Hair Algae

[killian]

I'm sure this topic has come up before but I'm posting it again. We have a serious hair algae problem in our 55 gallon tank. It's inhabitants include 1 scotter blenney, 1 golden tail pigmy angel, 1 red corsis (sp) wrasse, 1 very large lyre tail wrasse, 1 cleaner wrasse, 2 watchmen gobies and 1 pseudocromis oh a 1 red-lip blenney. We use to have red and blue leg hermits but the lyre-tail wrasse made short order of them. Short of getting rid of my wrasses' and getting more crabs what can we do to get rid of the algae? Are there chemicals or fish that will eat the algae? Suggestions PLEASE!!

[the_blue_tuna]

Sounds like you have some po4 problems and with that load, nitrate problems also. What kind of water do you use- tap , ro , ro-di ?Getting rid of your crab eating wrasse may be a double blessing. First it would lower the load on the tank and it would also allow you to keep the crabs. Whatever you decide , first thing is to go into the tank and manually remove as much as possible. Do some water tests to see where you stand and then treat the tank accordingly. You should be able to control the algae without adding chemicals. The page in my sig has several articles on algae and how to control it.HTH.

[midnighttoker]

Tangs feeds on hair algae, if you wish to add a few.

[lori]

first thing im wondering is do you have any coral or anything that needs a certain amount of light.next i had this very same problem.hair algae everywhere i mean 2" in length all over the walls and i could not see my rocks any more i mean every where.i know you dont want to hear this but you have got to get rid of the wrasse or wrasses that are eating your cleaning crew.i had to get rid of my one spotted wrasse he ate my whole cleaning crew.thats not good.if you have no corals limit your light in half.after you are able to get a cleaning crew purchase the biggest turbosnails you can find at least 15 and same on blue or red legged crabs,2 emerald crabs,10 sand sifting snails.if you have a lot of hair algae get out as much as you can during a cleaning it may take a few times i have done four very good cleanings 10% at a time 2 a week for 2 weeks.to much at one time is not good.if its in your rock take out and clean it in the water you siphoned out.also if once you get your siphone going take it off under water and just use the tube to spot clean areas.it sucks up so much more.thats how i got quite a bit of my algae out once loose in tank.like the blue tuna said you need good water to use not tap.get phosphate and nitrates tested but be care ful some times it may say everything is ok but the truth is algae feeds on nitrates and phosphates and need them to grow so if you have a growing problem of hair algae but your nitrates are fine its because the algae is eating them up.just work at getting that algae out every week.i still dont have all mine out but its getting much better now that i have a cleaning crew going.

[leebca]

What we call 'hair algae' is one of Nature's nearly perfect creations. It will survive with low or high nutrients; high or low lighting. So controlling it by these methods usually don't work.

What does work is a herd of snails to go to work on it. BUT the snails don't eat the long filaments of it. They will only eat the very very short part of the plant at the surface of where it is attached.

So what you need to do is a lot of work, but relatively simple. You get all the hair off of everything. Scrub it off if you have to, but get it to the point where you can't actually see it anymore. You need to do this to the entire tank and not miss a single long strand.

At this time you introduce a herd of snails known to eat it. They will keep it short and unnoticeable so that you won't see any more of those long strands.

Snails are the perfect choice because they keep it short and when they run out of this algae, they will eat other algae and if they still are satisfied with the quantity, you can feed them sheets of dried macro algae. Keep the snails happy and the problem won't show itself.