So I am doing a thorough cleaning of my prop tank in the next week, and I have a slight hair algae problem. Must have come in on a frag.

Is there any way to nuke this stuff without harming my critters?

As far as I know, predation, manual removal and nutrient starvation are the only ways.

You could get a couple of Emerald Crabs.

Mexican turbo snails are great, but once they motor through all your hair algae, it can starve without feeding.

Despite what guides and many LFS say, I wouldn't get more than 1 per 25 gallons.

a uv sterilizer will also be of assitance.

I feel your pain Jeff. I have been removing a rock a week and scraping it with a bottle brush. It mows it down a bit, but doesn't really do much else. I don't even have any fish, so i never feed the tank. I have no idea where this crap is getting its nutrients from.

I might try an emerald crab. Would it harm GSP (Pachyclavularia sp.)?

JeffDubya, I've been fighting the scourge of hair algae for about 6 weeks. I ended up taking a multi attack approach because nothing seemed to work. Fortunately, my tank is almost back to normal, although I'm determined not to let my guard down. Here's what I ended up doing:

Cut back slightly (one hour reduction) in my light cycle.
Water changes weekly (so far it seems like enough to fill the Mediterranean)
Increased snails, added a few emerald crabs, and a sea hare.
The sea hare was doing good job but died after about two weeks (cause unknown).
After I lost the sea hare I added a long spine urchin which is doing well and is actually eating some of the hair algae.
After weeks of frustration, I resorted to taking rock out and scrubbing with a brush and rinsing with clean salt and ro/di water and returning to the tank.
This was a lot of work but the only thing that made a significant improvement.

Good luck ... please post any methods you find that work for you.

I would suggest just scrubbing your rock in the SW you remove when doing water changes and then swishing it in another container of used water. I would not rinse it with RO as I think that will kill beneficial bacteria on or near the surface of the rock. It probably wouldn't kill the bacteria deep in the rock though.

jeff, if i remember right, this is a new setup for you..
HA seems to be a common thing in the maturation of tank.
make sure you keep your levels right, and control nutrients. do manual removal and it will usually stop growing back after a period..

if you pursue predation methods make sure you are willing to supplement its diet after the HA is gone.. :)

Hello everyone, it seems that multiple people are having issues with Hair Algae and I might have an idea that can assist with it if everyone is willing to play along like nice oys and girls and also be extremely careful with the of this animal as to not stress it. I have had hair algae problems in the past among friend and family aquariums as well as my own. Whether it be due to overfeeding or adding new rock into your aquarium or whatever the reason Hair Algae has plagued us all. One person could purchase a Sea Hare and place it in their aquarium for a few until their algae problem is solved. Then have the next person in line requiring the help either pick up or ship this critter and provide some monetary or other assistance for the lend as necessary so that the new person can acclimate it to their aquarium and let them do the job all over again. This ensures that the sea hare will never starve as they do in most aquariums when the Hair Algae problems decipates. We just all have to be cautious about taking our time to acclimate this critter slowly to ensure as minimal stress as possible. Call it Rent a Sea Hair if you may!

cool, good idea. Ive seen sea hares at the LFS and most are way too big for my tank.

My LFS told me I could bring mine back for credit. Unfortunately he died for unknown reasons before I had the HA under control. I've often read that they rarely live more than a year so my thought was that it was just old.

Silly question but what brand of salt are you guys using? Sea Hares are cool but I never see mine much. I may catch it munching on some nori I tuck in a rock but not often.

Silly question but what brand of salt are you guys using? Sea Hares are cool but I never see mine much. I may catch it munching on some nori I tuck in a rock but not often.
reef crystals for me.. :)

I was using IO but the last time Red Sea was on sale so I decided to try it. I've seen no difference in my parameters or the appearance of my tank since I changed a few months ago.

I also have an algea probem that just won't go away. I've done all the scrubbing and rinsing that I can, and cut down on the feeding... it is still a problem. Instead of trying the sea hare (which is for 'experts only' - which I am not), I am going to try some of the dwarf yellow tip hermit crabs.
Saltwater Aquarium Crabs for Marine Reef Aquariums: Dwarf Yellow Tip Hermit Crab (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?pCatId=2604)

90% of the time it is Reef Crystals. If I use anything else it is IO. I see no apparent differences between the two.

As far as inhabitants eating hair algae, I see some of my hermit crabs and a couple of my emerald crabs picking at it. The long spine urchine appears to be eating it and some of the corraline. That is not an issue for me because the corraline comes back so quickly.

Somewhere I read that some FoxFace Lo fish will eat hair algae. Mine does not!!!

I use IO as well.
Lawnmower and sailfin blennies haven't proved too useful to me, but they've tended to jump out of my tank within a month or two. :doh:
My cleanup crew is a slew of hermits, even more of the big three snail types, and a couple of abalones. I wish I'd documented it better, but I'd say 3-6 months into the tank's startup, it started getting hair algae pretty badly. As usual, I'd already bought a few specimens and couldn't black the tank out like I wanted to. So I cut the MH light time in half and knocked a couple of hours off the T5's. After that time (after just manual removal and the clean-up crew) I worked on better circulation and more frequent water changes. Eventually, it just went away, except for on a few specimen rocks for whatever reason. Now I'm dealing with scraping coraline off of glass, powerheads, and other places I don't want it. A better problem I guess, but I'm wondering why I ever bought all that Purple Up!

I'm using Instant Ocean's Reef Crystals for the added calcium.

Ok well the only reason I asked was because I had a bucket of IO Reef Crystals. That every time I mixed it up the buckets I used would get a brown/yellow slime on them. It was about that same time the hair algae started to take over. I have now switched to a new bucket and the slime has went away and my hair algae is disappearing. Now it may not have anything to do with it, but it was some what weird. I have never had a problem before. Strange thing is it seems to be happening to a lot of people right now.

That is interesting. I use IO Reef Crystals as well and the hair algae is out of control! however, i hesitate to draw to many conclusions from this. I do not have a skimmer, which might be part of my problem.

AHHH i hate this stuff! I never thought i would see the day, but the hair algae has killed my stash of calipura. In a matter of hours it seems, too. One day the calipura was okay and the next it turned white and fell apart.

Are you sure that it didn't go sexual?

I'm with Carmie. Hard to imagine hair algae chocking it all out in a day...