Successful hair algae combatants

[happaman]

Granular Ferric Oxide = what you put in reactor to remove phosphate.

A little off topic but in one of my tanks I've been battling bryopsis which thrives no matter what I do. GFO, 0 tds water, regular water changes. I just tried the hydrogen peroxide dip and it kills it dead. A 3 minute dip of 50/50 tank water and peroxide and it dies off the next day. Kills any kind of algae but didn't harm zoas or my lime in the sky.

 

[Clockwork John]

I read somewhere that elevated Mg will help with bryopsis. If I can find the article I'll post the link.

 

[happaman]

I read somewhere that elevated Mg will help with bryopsis. If I can find the article I'll post the link.

Yeah I raised my mag to between 1800 and 2000 with Seachem. Also used Epsom salts. Screwed with my alk/calc levels so it was a pia. I did not use Kent which is what most people use. Seems to verify that there is an impurity in the Kent that kills the bryopsis rather than the magnesium.

Sorry to hijack but just thot I'd share the hydrogen peroxide method.

 

[jbaeza83]

what about the lighting in the display? wont old bulbs grow more hair algae?

 

[562socal]

what about the lighting in the display? wont old bulbs grow more hair algae?

Old bulbs do comtribute to bad algae growth. What helped me get over my hair algae problems is blasting the rock with a turkey baster a couple time a week to clean debris off the rock work and also keeping my no3 n po4 near 0ppm. Also turbo snails are known to munch on hair algae. You have to manual remove the big clumps, so the snails can chow down on the shorter algae that you can't remove manually. My 2 cents

 

[250 reef square]

I did all those things and still grew hair like it was on rogain! put a water softener on the whole house and change the RO filters twice as often and we are getting a little "balder"

 

[Scummy]

Yeah I raised my mag to between 1800 and 2000 with Seachem. Also used Epsom salts. Screwed with my alk/calc levels so it was a pia. I did not use Kent which is what most people use. Seems to verify that there is an impurity in the Kent that kills the bryopsis rather than the magnesium.

Sorry to hijack but just thot I'd share the hydrogen peroxide method.

I just did the Kent mag treatment and I wiped out the bryopsis within 3days

 

[happaman]

Yeah I think the Kent tech M is effective. I had the mag on hand and heard many had success with Seachem. I didn't. I tried the hydrogen peroxide method and it worked. I may still use kent but I like having more than 1 weapon in my arsenal. What's interesting about the hydrogen peroxide is that it kills all green algae including hair--oxidizes it. It appears the coral slime up and blocks the hydrogen peroxide.

 

[reefhobobum]

I have the best luck with hair algae when I have a large clean up crew of snails. they seem to keep the algae off the rocks and my filtration system filters out the rest.