From my personal experiences allowing your tank to mature is the best way to fight algae issues. Usually after that 6 month mark hair algae begins to die off while coralline algae and beneficial bacteria take over.
Amazing that you put this video together. Very helpful. I think I can say that pretty much everyone that has a reef setup has encountered hair algae (or other kinds) at some point. So its relevant. Realistically speaking, I think most folks will probably tailor the method to what they think is best for their system but the point is that you give the basic outline, right here. I'm sure this vid will end up getting a lot of views because it will put reefers on the right track. Your tank's lookin' pretty good by the way.
When I did my battle with GHA, I had no nitrate and phosphate reading at all because the algae absorbed it... even though I kept it cleaned down to the rock! I also used Nopox and it just made the coral pale and I lost a few pieces. This went on for months. The only thing that worked was Vibrant, but it's not SPS friendly and I lost a bunch of colonies because of it. I'm glad this system worked for you though! Beautiful little tank!
Thanks for the video, I have also struggled with green hair algae for 18 months, in my first tank. I have just given reef flux a go and have lost half my sps corals so would recommend avoiding that. Similar issue with calcium and alkalinity spiking also. I have always used nopox and was investigating phosphat-e when I found your videos. Added to your advice, I decided it’s time to replace the cheep skimmer that came with my tank and final step will be a refugium in a few weeks as a more natural export method, once I have gha under control.
I get so tried of these types of reefers that assume that everyone has an algae scrubber, UV sterilizer, filter socks, sump, refugium, etc etc Tell me how to get rid of the damn algae Don’t tell me my tank sucks because I don’t have a 150 stage sump with a million different gadgets and that’s why I can’t get rid of algae
Yet another wonderful, articulate presentation. I totally agree with everything you said but I personally had great success by going down the Flucanozole route. Just added the capsules, left skimmer off for 2 days and 3/4 weeks later GHA free. I subsequently realised the PO4 causing my GHA issue was (probably) leeching from either the dry ceramic rock or dry sand i had used and ended up using no-pox and Phosphate e for a few months to keep things under control until i weaned the tank off them slowly but completely to where it is now. I always keep some Phosphate e handy though as like you said, its a wonderful product giving instant and accurate results.
Great explanation makes perfect sense thanks will definitely be trying this been battling gah for a while but dose the nopox kill of the cheto in the refugium
great video, my only issue is running ULN in a tank causes other problems such as Dinoflagellates. I had my NO3 & PO4 at near zero and now I'm in a hard core battle with Dinoflagellates, so much confusion with info as far as P & N now people are saying keep PO4 >.05 and NO3 to 5 to 10 to keep tank stabilized!
I just battled a large algae problem. I believe it was brown hair algae. I originally tried 2 different cyano treatments but that did nothing. I did full blackout for a week that did nothing. I even tried a stack of hermit crabs but they couldn't keep up with it. I run an algae reactor so my nitrates and phosphates are always nearly 0 and I use the clarisea 3000 so I don't have dirty filter socks so I never did find the source of my algae problem. But then I tried DINO-X. I blew out all the detritus with a turkey baster as you did and scrubbed all my rocks with a toothbruth and did 3 25% water changes in a week then started dosing DINO-X. 10ml every 2 days for 10 doses (20 days). The algae is completely gone!!! This stuff is amazing and I recommend anyone with hair algae to try it! No effect on any corals or fish :) And I knocked my lighting back to 6 hrs a day (as the instructions suggest).
I just finished a battle with GHA algae in my tank. My main help was my Valentini Puffer who took interest in it recently, and my turbo and trochus snails.
Hi did you ever think of using vibrant my red sea Reefer 250 was covered in what I think was turf algae and bubble algae I used vibrant (6.5 ml) a week I now have zero turf algae and my bubble algae looks as if it dieing off In my experience I could not recommend vibrant enough
With TDS it takes a weeks use of my RODI system and it starts to go from 0-1... am I meant to change out my filter stages every week? that seems over the top for me.
Ive done everything you stated and i still have this stuff growing. I remove it, i run rowa, im doubling my rodi filters, the last thing i can do is throw the reef tank out a window.
Each tank is a different environment man. Don’t give up. My reef gets fed once a week a day before the water change, and I still have hair algae. For me, it’s light based. A lot of hair algae can flourish with little to no excess nutrients. Just keep trying things, and look into a lawnmower Blenny and emerald crab combo.
I have some wierd circumstance going on and want your advise. I had no alae ever until my tank crashed. I recycled it and now I suppose I have a new system. I dint follow any reboot or anything. I was just trying to save my corals so I was adding prime when the ammonia and nitrates started. All this started from low salinty and perhaps changing out my aquascape, because some gave me a beautiful cave and arch. Anyway I removed the fish. I have them in m y big tank now. Dont really want to put them back(long story) I also dont really want to add fish until everything is okay. I have the soft corals left that survived the crash. So now I have green hair algae. Its not that long and its been a few weeks. How long does it have to get before I can start pulling it off? Its only a 10 gallon. I have a small skimmer I dont use because of space but since I have no fish now I can hook that up. Its a small airstone type. I am so tempted to scrub it all off and that was my plan today! I know with your new tank you used continum or something like that. Do you still believ in this method or continum and can I do this with no fish? I can feed the coral xtra or just throw more in there. I could pick up a tough damsel I suppose. I do have a snail and some hermits. My other question is should i just start this tank over again since It did crash. I think the crash has caused all this algae or the recycle. I do want to use that same rock though since its so nice but scrub real good and start over? which is the way to go in my situation? I also want to point out I am not even sure what I am dealing with its hairy but its very very dark green growing on rocks and the sand bed just a little, not hairy, dosnt show up until a week right before water change but I vacuum it weekly during waterchanges and glass a little kind of looks dark green to brownish on glass. I also have some specks of dark red, so maybe cyano but Its no slimy at all Rocks is where the hair is. Also. Can I buy a screen to cover my wavemaker? Is algae contagious? I lost a bunch of lps that I just recieved about 2 weeks before and I notice green all over the frag plugs. I wanted to use them though because they also had coraline but wonder If I should always replace frag plugs if they have algae on them and they always do it seems! also worry if I couls somehow transfer to my other tank through cross contamination. Thanks for an help! Love your channel and tanks! I miss this tank for sure! It was awesome!
How did you find the low light and low flow for the goni? I have a huge goni which my clowns live in, full light and lots of flow and it thrives so I guess they can be different.. You can check mine out here if you like ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SyeW97cPSXY.html
GHA GREW in my tank when I STOPPED feeding my daily high nutrient food and aminos...and I only fed once a day every other day.... and my phos was at 0. OUTBREAK... WHY? no nutrients allows gha to grow as well if you have a chaeto fuge. You weaken the chaeto and gha grows easier. Great idea tho! I did the same.. allowed one big loose rock to have all the gha... it looked like a head in my tank! Then whoop! Pulled out the rock..all gone gha & nutrients.
how do you clean your subtrate of all the fish poo & how do you clean red cyanobacteria? My sand subtratte is dirty & I don't know how to keep up with it ;(
Wow, I've been doing it wrong for so long. I have low nitrate, and hi phosphate. Should I use the same method. Nitrate is 0.75, phosphate 0.059 with Hanna.
This has probably been answered before in your videos but what sort of tank is that? and how many Litres or Gallons? ATM battling brown hair algae in my tank and found this awesome video!
Couple of questions... I usually have undetectable nitrates using low-range tests. My phosphates are never out of control, but they will show up on low-range tests. Should I leave out the Nopox and just use Phosphate-E? Also, regarding letting the algae get long and blasting the rocks with the Turkey baster every day... when I blast the rocks, a lot of algae comes off. Should I wait until the algae gets really long before blasting the rocks?
Im a Old School Reefer and I firmly believe that most reefers these days over feed, carry too heavy of a bio-load (fish) and depend on the latest "Trick of the Week" solution to reef keeping without getting the basics right first! Feel free to tell me where I am wrong...
@@eatsleepreef9565 Great video sir.. stunning tank for sure... I have a 850 gallon, and loads of hair algae at the moment. My question is, I read zero on Po4, but 25 on Nitrates... would you suggest just using Nopox? Thank you for your time... subbed for sure!
Using NOPOX at 4 ml at once can cause cyano and Dino in my experience its best to start at 2 ml for about 2 -3 weeks and slowly increase to 4 ml! just my experience and opinion then again my tank does not look at all like yours......
Has anyone had any problems with their ATO tanks TDS increase over time? My TDS meter reads 0 when it comes out into the container and after 2 weeks my ato tank reads 4TDS. Keep in mind my ATO tank is 5 gallons.
EAT SLEEP Reef Thanks for the reply! I’ll definitely need to start clean/rinse it out. Had it for almost 3 months and the 1st two months without a actual cap.... Thanks!
