Blog Comments

Articfox32, is the white stuff in the chamber after the biopellet reactor sort of stringy. It may be a bacterial bloom. My research suggests this can be a problem if using too high a dose with vodka or sugar (similar concept to biopellet reactors). I would suggest (and it's only my suggestion) reading some of Melev's 400 gallon setup blogs. He made a fitting that directed his biopellet reactor effluent directly into his skimmer. This may not help with the algae? but likely will help with white substance.

As for methods of managing hair algae in particular, there are as many opinions and different methods as there are people in the hobby. I've read many good things about ATS as suggested by PaulB and Phil, if you want to go that route. I also know without a doubt, that snails and hermit crabs eat the stuff. I would certainly agree they do poop in the tank and their poop must be managed just like everything else.

The suggestions I gave above are mostly based on my own experience battling a tank overrun with hair algae. The tank was about around 3 years old when I started getting little clumps here and there and it grew into a night mare. And I will agree with PaulB on this point, I changed water religiously, 5 gallons every two weeks, even increased the water changes for a time to 5 gallons once a week and all that accomplished was ticking my wife off at all the money being spent on fresh salt mix. It wasn't until I began thoroughly cleaning all the components in the tank and trying to remove detritus trapped in every nook and cranny of the tank that the tank got better.

One other thing: during the worst of the hair algae battle, I also fed Ocean's Nutrition flakes. Just my opinion based on what I've read and tested but flakes seem to be very high in phosphates. I put some freshly mixed salt water in a glass and test for phosphates, then put in the flakes let them sit for a few minutes, screened the water to remove the soggy flakes and retested the water for phosphates and the phosphates read pretty high. I don't remember the exact number but it was enough to make me quit using flakes. That said Melev feeds flakes and doesn't seem to have massive problems with HA, so your mileage may vary.

So now you've got lots of options. An ATS, is one method of removing nutrients. Skimming wetter is another way to increase nutrient export. Cleaning equipment religiously and removing as much detritus from the sand bed and rock work also works. Growing macro algae and removing clumps of it periodically works as well. Some types of macro algae can even be fed to the tangs/herbivores in your tanks so you're not introducing a much new nutrients through food.

Good luck, Blakew

Originally Posted by Paul B

I really hate to throw a wrench in here like this but I will anyway. There is more to algae than phosphates and nitrates. My nitrates now are 40 and I have never tested my phosphates, and that is since 1971 but I would assume they would be high. My reef has almost no algae and the corals including the SPS are doing great, as a matter of fact they are doing better than they ever did.
I am not saying to let your parameters get to where mine are because I experiment a lot, but something else has to be at work besides those two nutrients.
As you have discovered, algae can grow just fine with zero readings of both of them. (but it would probably be longer and greener with those nutrients)
Even if you changed 100% of the water, it will still grow.
Why? I haven't the slightest idea but it is not just cut and dry nitrate/phosphate readings, that I can guarantee you which is the reason why the people who change the most water have the most problems with this. And also the reason that new tanks with all new water have the most problems with it.
Hair algae comes and goes in cycles and no one knows why. Many people think they do, but they do not. If your tank was old enough you will see cycles of the stuff. Sometimes the cycle lasts a few weeks and sometimes a few months, but it always subsides eventually no matter what you do.
I personally think it has something to do with the maturity and types of bacteria that are growing and changing all the time but what do I know?
OK now you can send me hate mail because I am in the vast minority with this and I can take it.

I guess I must have misread this, I guess a zero reading of anything means there is still something??? And if the people who change the most water have most of the problems then by common sense if someone didn't change their water they would have no problems?

I've been under the understanding if you have algae and you check phosphates it will read zero, if you remove the algae and recheck(after a couple of hours or even the next day) the phosphates will show up on the test kit. To me this would mean that phosphates are feeding the algae. I'm no expert, and in no way trying to be insulting I'm just trying to understand this algae problem as my tank of 6 years just had a huge problem with this to the point that I tore it down. I have also had high nitrates upwards of 40ppm with no algae outbreak that why I didn't mention those in my first post. I do think there is more to it than just phosphates/nitrates but at this time that is all we test for.

my girlfriend tells me that I am obsessioning to much in researching reef info online and not paying as much attention to her.

Your happiness is very dependant on your girlfriend's happiness so I would focus on her more than obsessing on the tank. At least when she is around. I am happily married for 38 years and I told my then future wife right away that I have had fish tanks since I was born and I will have them until I die. She understands and never complained. She even bought me most of my stuff including the tank.
As to a clean up crew, be careful with that. They are not vacuum cleaners that you can empty outside in a trash can, they process food exactly like fish and in an hour or so convert it into algae nutrients that go right back into the algae. They also add to the bioload. Unless you can teach them to poop outside the tank, they will not help with algae. In the sea you see very little algae, but you do see huge schools of 10" tangs, herds of urchins (especially at night) slugs, chitens, snails, rabbitfish, seahares etc. Guess what they are eating? Yes algae. If you dive at night the entire reef is covered with urchins and they scrape the rocks like it was sand blasted. And that is on the tropical reefs in totally pristine water. And if you are thinking about human pollution, think again as those creatures have been there way before we started dumping Twinkies and hamburger helper in the sea. If it were not for those animals, the reefs would be covered in algae in a couple of weeks. If 100 8" tangs decended on your little reef, how long do you think you would have algae?
This works in the sea but not in your tank because the sea is a little bigger than your tank and the vast majority of water in the sea is too deep to support algae.
After having said that, if Mother Nature can't keep algae from growing on her reefs, how well do you think we will fare?
Algae on a captive reef is a sign of health and it is not a disease we can cure. If it were not for algae, we would not be here and neither would paris Hilton.
As I said, I don't know totally how to eliminate it nor does anyone else.
Yes, we have rumors that if we change wate,r add snails, feed less, use carbon, skimmer, GFO, ABC, Do Ray Me, etc. we will eliminate it. No we can't. Read all the posts and see if changing water helps.
I don't know what causes it but I do know how to keep it in my system where I want it, and off my corals where we don't want it. That is with an algae filter or scrubber. That is a device that offers the algae better growing conditions than your tank. Algae are self limiting, after they take everything they want from the water, they leave the water in much better shape than it was before then the algae stops growing. But the algae can stay there at that size. If we then harvest that algae, the nutrients that the algae removed go along with it and when nutrients build up again, more algae will grow "in the algae filter".
Algae removes more than phosphates and nitrates, it also removes iron, iodine and numerous other things but it also adds chemicals to the water that actually makes the water healthier and the tank more stable
(personal observation) My reef is over 40 old, has always had some algae and has never crashed. Even when a very large anemone died and rotted, 24 large local urchins all spawned at the same time, and also when the power was off for almost a week. And I use a UG filter, figure that out. Here is my tank maybe 20 years ago in one of it's heavy hair algae phases. I don't remember what I was doing to have such an infestation but the corals were very healthy as were the fish


.

Thanks everyone for the help and the great info. Sorry that I havent a chance to write back sooner. my girlfriend tells me that I am obsessioning to much in researching reef info online and not paying as much attention to her.

Blakew, I have a refugium with 2 drains coming from the tank. 1 of the drains heads to my ruge area were it goes thru a filter sock which i change every week. I have about 2.5 inches of sand with rubble rock. I have cheto in there for about 2-3 months which has tripled in size. My second return is entering just after the fuge area right next to the biopellet reactorthen passes the skimmer. skimmer is always turned on then returning to the tank. I believe that I do have some left over food and detritus in the areas after the refuge. in all these areas I have some kind of white substance growing on the walls and floor. Sand bed in the tank is only at an inch maybe a little nore in spots.

Clean up crew I am severly lacking, any suggestion? Only have some hermit crabs and a coral banded shrimp. I had a conch but i havnt seen him in a week or so.

I am feeding marine pellets with prime reef flakes from ocean nutrition as the dry food, Frozen marine cuisine as frozen food with coral frenzy and phytoplackton. feeding times are usually once a day, some times twice a day.

I have not hurd of algae scrubbers so I will be doing some reasearch on them soon. This not going to make my girlfriend happy lol. she enjoys the tank just not any of the upkeep to it.

So your saying algae doesn't need phosphates to grow? interesting, thats the first time hearing this. So if I'm reading this right we should never change our water as well as that will contribute to algae problems.

I just re read my post and I didn't say any of that. But I do have common sence and I know that algae grows mostly in brand new tanks, it is not a malady of old tanks, I wonder why.
From the 300 hours I have spent underwater in the Caribbean and the south Pacific I can also tell you that it grows on every healthy reef in the world. I also wonder why?
I also read many posts and it is a large concern in tanks with perfect parameters where the water is changed constantly, interesting.
I did say that I don't know what causes it but i do know it is more complicated than putting in a clean up crew or having very low nitrates and phosphates, two nutrients that the symbiotic algae in your corals need by the way.
Also interesting.

Okay, so assuming you would like to take a more active approach to decreasing/removing the hair algae from your tank, let's start by establishing a few knowns. Reading your earlier posts, I see you have a 90 gallon tank with some sort of refugium which contains some live sand (depth not listed) and some rock rubble, you also appear to have a biopellet reactor and a skimmer.

So couple of things off the top of my head. Do you have filter socks between your fuge inlet and the rock rubble? My experience, has been when there isn't some sort of filter between the inlet into the fuge and the rock rubble, detritus (fish poop, left over food, other organics?) gets trapped in the rock rubble. This trapped detritus then breaks down feeding nuisance algae (unless you're feeding macro algae in the fuge and sometimes even with macro algae in the fuge the macro algae can't remove all the excess nutrients). So if you don't have filter socks (or some type of filter) between the inlet and the rock rubble, mix up some clean salt water and take all the rubble out "swishing" it around in the freshly mixed salt water out side of the tank to remove as much of the detritus as you can. Then use a sand "vacuum" to clean the surface of the live sand in the fuge. Then put the rock back in. You'll need to do this periodically (every water change would be best, but atleast once a month) to keep the detritus build up to a minimum, or install filter socks and keep them clean.

The next thing that comes to mind is the effluent from the biopellet reactor. Where is it directed? Mark (Melev) seemed to have some problems with nuisance algae until he built an adapter for his skimmer intake and directed his biopellet reactor effluent directly into his skimmer intake.

Third, what are you feeding? Most frozen foods have preservatives added and need to be washed/rinsed prior to being fed to the tank. Some flake and pellet food also is high in preservatives.

With those down, you can start working on removing the hair algae. The first step is manual removal. Mark (Melev) did an awesome write up some time back (maybe years ago now?) describing the process. Essentially, it involves having a bowl of water near but out side of the tank. Then reach in the tank, grab a chunk of hair algae and gripping it tightly, pull it off of what ever it's attached to, then continuing to hold the hair algae clump tightly, bring your hand (and the algae) outside the tank, dip your hand in the bowl of water leaving the hair algae in the bowl and making sure there isn't any straggling pieces still holding on to your fingers. Repeat this process, 1 gajillion times over multiple days, weeks, months.

During water changes, move your power heads around and blow any detritus off of the rock work and try to suck as much of it up as you can.

Remove all pumps, powerheads, skimmers, etc (don't know if I'd disturb the biopellet reactor until the media is exhausted) and thoroughly clean them. Do this routinely, you'll have to let how nasty the pumps are determine the schedule. I clean all my pumps at every water change no as lots of detritus seems to build up in them constantly (maybe still overfeeding a little?).

Some people say don't disturb the sand bed, but wetwebmedia says you should vacuum your sand at every water change. I do. You may choose not to. If you do, only vacuum the surface. Depending on the depth of sand in your tank, a portion of the sand bed works anaerobically and should not be disturbed (also the possiblity of some pretty nasty things in deep sand beds so definitely don't disturb if you have a deep sand bed).

When you feed, only feed a little, let the fish consume all of the food, then feed a little more. When the fish seem to be less aggressively eating the food, stop feeding. If you wait until they quit eating, you will have excess food rotting in the tank. It does feed the hermit crabs, if you have any but you want them eating as much algae as they will.

Beef up your clean up crew. Some people like hermit crabs some don't, you'll have to decide for yourself if you want them and which kinds you want. I try to only keep red legs because they "seem" less aggressive IME, your mileage may vary. The red legs also always seem to be busy picking at the rocks rather than at each other. A 90 gallon tank should be able to handle a couple turbo snails. I usually try to by the smallest the fish store has. Most of the turbo snail species are moderate to cooler water temperature snails and some have suggested they don't live as long in reef tanks. I've always had my tank around 76-78 which is much colder than most people who keep their tanks 80-82 so I've never had a problem with turbo snails dying except after a couple of years. I don't know if this is considered a short or long life span for turbo snails.? Astrea snails are also good eaters, but I believe I've read they can't turn themselves over. Anytime I see one on it's back I flip it back over with a long cleaner brush I use to clean my skimmer piping. I also like dwarf cerith snails. There are lots of other snails that do a good job of eating algae or detrius check them out and get a good cleaner package for your size tank. In a 90 you can probably use a tiger tail sea cucumber as well. Serpent stars are also detritus eaters. You might also try a fighting conch.

A certain light spectrum seems to fuel hair algae growth more than others, so if you haven't changed your light bulbs in a while (this will vary depending on the type of lighting you have) you should.

That's pretty much it off the top of my head.

Good luck and remember, according to your original post your tank had been neglected for a while (it happens to all of us, we get busy), it will take a while for things to straighten out, whether it's from the modifications I've mentioned above or whether it's from a cyclical thing finally taking place as PaulB mentioned above, it usually takes a while for algae problems to get bad and it takes a while for them to get better. Don't get discouraged. Check my thread, you'll see my 29 looked pretty bad and it's hair algae free now.

Blakew

I've also been following PaulB for years now. He's worth listening to. I'll add one addendum to what he says though. You need to have a good set up, with nutrient export of some kind, to start with. I battled with algae issues for years trying to keep nutrients under control with water changes, skimming, phosphate absorbers and even nearly starving my fish. I did see cycles, cycles of different types of algaes. I never got rid of it until I added an algae scrubber (incidently, something PaulB also uses). I'm not going to say it's the best or only way, but in my experience you need some kind of constant nutrient removal, coupled with a healthy clean up crew.

Please, tell us about your system. What type of filtration do you have? By the way, green hair algae is actually a good sign. Green hair thrives in pretty low nutrient levels and is typically the last major outbreak a new set-up will experience.

Paul has had a tank running for longer than many of us have been alive. Based on his previous posts, he's learned from years of watching his tank that things come and go in cycles and he's stated in the past he tends to let things take their natural course.

That said what works in his tank doesn't necessarily work in all tanks. It does work for him. It didn't work for me. Hair algae got worse and worse in my tank for 7 months until I finally began making big changes (not just changing more and more water), like cleaning power heads very often, and removing a hang on the back fuge which likely was a detritus trap, also changing lights (though not planned) probably had an effect and changing foods had an effect, also restocking my clean up crew, and pulling gobs of the stuff out of the tank.

It's very likely, unless your tank has built up the bacteria (or what ever is necessary) to deal with high nitrate and/or phosphate levels, your tank will suffer from algae outbreaks. In many cases, common wisdom (which can be debated ad nauseam), suggest your test can show 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate even with an algae problem because the algae absorbs most/all the nitrate/phosphate. More likely the tests aren't being able to accurately detect nitrate/phosphate at levels low enough to cause nuisance algae. I believe, but didn't go back to look it up, that a Randy Holmes Farley write up suggested phosphate levels as low as 0.03 ppm can cause nuisance algae, and many hobbyist grade test kits don't test accurately in this range (fair disclaimer, I did not go back to the article prior to posting this so my memory may be letting me down, please correct me if I'm wrong, don't want to contribute to inaccurate information). So if nuisance algae is known to grow in very low phosphate levels, why is it not present in most aquariums? Likely Paul has a point and our tiny little versions of a huge oceanic eco system are very fragile and many things can cause cyclical problems in our tanks. Ever heard of old tank syndrome? Paul's tank is definitely old enough to have experienced old tank syndrome multiple times (though whether he's ever dealt with the symptoms typically associated with old tank syndrome or not, I don't know).

The truth is, common knowledge says, phosphates lead to nuisance algae and we need to make changes to adjust what ever is causing an excessive amount of phosphates in our tanks. Paul says leave it and it'll sort itself out. Both are likely correct depending on which path of wisdom you take and how long you're willing to wait.

I'm sure, had I been willing to wait long enough, eventually the ecosystem in my tank would have adjusted and turned the extra detritus into some form of something that would have been eaten/dissolved/chemically changed into a form less likely to have been readily taken up by the nuisance algae and thus the nuisance algae would have began dying off and the next "cycle" (not meaning ammonia cycle but cycle of change) would have started. Who knows what might have died or how bad the hair algae would have gotten before the tank started the next cycle. I wasn't patient enough to wait and began making changes that eventually (months and months) may or may not have led to the elimination of hair algae in my tank.

Your mileage may vary, this is my opinion, I'm an engineer not a marine biologist, and all the other normal disclaimers.

Blakew

So your saying algae doesn't need phosphates to grow? interesting, thats the first time hearing this. So if I'm reading this right we should never change our water as well as that will contribute to algae problems.

I really hate to throw a wrench in here like this but I will anyway. There is more to algae than phosphates and nitrates. My nitrates now are 40 and I have never tested my phosphates, and that is since 1971 but I would assume they would be high. My reef has almost no algae and the corals including the SPS are doing great, as a matter of fact they are doing better than they ever did.
I am not saying to let your parameters get to where mine are because I experiment a lot, but something else has to be at work besides those two nutrients.
As you have discovered, algae can grow just fine with zero readings of both of them. (but it would probably be longer and greener with those nutrients)
Even if you changed 100% of the water, it will still grow.
Why? I haven't the slightest idea but it is not just cut and dry nitrate/phosphate readings, that I can guarantee you which is the reason why the people who change the most water have the most problems with this. And also the reason that new tanks with all new water have the most problems with it.
Hair algae comes and goes in cycles and no one knows why. Many people think they do, but they do not. If your tank was old enough you will see cycles of the stuff. Sometimes the cycle lasts a few weeks and sometimes a few months, but it always subsides eventually no matter what you do.
I personally think it has something to do with the maturity and types of bacteria that are growing and changing all the time but what do I know?
OK now you can send me hate mail because I am in the vast minority with this and I can take it.

Red Sea test kits are for fish tanks. They're not preciese enough for a reef.
Also, its very common for nusance algae to absorbe nitrate and phospate as soon as it's formed, so your readings will always be zero. That was the situation I battled for years.

So tell us more.
1. What do you have in the way of clean up crew? Even in nature, reefs are full of animals that eat algae.
2. What filtration do you have? In my experience, you need to have some way to constantly remove nitrate and phosphate. There are several ways, heavy duty skimming, refugiums with lots of macro algae, bio reactors and even (my favorite) algae scrubbers.

Phil

Lights are new. Just swapped over to 2 radions almost 2 weeks ago. I will have a list of food and amount tomorrow

Are your lights (bulbs) old? - I once figured out the hard way my bulbs were the cause of my algae.

Pull the algae out and retest phosphates in a couple of hours. The algae is feeding off of the phosphates thats why its reading 0. How much and what do you feed?

i love how simple and easy my reef keeper elite is, you dont need to be a computer geek to program it.

I love my apex!!

Definitely on the bottom preferably on a sandbed. It has been my experience that they do not do well on rock work plus placing them on rocks can be a potential for disaster if the fall from the rock their soft tissue is easily damaged. Also when placing them they like moderate flow as they send out sweepers to catch food and beware of those sweepers they can and will sting and destroy any coral around it. These sweepers can reach up to 8 inches so make sure it has plenty of room between it and other corals. They are breathtaking though and a great addition I currently have a purple tipped branching hammer that is dead center in my reef as it is just so gorgeous it demands center of attention.

aaapppeeexxx

apexxxxxxxx by far!

And I'm the other side of the equation. I've only used Neptune Systems controllers since 2004. I had the Aquacontroller II, then the III, and now the Apex. The Apex is web-based so setting up is done with a browser. There's the challenge of getting it to talk to your router (I wired it directly to avoid a wireless issue arising), and then you'll have to set up your router to share that info. But once that hurdle has been cleared, you've got access via the App or any browser with a login screen.

I helped one person set up his DA Reefkeeper Lite, and it was very easy to set up but we only were using it locally - not via the web.

The good news is no matter what you buy, there are 1000s of people out there that have set it up and can help you figure it out.