I goofed...here's what I propose.

Ok so I took a couple month's hiatus and have using tap water instead of RO I know, I know. And so now (I'm back to using RO) the hair algae that was inevitable is just annoying. I got it to stop growing, but what's left wont die. This may be a bit drastic but its been a long time since I've done anything like this, and we all do something like this every now and then....right? :-/

1. Remove all corals and some rock.
2. Scrub hair algae off the back of the tank, PHs, etc. (and just scrub the tank in general).
3. Siphon 50% of the water (aiming for the floating and swirling hair algae), dispose.
4. Re-aquascape.
5. Fill tank back up with RO saltwater.
6. Re-introduce corals.
7. Kick back a beer or two because this is gonna be epic and take HOURS!

.....too much?

8. Add 3-4 peppermint shrimp to control the F****NG aiptasia
9. NEVER use tap water again!!!!!!!! Under NO circumstance!!!!

I think more then just the hair algae, although thats my main motivation, I wanna just re-do things and get a good water change in as well. I don't do regular water changes at all.........I dunno. Thoughts? Advise? All is welcome.

 

if your going to do all that i would do a 100% water change. one of those Brute trash cans will hold 44g. you could just mix it a day before and get all of your levels right and it shouldn't be any more of a shock then all the moving

 

You would be better off saving yourself the Hrs of labor and just right to the beer. And get yourself a good PO4 and NO3 test kit then a Phosphate reactor and some ferric oxide and a nitrate coil and get to the root cause . Pull as much as you can by hand and get a super sized algae control animal kit. All that stuff you dumped in the water using tap water is now absorbed into all of your rock and sand. And you have to find the culprit and clean it out. And thats just the starting place. Are you on city or treated water or a private or community well water ?
It may not be to bad if you have corals living in the tank ? And maybe just NO3 and PO4 are the main problem and the PO4's can be leached back into the water coloume from the rocks for a good while as can heavy metals and other elements.. Ever test the Phosphate and Nitrate levels ? I kow of only 2 or 3 people who ever got away with using tap water and I know many hundreds wo tried. People win the lottery also.. Good luck with it.

 

I can't give any useful advice and the tear-it-down and scrub-it-out approach, but I would definitely recommend getting a herd of turbo snails if you don't have any already. They mow down on the algae...of course, they also tend to bump into heaters and PHs and anything you've got attached with suction cups...

 

I've battle hair algae in the past... I'm with Tangster on this one.

When you scrub hair algae off of something and try to siphon it you're gonna miss some and that small piece of algae will finally float away and get caught on something and there you go, another spot with hair algae... Your best bet IMO is to get a major cleaning crew, maybe you could try a Sea Hare and some various snail. Also some lawnmower blennies also eat that stuff (but always a gamble).

Marc.

 

I would side with Tangster on this one. It sounds like your plan might be a lot of work and if corals are growing I would leave them be. Buy an oversized clean up crew and let the critters eat all that stuff for you.

 

Id pull out as much of the Hair algea as I could. Dont scrub as Tangster gave the reason. Then put some cleaning crew in there. I use Turbos they work wonders, also if you dont have that much stock in the first place you could go with an algea eating fish.(tangs and angels) My coral beauty eats everything that looks like algea

 

Don't kill me.....THANK YOU all very much for your advise. I took it and thought about it, and did my plan anyways.

Here was my thought. Tangster said the crap from my tap water (city water, btw) would leach out from the rocks for months. Well it HAS been a couple months since I went back to RO. I guess I made it sound like I JUST came back to RO, but no. Like I said, I got the algae to stop growing more, but couldn't get what was left to finally die off.

I did have an accident during the whole ordeal. My heater that I failed to unplug (and as I learned is NOT submersible), fell into my tank and shocked the HELL out of me. It was actually very scary. The whole thing started glowing a very bright red, and I was afraid it was going to explode, actually! I hadn't drained much water by then and in my frantic to get it out my hand went in the water and ZAPP IT HURT! My heart was racing for a good 30-45 minutes afterward and I felt it in my arm the rest of the day. But I got it unplugged and all was well. I guess it shocked only me because I was grounded. My Royal Gramma and Green Mushrooms that were still in the tank at the time are all doing perfectly fine a day later. Go figure.

Anyways the hair algae is all gone now, and at the first sign of another take-over I'll invest in a CUC. I just don't have that kind of money at this specific moment. However I WILL be adding a few Peppermint Shrimpies to combat my Aiptasia.

Finally, I am REALLY pleased with my new aqua-scape! I honestly believe it's the best I've ever done; and same goes for my coral placement. I will post pics once everything opens up again and stops being pissed at me. Actually the only two retracted corals today were the Hammer and Frogspawn. Even the Green Star Polyps were out! So yay!

 

ever hear of GFI

HI,
your gonna kill yourself with a good GFI for the 20 bucks it cost it may save your life, I can't tell you the number of times I ve tripped mine cleaning a skimmer moving a filter I had a heater failure it triped the gfi.:
Man get one or gets lots of insurance for your loved one they gonna miss you.
Doug

 

That is fine that you are trying to get rid of the algae...however, you need to determine where it came from and how you got it...then based on that implement the above but this way instead of constantly reacting you can be proactive!
Good points mentioned in above posts by the way!