ID Green Hair Alge that urchins and emerald crabs won't touch

[Levinson]

I have this green hair algae in my tank that my 2 different types of urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus & Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus), and 2 emerald crabs won't eat. At least I have never seen them eat it. I've heard these guys, especially the urchins, eat most algaes but dang.
I've taken some photos of it under a microscope and they don't look like Bryopsis. Does anyone know what it is or what might eat it? The only snails I have are only a few tiny hitchhiker snails by the way.

25 x 4 = 100 I think it was.

25x10= 250 I think this was.

 

[VintageReefer]

It’s a form of hair algae. Growing right out of the rocks which to me indicates the rocks have phosphates bound to them. This can be a phase that takes several months to correct you can try
Mexican turbo snails
Scarlet hermits
Astrea snails
Combined with gfo

Removing rocks and scrubbing off manually every few days to weeks

Or an algae turf scrubber

You need your phosphates in the water continuously to be less than the phosphates in / on the rock, so they continue to release. As they release they turn into hair algae on the surface of the rock which needs to be removed, consumed, or starved out

 

[Levinson]

It’s a form of hair algae. Growing right out of the rocks which to me indicates the rocks have phosphates bound to them. This can be a phase that takes several months to correct you can try
Mexican turbo snails
Scarlet hermits
Astrea snails
Combined with gfo

Removing rocks and scrubbing off manually every few days to weeks

Or an algae turf scrubber

You need your phosphates in the water continuously to be less than the phosphates in / on the rock, so they continue to release. As they release they turn into hair algae on the surface of the rock which needs to be removed, consumed, or starved out

Thanks for the response. While I do want to tackle the cause and have it under control, I'm more curious about whether this GHA is something different (like a particular strain/species) that the urchins and the emeralds don't eat, and if some snails will eat it when the urchins and crabs didn't.
Is this something you hear/read about in this hobby? Clean-up crews not eating your typical-looking green hair algae for whatever reason? Maybe this particular species of GHA tastes terrible or is toxic?
I'm curious to see if Mexican turbos or trochus snails would eat them or not but if I put them in and they don't eat the GHA, then I will end up having to feed them too.

It's interesting that this GHA grew because the display tank light is not even that bright (10% of 36W led light) and the light period is not long either (9:30am~5pm). Not to mention I already have a small ATS which has been running since long before the GHA. The ATS algae growth has been great all along but I recently turned the ATS light brightness up to power it up. I did feed quite heavily for a while so that could be one of the causes.

I could turn off the DT light completely (and just run the ATS) for however long if I wanted to since I don't have any photosynthetic creatures in my tank (other than algae).

 

[VintageReefer]

Reducing the main display light a few hours less each day and extending ats light period could help give the ats an advantage

In my experience emerald crabs don’t eat many different strains of algae. And urchins are hit or miss. My best luck has been Mexican turbo snails, they have a spiral shell. These guys seem to eat a wide range of films and algae and I don’t think you would need to feed them if you have some form of algae in the tank. I would suggest making the lighting changes suggested and adding a few Mexican turbo’s

 

[Levinson]

I wanted to try Mexican Turbos but couldn't find one so I got banded Trochus instead, but they don't seem to be eating the hair algae either.
I'll be on the look out for the Mexican Turbos. They are hard to find where I live. I've heard they don't import as many of these guys after Trochus became more popular.

 

[Levinson]

The hair algae is fading away. It's mostly on just one rock now and everywhere else it's pretty much gone.
I don't know if it's the snails I've added or me ramping up the ATS or something else. I do suspect the algae eaters have played some part since some areas of the rock surface seem way too clean compared to before.
I still don't have any solid evidence of any of the algae eaters eating this hair algae. I hope to catch them in action before all of it goes away. I'm still interested in finding out what eats this particular GHA.