Help, Hair Algae!

**glimo** · 04-24-2009, 01:33 AM

I am looking for help with what I belive to be hair algae in my 13 gallon nano tank. I have tried everything, chemistry, water changes, manual removal, light restriction, and still can't seem to control this problem. It also looks like the algae has damaged, choked some of my corals. Any suggestions on controling the growth would be very appreciated.

**oldhead** · 04-24-2009, 02:54 AM

How old is the tank and what is the clean up crew like?

**rageybug** · 04-24-2009, 03:11 AM

Emerald crabs and hermits will eat hair algae as long as they don't have too many other food options. Keep doing the things you have been doing and you will win the battle. Hair algae tends to come and go, stick with it.

**unleashed** · 04-24-2009, 04:54 AM

Ditto with the above. Also you must realise that hair algae is completely normal in new tanks

**labnjab** · 04-24-2009, 11:14 AM

Trust me, hair algae SUCKS. I fought with it for 5 months and I finally beat it. I tried everything under the sun and finally I manually removed almost all of it, and it hasn't returned in almost a month. I was looking around the tank yesterday and saw that any remaining hair algae is turning white and dieing.

I think the best tips would be patience (I was losing mine at some points), run some sort of phosphate remover, if possible set up a fuge with chaeto algae and a reverse light schedule on the fuge, use a good quality RO water, don't feed too much, and keep up with manual removal. I found manual removal to be important, if you let it get out of hand it is not only a PITA to remove, and derutis tends to collect in it which just adds to its growth.

Some people get lucky and the hair algae only last a few weeks, but some get stuck with it for several months. It all pays out in the end when its gone