Fighting Cyano & Hair Algae
Printed From: Utah Reefs
Category: Help
Forum Name: General Help
Forum Description: The place to ask about pest, problems, hitchhikers, etc.
URL: http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=50749
Printed Date: April 27 2024 at 7:27am
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Topic: Fighting Cyano & Hair Algae
Posted By: BobC63
Subject: Fighting Cyano & Hair Algae
Date Posted: August 16 2011 at 2:04am
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I am looking for advice on how to eradicate some cyano that keeps appearing on my sandbed...
I also have some patches of hair algae that keep popping up.
I have approx 50 snails and over 100 crabs, plus a Tiger Conch in my CUC.
What is frustrating is that I am fairly certain that I don't have a 'nutrient problem'; I base that on 2 things:
1) I have consistent '0' readings for n03 and pO4
2) All my SPS - some of which were browned out when I got them - are coloring up fairly nicely
Here is my plan to battle the cyano -
A) more flow; adding a pair of (probably) Koralias in the 2 back corners to flow water right over the sandbed in the sides and front corners of the tank, as these are the places where I am getting the cyano buildup
B) getting a sand sifting goby and maybe a sand sifting cuke or 2 to keep the sandbed surface getting turned over
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As for the hair algae:
I have tried a Sea Hare and now a Lawnmower Blenny... still having algae show up.
I have a bunch of Chaeto in my fuge and a large amount of Halimeda algae in the display tank. Still not 'starving' out the hair algae, though...
Next steps I would like to try:
1) Manually yank out as much as I can
2) Add a couple of herbiverous fish; specifically, a small Foxface if I can find one and a small Tang (maybe Powder Blue, or a Sailfin) or maybe even 2 of them
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I am also going to add some more (maybe 20 lbs) of live rock as 'insurance' in keeping nitrates at 0. And I will increase slightly the amount of GFO I am adding into my carbon reactor.
Anything else I am missing, or any other suggestions to help get rid of this sh*t?
Oh, one more thing... where can I get a decent long forceps / tweezers so that I can reach all the algae clumps to pull them out?
------------- - My Current Tank: 65g Starfire (sitting empty for 2+ years) - * Marine & Reef tanks since 1977 * |
Replies:
Posted By: CapnMorgan
Date Posted: August 16 2011 at 2:46am
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double your snail amount for sure. You are seeing 0 on the phos and nitrates due to the algae taking them up. I highly recommend tiger tail cukes, great to have for keeping the sand clean, you could also try a dozen or so nassarius snails and a few emerald crabs. I would consider adding a bristle tooth tang (think yellow eye kole tang or something of the zebrasoma genus) to the tank, they do a great job keeping hair algae down as long as it starts out fairly short. ------------- Steve http://utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40637&PID=356246" rel="nofollow - My Old 180G Mixed Reef Currently: 120G Wavefront Mixed 29G Seahorse & Softies Running ReefAngel Plus x2 435-8 |
Posted By: BillyC
Date Posted: August 16 2011 at 3:46am
| I had the same problem that was most probably caused by overfeeding. I added more flow to the sand bed and have not had any significant cyano blooms in a few months and I can still feed just the same. |
Posted By: Snowsrfr
Date Posted: August 16 2011 at 9:43am
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I'm with the Capn on the tang. I have a small Kole tang in my 50 cube, when I started have a hair algae problem and he eradicated it quickly, and spends his days picking at rocks keeping any chance for it popping back up. I would also recommend doubling your snails. If you hair algae is thick, my opinion, is to pull as much as possible by hand to help the snails get the upper hand on it. In my 50 cube, for sand bed cleaning, I have three conchs, about 10 nassarius snails, tiger tail cucumber and two spot blenny. Probably overkill, in some peoples, eyes, but I like a nice clean sand bed. |
Posted By: badfinger
Date Posted: August 16 2011 at 10:01am
| When I was having problems with algae and cyano I started vodka/mb7 dosing and both have been gone for over 6 months |
Posted By: Connie
Date Posted: August 16 2011 at 10:41am
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I have to disagree.... I have been fighting cyano for a year and none of the suggestions above have worked...
I have 5 tiger tail cucs
mountains of snails
I only feed a small amount every three days
I also have 0 nitrate, 0 phosphate & ammonia levels
I have tried 24 hour refugum light
I have tried chemical treatment
A 1200 max jet blowing directly over the sand bed and still have cyano growing in the jet stream of water it puts off.......
The good news, now it is turning a nice bright green color so I have a very colorful sand bed.........
Tresa is having the same problem...... I give up
 ------------- I have flying monkeys and I'm not afraid to use them. 180 gallon money pit that I love..... |
Posted By: Jeremyw
Date Posted: August 16 2011 at 12:53pm
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I am following this! I have had this problem with hair algae for months now. I am doing all that Bob said and have been manually removing and still to no avail. Bob how bad is the hair algae? ------------- Next meeting: |
Posted By: bur01014
Date Posted: August 16 2011 at 1:26pm
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I've been through this and almost gave up reefing, the hair algae became so bad....the only thing that finally kicked the algae for me was adding a GFO reactor. I added one and slowly each week added more and more GFO....within a month all the green hair algae turned brown and I could literally just suck it out with a turkey baster. (it became very weak) Now, it has been a few months and it hasn't come back, knock on wood. I also cut back on how much GFO, in order to just maintain the system, rather than starve it too much. Are you running any type of phosphate remover/reactor?
(btw- my chaeto on its own didn't starve out the algae in my fuge either)
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Posted By: kellerexpress
Date Posted: August 16 2011 at 7:49pm
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I agree with bur01014, a phosphate reactor is a must if you dont already have one. Also, have you checked the TDS on your ro/di water? ------------- IM 30L Kessil A160we x2 |
Posted By: BobC63
Date Posted: August 17 2011 at 9:27am
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My TDS on my RO was 002 ppm last time I checked it; I'll check again today.
I replaced all the prefilters and installed a new Spectrapure Select membrane back in April, so they are not old or worn out.
I run a Phosban reactor filled with mostly carbon and like a teaspoon of GFO - I can certainly up the amount of GFO I am using (plus it is due to be changed out anyway)
I feed one cube of either brine, mysis, Emerald entree , etc like every 3 days... I have not fed my sponges, anenomes or corals anything in almost 2 weeks.
I went over to Reefrunners last night and picked up a small (under 2") Kole Tang, and a fairly small (3") Foxface. Also picked up a small Diamond Goby, 2 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp, and 2 Aqueon 950 circ pumps which will be placed in the lower rear corners of the tank, facing forward, just above the sandbed.
Still looking to add 1 or 2 Tiger Tail Cukes, 1 or 2 more Conches, some Nassarius snails, and some moe Live Rock.
And I need to find a decent long tweezers / forceps to help pull out the longer hair algae clumps.
------------- - My Current Tank: 65g Starfire (sitting empty for 2+ years) - * Marine & Reef tanks since 1977 * |
Posted By: Ryan Thompson
Date Posted: August 17 2011 at 10:20am
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What salt is everyone using? I fought cyano for over a year in three different tanks and the problem was Reef Crystals salt. When I switched to D&D H2Ocean, the cyano was gone within two water changes. I will never use the cheap salts again because of this. I don't want this to turn into a salt debate. I am just stating MY experience. My cyano was caused all by my salt and it disappeared when I used a higher quality salt. |
Posted By: Ryan Thompson
Date Posted: August 17 2011 at 10:24am
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Another interesting thing to note is that Lawnmower Blennies actually don't eat hair algae. When they chomp through the hair algae they are looking for built up detritus. There is a GREAT article about that topic in the latest Reef Hobbyist magazine. Lawnmower blennies are detrivores more than anything. They author makes a great argument that they are actually not good for eating hair algae at all. |
Posted By: DLindquist
Date Posted: August 17 2011 at 11:05am
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Bob, I will have to keep this short as I'm on the side of the freeway waiting a second spare for my trailer. I have never had much of a problem with any type of algae. In my last tank of 15 years I had upwards of 24 fish, lots of coral, fed like crazy and ran nothing but a calcium reactor & many years later a skimmer. I have had the new tank up and running for close to two months, maybe? I never had a "new tank" cycle & everything looked awesome. 13 days ago I hooked up my new VHO's to accompany the three MH's before leaving town. I left the MH's on the same 6 hour period but put the VHO's on a 12 hour period. I returned home from Cabo yesterday and we have various types of algae everywhere. My son kept the glass clean (which required cleaning twice a day vs. weekly before we left) but didn't know what else to do. I reduced the VHO's by 4 hours as the problem was none existing before the additional lighting period. I too am at a loss as I've never had an algae problem like this?? No, I have no crabs or algae grazing fish & only 5 snails, but that's another topic. ------------- A government strong enough to give you everything you want, is powerful enough to take everything you have. |
Posted By: bur01014
Date Posted: August 17 2011 at 11:22am
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A teaspoon of GFO won't do much for ya....chances are it is already exhausted. Those with hair algae problems can typically exhaust a cup of GFO in 3 or 4 days until the initial spike in phosphate levels is decreased. My algae didn't start dieing and falling off the rocks until I was up to 2 cups of GFO on my 90 gallon. Work up to this though ( if you decide to use more GFO)....maybe do 1 cup for a week, empty, add a fresh 1 1/2 cups for 2 weeks, rinse, then add 2 cups and run for 2-3 weeks....at this point Green hair will start turning brown and will literally fall off the rocks. This is when a turkey baster helps. YOu need to suck out the dieing algae, because it is only just releasing the nutrients back into the tank if you don't.
Then for maintenance I would suggest maybe running 3/4 to 1 cup of GFO and change it out every 4-6 weeks.
Other things you can try they may have not been mentioned yet:
1. Skim Wetter
2. Larger Waterchanges if your TDS is 0 (worked for me, but some think this may feed the algae)
3. Stop dosing everything except - Ca, Alk, & Mg
4. Feed less, only frozen or pellets, be sure to rinse the frozen first
5. Reduce light: especially any pink or purple bulbs you may be running
6. Add Large Turbo snails - yes they knock things over, but are such good algae cleaners, they will help you get on top of things. (take a tooth brush to a rock first, they'll eat green hair algae but needs to be shorter than an inch)
7. Turkey baster/blow rocks out every few days, getting the detrius suspended and down to your skimmer area.
8. Chemicals that have a good track record and are generally reef safe: Chemiclean for cyna and Algaefix for the hair.
I personally would do the GFO and 1-7, in conjunction with everything else your doing. 4 weeks time, things will be drastically improved.
Chemicals I'd leave for the last result type thing.
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Posted By: smacky
Date Posted: August 18 2011 at 1:24pm
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Don't have much to add, but I want to start to follow this thread as my cyano and hair algae have started to become an issue. I've reduced feeding, added a lawnmower blenny, and reduced the time the lights run. Here's a question. Has anybody ever seen a narrow (1/2" or so) siphon with bristles or a brush on the end? Something like the attachment for your vacuum:  but much smaller. I think this would be a great help in manual removal.
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Posted By: Jeffatpm
Date Posted: August 20 2011 at 3:28pm
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I'd say yes to the flow over those areas to keep stuff from building up in that area, and I love my sand sifting(gold head) gobie other than he gets sand all over stuff on the sand bed and he moves little rocks to build himself a house - he doesn't touch the sand that already has cyano on it, simply keeps the sand sturred. Cucumbers for me seem to hide all day and only work a small section of the tank.
Lawnmowers in my experiece was meh, but the Starry Blenny's are cool and do a good job. ------------- 210 Reef with loads of LEDS Large Fishey Room Located Near Jordan Landing in West Jordan. |
Posted By: builderofdreams
Date Posted: August 20 2011 at 6:22pm
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My 150 has been established for about 4 years now and i medicate it once a year for Cyano. Never had any issues with fish or corals.Fact of the matter is i just medicated this year last week. Hair Algae.I myself have a patch or two in my tank and i use a soft bristled tooth brush to remove.Works well the algae sticks to the tooth brush for easy removal.I get it from overfeeding.I have alot of big carnivores and meat eating corals so i am alright with a little bit here and there. To me it just seems to be a good balannce,Maybe iam wrong. ------------- It's Not a Hobby It's an Obsession 150&210 Gallons of Madness and. Sanity! 801-850-4915 http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=65135&title=builderofdreams-feedback-post |
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: August 20 2011 at 8:54pm
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Can you post a pic of the entire tank and some close ups of the hair algae and cyano?
------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member 
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Posted By: BobC63
Date Posted: August 22 2011 at 9:26pm
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Instead of a bunch of pictures, I shot this video instead: You may notice that I have started to add in some of your suggestions to get a handle on the hair algae and cyano:
- Added (2) Aqueon 950 (gph) circ pumps to flow more water over the sandbed. Total flow in the display is approx 6,000 gph now (over 60X turnover)
- Added a Foxface, Kole Tang and (probably against my better judgement) another Clown Tang to help chow down on algae
- Added 22 lbs of additonal Fiji Live Rock
- Changed out the carbon in my reactor and tripled the amount of PO4 remover in the reactor (I was using 0.3 oz of Fluval powdered GFO resin; now running a full ounce)
- Cut the photoperiod on the VHO's (4 X 54w UVL Super Actinincs) from 10AM - 10 PM (12 hrs continuous) down to only 8 - 10 PM (2 hrs); the single 250w halide stays at 12 PM - 8:30 PM
- Added a Tiger Tail Cucumber to help turn over the sandbed... I have an order of (1) 3" Queen Conch and (20) 1" Nassarius Vibex snails coming in the next few days...
- I also checked my RO output and it is still at 002 ppm. I checked my parameters and the Mg was a little low (for my taste) at 1400; I boosted it up to 1600 ppm.
Overall, the actual hair algae and cyano "problem"s are not horrific or overwhelming - but I would love to get rid of them once and for all...
Anything else you guys see that I could work on?
------------- - My Current Tank: 65g Starfire (sitting empty for 2+ years) - * Marine & Reef tanks since 1977 * |
Posted By: hedgefish
Date Posted: August 22 2011 at 10:04pm
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what is gfo,im new at this ------------- hedgefish |
Posted By: BobC63
Date Posted: August 22 2011 at 10:15pm
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GFO stands for Granulated Ferric Oxide. commonly used to remove excess pO4 (phosphate) from your aquarium water ------------- - My Current Tank: 65g Starfire (sitting empty for 2+ years) - * Marine & Reef tanks since 1977 * |
Posted By: hedgefish
Date Posted: August 22 2011 at 10:29pm
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thanks for the info ------------- hedgefish |
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: August 23 2011 at 8:57am
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That's lot of changes to combat the algae. At this point, I'd wait and watch to see what effect those changes make over the next 2 weeks. Please come back to this same thread to let us know the results, especially if the problem persists, so that we may pick up where we left off. FYI, A living reef aquarium needs algae to sustain itself. It's not a bad thing and actually quite common to have a small localized area of the aquarium where Cyanobacteria comes and goes depending on conditions. Algae can be controlled by herbivores which eat it. Limiting nutrient input and harvesting macroalgae removes nutrients from the system to help control nuisance algae growth. Even after all this, Algae can never be eliminated completely without killing all the life in the aquarium. Cyanobacteria is one of the oldest forms of life on earth. It is very resilient and can grow almost anywhere. You could take a clean container filled with tap water, and within a few weeks find cyanobacteria growing in it. Mixing into that same container some aquarium salt to the salinity of seawater would feed the Cyanobacteria, making it appear sooner.  ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
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Posted By: BobC63
Date Posted: August 23 2011 at 9:05am
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Mark, I actually noticed some HA growing on the Halimeda while filming... don;t know if it shows up that well on the video...
Just don't want to have it kill off the Halimeda inside the display
But yeah, now it is time to just sit back and see how things progress... ------------- - My Current Tank: 65g Starfire (sitting empty for 2+ years) - * Marine & Reef tanks since 1977 * |
Posted By: GaryF
Date Posted: August 25 2011 at 2:36pm
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Maybe I went through the posts too fast, but did you mention anything about macro algae. I have battled the hairy monster for quite some time. I finally introduced some Caulerpa to my main tank (i dont have a sump) and the hair algae is in full retreat. I have done almost everything everyone told me to do. I probably went a little light on the live rock in my tank and maybe I am suffering from that, but I am starting to wonder about the salt that I use (instant ocean). But my tank is a hex, and it is a curse!
------------- Gary Finnegan |
Posted By: BobC63
Date Posted: August 25 2011 at 2:41pm
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Gary -
I have chaetomorpha in my sump (you can see it in the video) and also a good amount of Halimeda in the display
------------- - My Current Tank: 65g Starfire (sitting empty for 2+ years) - * Marine & Reef tanks since 1977 * |
Posted By: Aquaristnewbie
Date Posted: August 25 2011 at 3:02pm
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To help with the halimeda I would manually pull it off or one thing I use is a toothbrush dedicated to my tank. It works well to get it off. One thought that I seem to notice with cyano is what is the temp of your tank? I dont know if this is true but I have noticed with cyano is that it seems to grow best at warmer temps. You may try slowly brining your temp down to 72-76 if it is higher to see if that helps. Just a thought. Hope it is all going well with the battle. ------------- 150 gallon Reef Millcreek Utah |
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: August 25 2011 at 3:24pm
With all this advise floating around lately about correcting problems...here is a pic from one area of my current tank. Any suggestions... ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
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Posted By: Jeremyw
Date Posted: August 25 2011 at 3:52pm
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Mark be quiet! Your new tank is the OCEAN! You cant do anything to help it out! You are hopeless.... well you can recycle, and do your part to be greener lol ------------- Next meeting: |
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: August 25 2011 at 4:49pm
 Just having some fun. But seriously, when I saw this little tidepool of hair algae and Aiptasia, I just had to snap the shot and share it with y'all. There are Butterflyfish all over, but only in this tidepool are the Aiptasia safe from the Butterflyfish and the algae safe from the Tangs. ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
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