hair algae, how do i get rid of it?

[jinx]

joined yesterday. great site. have hair algae growing in my tank for a couple of months now. want it out. have a yellow tang that does not even touch it. have live rock and enough fish. maybe room for 1 or 2 more. do water changes regularly. was thinking about also adding a power head to the back of tank to move around water back there. will the power head make hair algae grow faster?

[steve1s]

The powerhead will not make it grow faster but improved water flow will help reduce the chances of other types of nuisance algaes. Hair and other green algaes are primarily fueled from phosphates and nitrates. Eliminting them will often solve the problem. A good supply of zebra hermits will also help. Make sure the hair algae is cropped by hand and kept short. If too long most animals will ignore it.

http://members.shaw.ca/steve-s/welcome.gif To ReefLounge.com

Cheers
Steve

[jinx]

thanks steve, have a bunch of astreas, will crabs bother them? had some others(red and blue legged) and noticed they were eating snails when lights when out. lost alot of turbos when these crabs where in tank. will the zebras bother them? also have shrimps, how would they affect them? was told a black fin blenny will do the trick, what do ya think? will lawnmower blennies help in the tank with algae? was reading and saw a product called "allgone" do you know anything about it?

[Fishmonger]

I saw a lawnmower blenny polish off hair alage all over a 55 gal tank in about 2 days

[steve1s]

Not fond of any kind of chemical additions for these kinds of issues. Natural control and eliminating the sources that fuel the algae will be the best long term solution.

You can get zebra's while they are quite small, about ½ the size of a finger nail. They will not as a rule prey on snails providing there are plenty of empty shells about. By the sounds of it, you have them :shock:

Personally, I have never seen a blenny eat macro algae of anykind but as stated above some people have. You can try it but I have my doubts.

Have you tested for phosphates?

Cheers
Steve

[ryan]

turbo snails, and emarld crabs have took care of the hair algae for me.

[Corair]

Check out www.garf.org for there reef janitors. I bought a kit and they did wonders getting rid of my hair algae. Also you cant do a 5% water change for 10 days ans siphon off some of the algae. Limiting you light time will help too. Worked for me

[rpg528]

I saw a lawnmower blenny polish off hair alage all over a 55 gal tank in about 2 days

I had a similar problem with hair and brown algae until yesterday
A lawnmower blenny that I got yesterday is taking care of the problem now.
It got rid of at least 60% of unwanted algae in my 90G within 24 hours~

[reeferdude]

Ditto to the lawnmower blenny - my dragon goby would munch on it as well. I would suggest tracking down the root cause be it phosphates, notrates or too much photo period. Try cutting back on feeding and if you do not have any tangs or such you can try to grow macroalgae to reduce the excess nutrients. I would not add any chemicals. If you are using a wet/dry the bio balls may be causing excess nitrates. I did not get my hair algae under control until I removed the bio-balls and added a refugium with a red mangrove and caulerpa. Good luck!

[NancyP_SD]

If I add a lawnmower blenny fish to my coral reef to control the hair algae, will it eat everything else too? Mushrooms, candy coral, frogspawn, leather coral, Clarkii clown, polyps, peppermint shrimp, brittle stars, red-leg crabs, etc. -- are they safe? I read an article suggesting using Poly-Filter Pads by Poly-Bio Marine Inc. to remove nitrates, etc. Anyone had success with these? I have a 10-gallon nano that is just perfect except for the hair algae (which I now control with a toothbrush :lol: )