hair algea

hi, i have a outbreak of hair algea and my lfs suggested i turn my lights off for three or four days, he said my corals will be fine but i forgot to tell him i have a baby clam "squamosa clam" will this also be ok without lights for three days?

thanks

 

My clam did just fine.

BUT, GHA will just come back after the black out eventually, if not sooner. A black out is a quick fix for a chronic problem. Did the LFS guy also tell where all those nutrients phosphates bound up in GHA will go after it dies back.

You're better off looking at Reefcleaners.org clean up crews.

Monitor and intervening or trouble shooting issues with phosphate and nitrate levels.

Start with your water source levels and quality, next over feeding, absence of appropriate number of snails and hermits that eat hair algae.

Are you skimming, do you run any GFO?

 

+1 what type of water do you use?

And get a good cuc! good water(RODI) plus a good cuc and problem solved. My urchin and yellow tang kill any GHA that attempts to take root.

 

As the GHA dies it will break down and release the nutrients back into the water column and then probably store up in the rock and sand. You need to pull it out, feed less, increase large water changes, and maybe look into biopellet/phosban/GFO methods for reducing PO4 and NO3

 

i do use ro water, my nitrates are near zero and my phosphates are around .5, i dont know what a cuc is also i just put in a hard piece of plastic and a light to grow algea there instead of tank

thanks

 

Phos needs to be lower, you're getting phos somewhere. You need to figure out where and correct that as well as manually remove what you can and get cuc (clean up crew) members that eat hair algae. You can also try an urchin or abalone if your tank is large enough.