What worked for me:
Use Carbon: cleared the water, my water was very yellow, I believe this contributed to the algae growth by providing the right color spectrum for algae growth and diminishing the growth of corals.
You only need 2 table spoons for couple of hours to clear your water, if you have never used carbon make sure you adjust your lighting to compensate for the increased penetration. I use Hydrocarbon2 from two little fishies. I read an article that compares the activated carbons and decided to use this brand.
"it appears empirically that in the region above 75 grams of HC2, there are enough fast-binding sites to absorb the dye over the course of the 2-3 hour experiment. It is likely that in an aquarium, the fast binding sites are responsible for most of the absorption as well."
Use Phosban: I use various brands of phosban in my reactor and have a low flow go thru it. I change it once a month and see the benefits of it. This helps to keep the phosphate under control. initially you may have to replace your phosban sooner than one month.
Bioplastics: If you have this you may not be able to keep cheato alive. Make sure the outlet for the bioplastic reactor is located near your intake for the protein skimmer. If you do not have a protein skimmer do not use bioplastics because it may make algae grow faster. To avoid clumping use a strong pump. I use maxi jet 1200.
Clean detrius: I do not have sand, so I use a turkey baster to suck all the detrius from the bottom of the tank and refugium and remove the source of the issue.
Blast the rockwork from detrius once a month and use a filter sock on your overflow to capture the detrius.
Of course... do your waterchanges religiously...
Find the source of your issue and fix that, do not treat the symptoms.
once you found the source and started to address it:
Get livestock that consumes this stuff.
I had the best luck with bristle tooth tang, kole tang, emerald crabs and blue legged hermit crabs.
these guys keep algae under control but they will not eat anything that is long and overgrown. This works after you pluck.
I did not have good luck with turbo snails, they die and release nitrates back in the water, not worth the trouble.
Sea hares work well until they die. (the amount of algae they consume is enormous)
Rabbit fish work well until they start munching on your corals, and poisonous too.
Cleanup crew can only keep this stuff under control, they do not work well as a prevention.
Update 3:
Last 4 months have been algae free.
After getting rid of the hair algae I had a red slime algae breakout. ( I will get to this later)
Having read about the algae helped a lot, instead of asking LFS or forums, you never know the experience level of the person who is giving the advice.
I bought a bristle tooth tang, which eats algae constantly and keeps the rock work clean.
4 emerald crabs, 15 blue legged hermit crabs.
I run activated carbon for 2 hours once a month (this helps to clear the water) If you never used carbon before, after a while water turns yellow, even when you do your 10% water changes every week. After some research I read that you do not need to run carbon more than 2 hours; if you only want to make your water clear, and you only need 2 table spoons of it. I use a felt bag and attach it to my return when I do water change and leave it there for two hours. Felt bag gets clogged up very fast so I would not suggest leaving it any longer than one day. I also use a turkey baster to blow on the rockwork to clean it from detrius. I only do this when I have the felt bag on, so I do not end up collecting nasty stuff in my refugium.
I also added another TLF (two little fishies) reactor to run phosban at the same time with the bioplastics. I change the media when I see algae come back.
I removed all the rocks and cheato from the refugium. I believe the cheato ended up getting infested with detrius since I did not have any mechanical filtration before the water passed thru it. I cooked the rock for 2 months and put it back in the refugium but did not add the cheato back. Having the refugium rather empty allows me to clean it once a month, there is still quite a bit detrius that ends up in it. I use a turkey baster to suck up the detrius.
I sometimes see a little patch of hair algae, and pluck it right away and do a water change, replace phosban, clean the protein skimmer, and make sure there is nothing dead in the tank.
After Removing the live rock and cheato, adding the phosban, and running carbon, I had red slime algae bloom.
at each water change I removed as much of it possible with a turkey baster and made sure I cleaned the rocks by blowing water on the rockwork. This only lasted about 1 month and now I have no issues with algae.
Update 2:
Rabbit fish is doing great, it ate most of the algae in 3 days, the royal gramma is getting more and more aggressive towards all the fish now, I tried to catch it to return to the LFS but could not succeed. I will build a trap and try to catch it. I also posted the picture on the wireefsociety forums and asked the members to ID the picture above, the consensus is that it is hair algae. At least now I know what it is, so
I can increase my cuc. the conclusion I arrived to is, my tank is always going to have algae and i need cuc to eat it.
Update:
I am still plucking,
I had some people say again it was bryopsis, so since last month I have been dosing the tank with Kent Mg. Algae is still there, it is not as strong but keeps growing.
I tested my water there is no detectable nitrate, or phosphate.
I reduced the light time it is on to 6 hours.
Bought a rabbit fish, but my dottyback does not like it at all and keeps trying to bite it.
The odd thing is whatever I get to eat the algae ends up dying, I have not lost any fish or crab that does not eat the algae, but anything that consumes the algae ended up dying on me, I wonder if it is somehow toxic.
here is a close shot on white background
I also ordered the book for "Algae: A Problem Solver Guide (Oceanographic Series)"
to learn more about algae and see if I can figure out anything new.
Start:
I have been "blessed" with hair algae issue for about 1 year, it seems like recently I have been able to get the upper hand on it.
Here I will share my experience with it and what seems to be working and what did not.
With my first stand I was not able to trim the macro algae (cheato),hence the reason to replace the stand, and it did not have any space after 1 year of growth without trimming.
I started seeing patches of algae growth at first and I would just brush it with a toothbrush. This method only helped algae spread all over the tank. On top of this I moved the tank and had to keep the tree in a Tupperware container for about 3-4 days before I was able to prepare everything. Although, I had a pump and heater running in there I believe the shock caused some stuff (as scientific as that is) to die. As a result I had almost the entire thing covered with hair algae, talking about it looking like a "tree" for real.
here are some initial things I was doing even before the algae issue:
Weekly water changes about 10%,
Reduced feeding to every other day.
Use RODI water.
Activated carbon bags in the refugium.
have Macro algae in the refugim with opposite cycle with the main lights.
Increased the flow in the tank.
After the algae issue the things I started doing:
Reduced the time lights are on to 5-6 hours a day. I even tried to keep the lights off for 3-4 days once a month.(may have helped)
I bought a phosban reactor and started using phosban. (did not work)
Added Mg, my lfs suggested this to get rid of a different algae that looks like hair algae.(did not work)
pluck the algae each week and remove it from the tank.(best thing you can do)
Increased the flow from refugium to the tank and put the phosban reactor in line with bioplastics.(seems to be helping)
Replaced my t5s one at a time each month until I have a new set.
Added mexican turbo snails: these are great for hair algae, only issue is they do not last long in the aquariums. It is really hard to find the ones that are used to the aqurium temperatures. My suggestion is only buy couple at a time, so you can keep an eye on them and if they seem to not move for couple of days remove them from the tank. If you leave them in and they start to decay in the tank all the benefit they have done will be gone. Don't be shy to put them on the algae if they are just wasting time on the glass. Remember they work for you :)
Trim the cheato once a month and run the light 24/7 on it.
Plucking is the best thing you can do, this way you remove the algae from the tank. I use a separate bowl that has a little RODI water in it. Pinch the algae as close as to the root and pull. I turn off all the wavemakers when I do this so, it is easier to catch the most algae at once and it does not blow on your hand when you are passing by the pump. If you end up dropping some algae you can catch it easier this way too. Once you have the algae dip your hand into the bowl with RODI water in it and make sure you do not have anything left on your fingers. When you pluck the snails have easier time to eat what is left behind, and do the deep cleaning.
I still pluck once a week and remove about 1 cup of algae, this used to be 3 cups about a month ago. At certain areas I do not have any more algae growing and at the other locations the growth slowed down significantly.
As it can be seen above I have some plucking to do this weekend. :) this is way better than it used to be so, I am thankful for this little.
My only SPS, and it has hair algae growing on it, it makes me sad.
There is a different type of algae on the zoas, I do not think it is hair algae, it seems to have a tougher feel to it and it does not branch out like hair algae does. I pluck that each week too. I am hoping it will just go away.
Bioplastics and the reactor from two little fishies.
my activated carbon bag at a high flow area.
I know it is not over yet, but I believe in couple of months I will not have to pluck anymore. Than I can start getting
Please see updates at the top for what worked.
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