green hair algae

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wdbill

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Jan 21, 2006
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I have a bit of a green hair algae problem. I have a 50 gallon tank with 4 fish. how do you keep nitrates down. I was doing a 25% water change twice a week and that kept them lower but not at away. I have a small frog spawn and some colony polyps. Im trying to cut back on some of the lighting. I have 130 watts and now I went to 65 watts th see how that will work. me and my fish are tired of scrubbing the rocks do you think if I add a 20 gallon fuge th my tank that will do something me ???

thanks WD Bill
 
What kind of water are you using? I will assume that it is 25% changes with an RODI source. If not there is your problem.
 
wdbill said:
I have a bit of a green hair algae problem. I have a 50 gallon tank with 4 fish. how do you keep nitrates down. I was doing a 25% water change twice a week and that kept them lower but not at away. I have a small frog spawn and some colony polyps. Im trying to cut back on some of the lighting. I have 130 watts and now I went to 65 watts th see how that will work. me and my fish are tired of scrubbing the rocks do you think if I add a 20 gallon fuge th my tank that will do something me ???

thanks WD Bill
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hair algae = phosphate. Other than phosphate, high silicate and nitrate will promote algae growth.

Solution :
1. Change water with RO/DI source.
2. Apply high quality(iron based) phosphate remover eg. Purephos, Rowa and etc.
3. To completely kill those hair algae, either cook ur LR or shutdown light completely for 1 week. Algae will died off due lack of foods.
4. Get algae eater such as Blue leg hermit crab, foxface, tang(to nip small tiny algae),sea urchin and other algae eater.
5. Increase water flow to prevent dead spot inside your tank so that algae will not attack those LR.
6. For future guarantee, you may apply Algone into your sump to absorb NO3 (efficient when ur current NO3 level <20ppm) and prevent other bad algae grow.

Hope it's help.
 
csloo said:
3. To completely kill those hair algae, either cook ur LR or shutdown light completely for 1 week. Algae will died off due lack of foods.
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Question on this, to anyone:

Shutting down the lights in your tank for 1 week, does this really work? and, more importantly, what about the fish and the corals that are in the tank? Such as xenia, star polyps, and yellow colony polyps, won't the light not being on for an entire week hurt them?

Help please... my hair algae problem is not going away in my tank, and my phosphates are undetectable and my nitrates are < 20. I think the algae in my tank continues to grow because I have not been able to get it all.

Please help, and thanks.
 
wdbill said:
.........I was doing a 25% water change twice a week and that kept them lower but not at away. .........................................me and my fish are tired of scrubbing the rocks do you think if I add a 20 gallon fuge th my tank that will do something me ???

thanks WD Bill
Click to expand...

Add a skimmer if you don't have one. It's almost impossible to keep nitrates at zero if you are feeding fish. You want to shoot for 5 or under. Nitrates are a result of dead decaying things---so scrubbing your algae off the rocks is probably only adding to the problem. (some of it floats somewhere, dies, and decays---->nitrates) Add an algae eater if you can. My Tang goes to town on green hair algae---I'm not too familiar with the algae eating fish in marine tanks.

Do you run a sump? Bio-balls can be a nitrate factory if not cleaned every so often. I should say rinsed off with tank water in a bucket when changing the water---you want to knock the junk off, not kill the bacteria.

Is the tank near a window or face one? Keep the blinds closed--put foil on the window if you can--haha.
 
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Decrease food amounts for a few days to a week... the fish will be fine on a small diet for a week or so, unless you feed little to begin with.
This will reduce excess nutrients.
 
I have had a hair algae problem for 5 months and just fixed it. First I had phosphates and got rid of them in the tank. Then I had bio balls in the filter and they brake down ammonia so fast spiking nitrite so fast that the tank cannot keep up and blooms bad algae’s. Once I got my water under control I added a sea hair and a lawnmower blenny to the tank and they destroyed all the hair algae in 7 days. Let me tell you this also the hair algae covered all the rocks to. The sea hair did the best job of the both of them. Hope this helps.
Get water under control and then get a clean up crew for the algae.
 
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Hey do you have a crushed coral bottom? Also what sort of herbivours do you have in there ? I wouldn't think that it was so much a lighting issue as an eating algae issue,"unless you have old bulbs". If you could give just a little more information we could really give you a lot better answer.
hth
chris
 
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