hand and scrub the rest outside the tank in a container of tank water if possible with a firm toothbrush and some 3% hydrogen peroxide.
Return to tank, reduce white light intensity and number of hours of white lighting and add some snails such as :
Astrea
cerith
turbo grazer
trochus

A Pencil urchin

8-10 Caribbean blue leg hermits

Are you using RODI water or tap water from the faucet ?
Your phosphate level is quite high - Norm is .04-.08
Is tank at or near a window?

Can you provide a pic or two under white lighting ?

 

[ptrick21186]

0.3 is not low and probs the reason you have GHA

+1. Maybe try running some GFO to bring this down

 

[oliverout]

0.3 is not low and probs the reason you have GHA

Ok I'll use some gfo

 

[oliverout]

I wouldn't get a seahare problem is once its gone they starve to death and they can ink just like a octopus or squid. Do you have a picture of the tank? How old is the tank? What inhabitants do you have in the tank? Fish invert etc? What is your feeding schedule like?

Tank is around seven or eight months old now, I have majestic angelfish, purple tang, Kole tang, baby clown trigger, snowflake eel, clownfish, 3 wrasses and then a bunch of astea snails, emerald crabs, some other snails, cucumber, brittle star. I feed a cube of mysis in the morning and pellets at night, also feed nori and a piece of shrimp 2 or 3 times a week.

 

[oliverout]

Pull off as much as you can by hand and scrub the rest outside the tank in a container of tank water if possible with a firm toothbrush and some 3% hydrogen peroxide.
Return to tank, reduce white light intensity and number of hours of white lighting and add some snails such as :
Astrea
cerith
turbo grazer
trochus

A Pencil urchin

8-10 Caribbean blue leg hermits

Are you using RODI water or tap water from the faucet ?
Your phosphate level is quite high - Norm is .04-.08
Is tank at or near a window?

Can you provide a pic or two under white lighting ?

I've heard mixed things about hydrogen peroxide will it be safe for all of my corals and fish? Also I have most of those cuc already. I'm using rodi water, I'll try some gfo to get the phosphate down. Also yeah my tanks near a window it gets a little bit of sunlight in the morning but that's it. Thanks.

 

[Reefing.with.Rich]

Hi guys I've tried a bunch of different things to fix my hair algae issue in my reef, I've tried flux rx, get a bunch of cuc, lawnmower blenny, manual removal, and I have my nutrients low, my nitrates are around 5 and phosphate 0.3. If anyone can help that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Phosphates are pretty high

 

[oliverout]

Phosphates are pretty high

Ok I'll try and lower them. Thank you.

 

[Reefing.with.Rich]

Ok I'll try and lower them. Thank you.

Phosphate E would be my recommendation
Lower them slowly so you don’t tick off everything in the tank

 

[oliverout]

Phosphate E would be my recommendation
Lower them slowly so you don’t tick off everything in the tank

Do you think gfo from bulk reef supply would be fine? If not I'll just buy some of the phosphate E.

 

[Dave1993]

if you leave the GHA and do nothing they will lower your phosphates i have GHA lowered mine from 0.19 to 0.03 thing is i want 0.1 phosphates so its kinda annoying

 

[Reefing.with.Rich]

Do you think gfo from bulk reef supply would be fine? If not I'll just buy some of the phosphate E.

Buy both
Doesn’t hurt to have everything you could need
But when it comes to GFO you need to really do your research because you don’t want to suck out all of your nutrients in the water or you’ll have more problems to deal with. Phosphate E will drop your phos in perfect increments over a period of time
I was running .15 phos and I dose 1ml each night and now 3 days later I’m sitting at 0.08 so I’ll continue to dose 1ml for the next couple days and get it down to .03-.05 and I’ll be happy

 

[oliverout]

Buy both
Doesn’t hurt to have everything you could need
But when it comes to GFO you need to really do your research because you don’t want to suck out all of your nutrients in the water or you’ll have more problems to deal with. Phosphate E will drop your phos in perfect increments over a period of time
I was running .15 phos and I dose 1ml each night and now 3 days later I’m sitting at 0.08 so I’ll continue to dose 1ml for the next couple days and get it down to .03-.05 and I’ll be happy

That's interesting I didn't know that

 

[Reefing.with.Rich]

That's interesting I didn't know that

 

[Reefing.with.Rich]

Just don’t dose too much so you don’t bring them down too quick
You really want to aim for 0.05 or lower
But don’t want 0