Lots of the Green stuff

Hey guys,

Im looking for some suggestions on getting rid of some alge thats growning like crazy in my tank. It about an inch long in some places, hair like, and a darkish gree color, come off real easy too. Its a 90 gallon tank. I have an army of turbo snails, and two urchins working on it, but they dont seem to be able to keep up. So i reduced the time the light in the tank stays on down to 8 hours, and i just added 3 emerald crabs to try to help out... I have had the tank running for a 18 months, and seems the past few months it has slowly started being over run. The LFS guy suggested something to put in the water, but im not to big on that idea.. i been doing water changes weekly now with distilled water. Seems the urchins are helpping and so are the crabs.. but any ideas to get it gone forever?

 

I have battled hair algae several times. It sounds like your on the right track. I'm not sure your going to have any success with the Crabs. What I would do is see what your phosphates are like and get a phosphate sponge (Kent) if the levels are >0.02 then with a tooth brush I would start scrubbing it off. If you can take the rock out that's what I would do. If not I would use an airline hose as a vacuum and as you scrub suck it out of the tank.

Good luck
J

 

Jackets is giving you sage advice. This sounds like a buildup of phosphates.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/sept2002/chem.htm

Also, think hard about taking his advice on taking the rocks out prior to scrubbing. I usually recommend doing a water change, scrubbing in a bucket of the "old" water, then rinsing well with fresh saltwater prior to returning the rocks to the tank. Otherwise, little pieces of the hair algae can migrate to other areas of the tank.

 

Thanks guys,

So far i have already taken out the rocks that i could a few weeks ago, and i had two buckets of salt water, in the first i scrubed with a plastic bristle brush, and the other i rinsesed, then replaced them back in the tank, however i couldnt get all of them, because of certian residents claiming them as home, i did get a bunch, but it started growning back again. I will check the phospates and re scrub what i can. However with the crabs, i have 3 emerald crabs, and they claimed a group of rocks, and those rocks are extremely clean, they seem to enjoy the hair algae. Thanks again.

-Ben

 

check your nitrates also. when you do a water change vacuum the areas containg hair alge. do you have a skimmer that helps keep it under control. also do smaller more fequent water changes would help.

read this on green hair alge

green hair alge

 

Hey join up SE

 

Yeah, those nitrates will kill you. My nitrates are through the roof at 80+ and 10-20% water changes each week aren't doing the trick. Phosphates are unmeasureably low, though.
I've been going through a tremendous bloom of green hair algae for 3 weeks now. My algae bloom is because something is out of whack and kicking my nitrates. Your problem may have similar roots.

 

Holly crap were did you find this thread. Look at the post date Dec 2003

LOL


J

 

all it took in my tank was the addition of large yellow tang and I never saw another piece of hair algae

 

Jason, well I know a lot more than I did in December 2003! ;D

I got a medium-large yellow tang last week. No improvement yet.