From: tse@ra.nrl.navy.mil (Anthony Tse)
Subject: Re: (m)hair algae removal
Organization: Naval Research Lab, Washington, DC
Distribution: rec
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 01:01:52 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.4149.11404@dosgate> "larry wheatley" <larry.wheatley@canrem.com> writes:
>I hate this stuff.  I cleaned all the glass and a few rocks!
>Turned off the MH's and only give 4 hours of full spec and 10
>03 actinic's.  Clean the filters.  Vacum the tank and hope for
>it to go away?   I am sure this won't be enough!

	If you have anything more then bio-balls for bio-filtration, remove
them (includeing any polishing sponges).  If you don't have a really
good skimmer, get one.  Ditto for RO or DI unit.  Then what I would do
if I were in your shoes is to yank all the rocks out, scrub all the algae
clean, then rinse them in clean salt water (not the water you use to
scrub the rock with), replace all the water in your tank and start all
over (this is assumming you dont' have too many inverts already).  I
would leave all the light off for a least 1-2 weeks o.w. they will come
right back.  While the rocks is in a dark tank, pump calcium in, at least
450ppm, w/o any invert in the tank, I would go over 550ppm.  Make sure
your KH is above 7 dKH, again, w/o invert, I would pump the KH above 10.
You need to check the KH constantly if you use CaCl2.  After a week or
2, I would turn 2 actinics and 2 white bulbs on, I wouldn't even consider
turning the MH on until I know the problem has gone away.  Add as much
turbo snails as you can afford and scrub any algae that shows up.  If
you have read the Jan issuse of FAMA, you'll know that turbo snail are
only effective with short new growth of hair algae, they won't touch
the long full grown stuff.  Then you wait, and pray.  If purple and
pink coralline algae starts to show up, then you may have the battle
won.  If you can't get coralline algae to grow on your rock, you had it.
The easiest solution to your problem is of course, chuck your rock and
buy coralline covered rock and start all over again.  Coralline covered
rock used to be consider cheap base rock (got mine at $2 a lb) and now
people have learn that marco algae rocks are bad, price for coralline
rock has gone up quit a bit (like $8 a lb).  I wish people would keep
it quite about the good stuff for less deals :).

>I was thinking I should get some macro algae to grow and that
>would choke out the light for the hair algae?

	Dont' bother, it won't work.  If you have a really bad hair algae
problem, nothing will grow.  Even if it work, you are just replacing one
problem with another.  Macro algae are bad stuff too.

>I was thinking maybe I should have bought a RO unit instead
>of a ozone generator.  I must have too many nutrients and/or
>phosphates?   What will remove phosphates from my water?

	Weren't you listening when I posted all those negative posts about
ozone :)?  IMHO, ozone is useless.  I have an ozone generator and I
don't use it.  Both RO & DI will remove phosphate,
but that will not solve your problem.  I have a DI unit, and I have 2
tanks, one with coralline covered rocks, one with mostly bare boulders,
nitrate and phosphate are near zero in both tank, but the one with
bare boulders has a hair algae problem, and the one with coralline rocks
is totally and completely hair algae free.

-Anthony
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