need hair algae ideas

[Astrivian]

Okay...remember in the tank maintenance podcast where i said i have a bryopsis dominated tank? well i am not kidding. The hair algae is out of control! It is covering everything, even coralline algae. I need some ideas on how to control this crap. First let me give you a rundown:

• Tank size: 100 gallons.
• Sump/fuge: 75 gallons
• Salinity: 35 ppt
• pH: 8.2
• Temp: 80 to 82 (depends on outside temp)
• nitrate, nitrite, ammonia: All zero, not that i would be able to detect any nitrate with so much algae anyhow.
• KH: 10
• CA: 320
• Lighting: 2 38-watt T5 bulbs 10,000K
• Deep sand bed.
• Coralife Super skimmer (rated for 220 gallons).
• Two ocellaris clownfish (about 1.5 inches long each)
• Two sea urchins (Caribbean hitchhikers)
• I had 10 hermits.
• Flow: two Maxijet 1200s, Quietone 750 return pump.
• Cycle: Tank and dsb have been up and running since May 07.

The food i use (flakes) does not contain any nitrate or phosphates and i only feed a very very small pinch twice a day. The fish eat just about every flake, although a few float over the overflow into the sump.

I use, and have always used, RO/DI water. I also use IO Reef Crystals salt mix and have been trying to get my calcium levels up.

In the sump, there is a huge (basketball size) ball of chaetomorpha algae and even some ogo. There is a Light of America light pointing directly into the sump water on top of the algae. It is on 20 hours a day.

The lights up top are on for 10 hours, and i have tried turning them off for several days, to no avail.

I know the two key nutrients must be coming from somewhere, but where?

Here are some plans i have for this crap:

• Purchase: 3 fire shrimp, 2 emerald mithrax crabs, 24 blue legged hermits, 24 scarlet hermits, 15 cerith snails, 12 margarita snails, 15 nerites.
• Rearrange the structure of the sump so that all of the tank water (instead of just half) flows over the dsb before the skimmer.
• Add 50 pounds of base rock, or cheap live rock, to the sump.
• Remove all of the live rock from the display and scrub it down. I know this is not a great idea but i cannot remove the algae via siphoning. While this is appart, i will give the sand bed in the display (not the dsb) a good cleaning with the siphon to take out any dead animals.

Any ideas or suggestions? This hair algae issue is like none i have ever seen. The dumb stuff has stopped all of my progress to this point. I cannot add coral until i add more lights and i cant add more lights because the algae will just take over the tank.

[Phurst]

Is it hair algae or bryopsis? They are 2 different things. Either way, it sound like you're on the right track. When I first set up my tank, I bought my salt water from a LFS that used RO/DI, but I used tap for my topoff. When I swithed from 20K bulbs to 10K, the algae just exploded. It is receding now, slowly, due to several actions on my part. I was growing cheato in my hang on fuge, but it wasn't very much. I rearanged my sump and moved some down there with lighting and have been letting it grow without pruning. I have stepped up my water changes from 10 gallons a week to 20. I have added 2 phosban reactors. one with carbon, and one with phosban. Also, I have been removing it manualy as best I can. i just pull out whatever i can reach and put it in a bowl of fresh water, so i can dip my fingers in it and get all the little pieces off. This allows my cheato to absorbe more of the free nutrients and out compete my hair algae. After a good round of manual removal, i also blast my rocks with a powerhead to blow off all the detritus that was trapped by the algae.

If it's Bryopsis, similar methods should work, and you may want to look into the magnesium thread on Reef Central. I can find the link if you need me to.

Basicaly, you need to find out where the nutrients are comming from. They are there, or your algae wouldn't be growing.

Battling algae is also one of the few times i would advocate using a UV filter to kill off the free floating spores and whatever little pieces get broken off, so they can't attach somewhere else.

[lReef lKeeper]

Calurpa is also an EXCELLENT nutrient exporter and could help starve out the the hair algae or bryopsis, which ever it is.

[Amphibious]

I am battling the same enemy and it is a pain in the reef!!! If you have trouble getting your Calcium up, I would strongly suggest testing your Magnesium. Mag is directly related to the ability of raising Cal levels. NSW carries Mag at 1250ppm. My guess is your Mag will test out at 850. With proper dosing you should be able to reach 1400ppm giving you a bit of leeway.

[Astrivian]

Hey thanks all. Yes i need to test Mg, which means i need to get a kit. I suspect it is quite low. However, i am about to move to calcium chloride (dow flakes), Epsom salts (mg sulfate) and washing soda (sodium carbonate) as a supplemental routine, according to a recipe by Randy Holms-Farley.

Also, thanks for the claupera suggestion Bobby. I used to have lots of it (now that i think about it, i had lots of it before the hair algae outbreak) but it was all eaten by my oxynoe, which is now dead (didn't find out what it was and what it ate until just before it starved). I will add some to my Marine Depot order.

Another thing i was thinking: maybe i should get a phosphate test kit anyhow. It might be worth testing my RO/DI water just to make sure it is clean.

[Astrivian]

Oh, and i thought bryopsis and hair algae were the same thing? Are they completely different or different species?

[CarmieJo]

Samuel,

When we went on vacation the beginning of July I came home to a tank full of HA. My BTA split and the clone died. My tank sitter would not have known to look for the clone. She also fed a packet of flake food every day instead of every other day. By the time I got home the HA had taken over. It is finally starting to get under control.

What I have been doing is manually removing the HA. It is getting easier to pull off the rocks which is a good sign. When I do a water change I pull at least one rock out and scrub it in a bucket of change out water. I then swish it in another bucket of change out water so I don't add fragments back into the tank. I can now sometimes siphon globs of it off, something I couldn't do a few weeks ago. I have been changing my water more frequently, 10% twice a week instead of weekly.

I grow both caulerpa and chaeto in my sump. I think that pruning it regularly encourages it to grow and enables it to take up more nutrients. During this episode neither has grown much at all.

[JeffDubya]

I am batting some of these same issues. Today my LFS hightly recommended a Rainford's Goby (Amblygobius rainfordi) to me.

Apparently if you are looking for a critter to eat some of this nuisance algae, there's no better way to go.

[Astrivian]

That's good to know Carmie. I have noticed mine comes off of the rocks easier now.

Part of the problem, i have now discovered, is the complete lack of hermit crabs and any HA predators. Why? Something is eating them apparently. I had something like 15 hermits and all that's left is empty shells. Typical. Time to find the damn mantis, which, i think, is a major cause of the problem. Check the progress. I think i know where it's home is, and now those rocks are going into the sump!

Oh, speaking of which, does it matter if HA is growing in the sump? At first i didn't think so, but i guess it would allow spores and sections to get sucked back up into the tank.

[CarmieJo]

Samuel, I've heard of people growing HA in their sump with a if you can't beat them join them philosophy.

Jeff, I had heard that about Rainfordi's goby too but my research showed it is an omnivore that may eat filamentous algae. I haven't given one a try.

[Astrivian]

Hmm, interesting point Carmie. Last weekend i started the second step in fighting this crap. The first step was to remove the mantis rocks into a separate tank. I will let him get hungry and lure him with some shrimp. The second step, a major one, was to rearrange the entire