Hair Algae GALORE!
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Forum Name: General Discussion
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URL: http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=72718
Printed Date: April 26 2024 at 9:46pm
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Topic: Hair Algae GALORE!
Posted By: Jeremyw
Subject: Hair Algae GALORE!
Date Posted: August 29 2014 at 8:44am
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I know we had another thread two weeks ago on this. But I thought I would ask and then share. Here is one half of the tank.... What do you all think I should do? If your tank got this way what would you do?  ------------- Next meeting: |
Replies:
Posted By: talwen
Date Posted: August 29 2014 at 9:01am
| When I lived in arizona my tank got like this. I think the culprit was me not CleaNing my marco rocks good enough before I cycled the tank. The problem I ran into was all tests came back within acceptable ranges due to the filtration the algae provides. I took drastic measures and tried everything from taking out the rocks and scrubbing them and putting hydrogen peroxide on the bad spots. It did help get rid of some of it but as long as the marco rocks were leaking phosphates not much I could do. I eventually and reluctantly used algafix and boy did it make a huge difference. The algae disappeared and never came back. I just did 1 week worth of it and never did it again. I would only recommend this if you have done all other measures first as this was not a fix to the problem just last resort before I gave up. Mine was so bad I even won a BRS $100.00 gift card on there picture contest. You can see a fts of my previous tank in my new build thread. |
Posted By: LaRue
Date Posted: August 29 2014 at 9:46am
| Sea hare like 5 of them and lots of gfo chances and phosorb and frequent water changes and lots of macro in the fuge |
Posted By: builderofdreams
Date Posted: August 29 2014 at 10:17am
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1- Figure out is where the excessive nutrients are coming from and why the nutrients are not being removed. Fix It!!!...Skimmer,overfeeding, Poor water flow ,RO or Not Changing Water! 2-Turn off the lights and leave them off. 3-Stop feeding Everything.! Dont look like there is much in there anyway. 4 Physically remove as much as you can.Then use a small powerhead and blow off all the rocks to remove anything that has collected.I would also fluff the first inch of the sand.Don't dig to the glass!!! 5-Change water, Carbon,and your filter sock.....Water change 50%. 6-Wet skim- Within reason... 7-Wait 3-4 days and change water again. 8-Repeat 2-6...Assuming #1 has been satisfied! 9-Rethink your Maintance, feeding habits and or equiptment, also Phosguard and livestock are welcome additions to help maintain. 10- Enjoy. ------------- It's Not a Hobby It's an Obsession 150&210 Gallons of Madness and. Sanity! 801-850-4915 http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=65135&title=builderofdreams-feedback-post |
Posted By: builderofdreams
Date Posted: August 29 2014 at 10:42am
I forgot...Being ProActive instead of ReActive is always a good thing.. ------------- It's Not a Hobby It's an Obsession 150&210 Gallons of Madness and. Sanity! 801-850-4915 http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=65135&title=builderofdreams-feedback-post |
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: August 29 2014 at 11:57am
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At my first year mark in the hobby, my tank got that way exactly. Here is the short story of my Green Haired Mermaid: http://www.garf.org/ugly.html" rel="nofollow - http://www.garf.org/ugly.html As far as proactive prevention, I can't say enough about Snails. If only, new hobbyists could learn from our mistakes and add a lot more Snails ahead of time, these nuisance algae blooms, even in the presence of phosphate, would be stopped.  That said, PO4 removal media can be invaluable in concert with the Snails. Hermit Crabs are temporarily very useful in this kind of situation
because they chop off the algae so that snails can come along and eat it
down to the rock.Seven of the first eight Reefkeeping Tips refer to forum discussions about bad algae and how to control it: http://utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244" rel="nofollow - http://utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 For that particular long hair algae problem, I would darken the tank as Builderofdreams said. Two days dark and one day light, repeating as necessary. That technique is part of the detail here. Look for the article "Saving a Reef" http://www.utahreefs.com/SeaStar/wmasSeaStar02Feb.pdf" rel="nofollow - http://www.utahreefs.com/SeaStar/wmasSeaStar02Feb.pdf Aloha  ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
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Posted By: Jeremyw
Date Posted: August 29 2014 at 12:02pm
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Love the input so far when I get home to my computer i'll sit down and explain this to you this is not my tank but I want to share what I did to help with the problem , and that if your tank looks anything close to this that it's not a time to give up. Most of what you're saying is what I did but I want to show a before and after what I've done this week to make this Tank look 1 million times better. ------------- Next meeting: |
Posted By: Jeremyw
Date Posted: September 05 2014 at 3:57pm
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Alright so here is the story... no this is not my tank. I was asked to come in and "help" it. So the first picture is what it was when I walked in and the picture below was during the middle of cleaning it up. I want to share this so that if any of you get to this point that you dont just throw in the towel. Yes being proactive is the choice here as was mentioned but if travel, works or illnesses keep it so you cant keep up on it what do you do when it gets to this point? I will get another picture and show you know because it looks amazing! Here is what I did: I pulled out as much as I could by hand (this is a big tank so I cant even reach the bottom and I have long arms). Then I took a tooth brush and scrubbed the rocks. It was kinda like digging for dino bones because there were some corals that were in here. Next there was a lot of floating loose stuff so I took a net and spent about and hour "fishing" it out to help clean it up. Then I cleaned the filter socks. Got the skimmer cleaned out and running a little wetter. Then I noticed that one power head was working but barely. I took the others out. Put 2 new ones in and cleaned out the one that was clogged up. It went from maybe 500 gph water movement to over 8000 gallons from the powerheads alone. Then I added a TON of snails, crabs, a sea hare, a fox face. (And they have all gone to town) Added Carbon and GFO LASTLY the fish were doing great in this tank.... the corals were dying slowly... why? Because the salinity was 1.017 ..... so this fish were doing awesome. I slowly raised that over a week and the corals are starting to do much better. I went up last this Tuesday and almost all the hair algae is gone. There is some spots were it is at, but those spots I noticed are covered by snails and crabs. So all in all it took about 5 hours of work and a little money but it looks like a whole new tank. Ill get some more pictures here shortly so you can see what it looks like now.  ------------- Next meeting: |
Posted By: catchoftheday
Date Posted: September 08 2014 at 6:38pm
| I would like to put this out there have you ever thought about adding a ATS i use to have one on my 75 gallon and work great |
Posted By: Mike Savage
Date Posted: September 08 2014 at 6:49pm
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Dramatic improvement. Makes me feel much better about my tank. -------------  |