[NanoReefer1]

My tank is going on three months old here soon, and I have been fighting an ongoing battle with hair algae that never seems like it is going to end (the two different types the one that looks like branches, and the one that looks like threads).

It has been around I would say for about a good couple weeks, and I am getting sick of looking at it being on my live rock so this last week I have been hitting the rock super aggressively with my turkey baster, and putting ALOT of filter floss in my HOB, and having it collect all the crap out of the water.

At this point it seems as though I have 2 problems:
1) Alot of dead diatoms from my diatom outbreak still clinging to the rock needing to be cleaned off (could be reason for the nitrate boom I cannot see test wise)
2) Green Hair Algae that wont go away! (have done 2-3 water changes since it has made its way into my tank)

Since my inverts came from the LFS in tapwater I have been wondering if that could of been the initial cause since some of their water was introduced into the tank with them.

So right now I am kind of at a loss seeing if blasting/sucking the old diatom crud, and the green algae off the rock so the HOB can floss it out of the water will do the trick or not (I know information says the more you mess with Hair algae & leave fragements of it in the water that it will perpetuate itself indefinitely). So far I have already knocked down the quantity of the algae, and cleaned alot of the rocks off, and the floss has definitely done its job.

Throughout all of this my pod population is absolutely BOOMING! They are just all over the glass.

Lastily I have 2 peppermint shrimp, 3 Cerith, and 3 Nassarius (Know nassarius dont eat algae) and I was wondering if peppermint, and cerith when hungry enough will eat hair algae. I have seen alot recently of the cerith totally dominating the rocks as well as the peppermints (while shy before) always on the rocks as well.

Any ideas if the cerith/peppermint are contributing to my cause?

Thanks

[Ninong]

I don't believe peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) will eat hair algae; however, I remember reading one or two posts on another board claiming that they do. I have never kept them myself.

As for ceriths, the answer is harder to pin down. For one thing, we're talking about a very large group of snails. There are 18 genera within the Family Cerithiidae and even if we limit ourselves to just the genus Cerithium, there are, believe it or not, 726 named species in that single genus. And that's not counting the genus Cerithidium or any of the other 16 genera.

Even if we assume that your ceriths probably came from either the Florida Keys or Baja California, we're still left with lots of different possible species.

My ceriths, which I believe were Cerithium atratum, are supposed to be primarily detritivores according to the scientific literature but I believe they also feed on algal films. However, the slime that covers live rock or the walls of the tank can contain more than just algae, so I guess it's possible that they're actually eating detritus and algal film at the same time. They do like to cruise the sandbed and feed on the stuff growing on the glass right where it comes into contact with the sandbed. And it's quite possible that they also feed on diatoms.

I really don't know if any ceriths feed on hair algae. That would be a lot of different snails to have to check out. I know that the ones I had were not supposed to feed on hair algae. I never experienced a hair algae problem in my 120-gal tank and I believe that could be because of my foxface rabbitfish.

[NanoReefer1]

Man I hate hair algae... This stuff can really make you aggravated at your tank in a hurry!

[Lucid]

I got 3 turbo snails in my tank now and they are mowing it down... well they mowed about 1 1/2 rocks each and now are grazing those areas mostly. I'd get one turbo and put in your tank to see how it does.

[H2oGirl]

How much light is going on in your tank? The more light the more algae I've realised, cut down on the amount of light and you may notice a difference until it's under control.

[TimH07]

are you running a refugium with some macro algae in it? that does a nice job of removing some of the nutrients in the water