Red Hair algae

Well here are a few pics of one of natures beasts. I originally thought I had cotton candy algae, thought wrong. Cotton candy is a real bright pink, and as u can see my little beast is a dark maroon.
Last week I brought a sample to a friend who had a club meeting going on and there was a marine biologist there. He put it under the scope and kinda gave me a funny look and then went into a very coplex explanation of what I was dealing with.:-/ He basicly told me I had a red hair algae that they have been seeing more and more of. YAY! Told me to basicly treat the same as GHA and to get out a real firm bristled toothbrush, start pulling rock and scrub.

Now mind you, the pics you are seeing is after i manually removed about 2 lbs of this crap.

 

another pic

 

That looks like a battle you have on your hands there Ishymishy

I assume your running GFO at the same time as using manual removal methods
as the decaying stuff you create will release phosphates back into the water column
and thus fuel growth elsewhere


Steve

 

oh yes.GFO and manual. Pretty much stopped feeding all frozen foods.tried the blackout period and honestly this crap don't need light to grow. Its even growing under the rocks. Loves flow though, and likes to plug up powerheads within a day, grrr

 

get some ruby emerald crabs, red legged hermits, they work for me

 

Algae problems are usually caused by aquarium water with excess nutrients like phosphate, nitrates etc. In the long term you may have to examine how you care for your tank. There are some commercial dry foods also contain excess nutrients and other undesirable things like nitrates, phosphates etc so I strain/rinse my fresh/frozen foods before feeding my tank. You may want to consider feeding your fish less often. Also using RO/DI water and a high quality salt with little if any NO3, phosphates etc like Tropic Marin will really help too. Adding a phosphate remover, increasing flow in your tank, adjusting your tank's photo period or replacing old bulbs may help too.

 

Running GFO, using ro/di and recently changed filters, feeding enough for the clowns to get a nibble every week and half or so. This stuff grows faster with flow and using reef crystals. Also tried the blackout period for a week and it continued to grow just as fast. At a loss

 

Personally, I would probably try some Mexican turbos anyway. That is, in addition to GFO, water changes carbon and basically anything else you can throw at it

 

ugg i have been fighting this stuff for months now. i havent ryid any livestock additions to help, but gfo has help a lot