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Within the first month of setting up my 75 gallon saltwater tank, I had hair algae. Just a little at first, but then it seems to almost take over the tank within just a few days.

If you aren’t familiar with hair algae, consider yourself blessed. Hair algae is this dark green hair like algae that grows on your sand bed, rocks, filters, power heads, snails, etc. Green hair algae seems to grow on just about anything and I swear if you watch it long enough I think you can even see it growing!

I purchased a clean-up crew from Saltwaterfish.com consisting of various types of algae eating snails, along with a lawnmower blenny. They made a dent in it, but it seemed to come back almost as quickly as the clean-up crew consumed it.

Turns out, green hair algae is a common problem in saltwater aquariums, but not normal. The most common cause is something called phosphate (PO4). Phosphates serve as the primary food for bad algae such as hair algae. Phosphates come from different sources, but primarily unfiltered tap water and common saltwater aquarium products like carbon, sea salt mixes, and various buffers.

My initial hair algae problem was due to using tap water to make up my saltwater mixture. Don’t EVER use tap water in a saltwater aquarium. Dechlorinated or not, tap water contains minerals and chemicals that will negatively impact you water quality. My original hair algae problem was resolved by both beginning to use RO/DI water and by maintaining near perfect water conditions and mineral levels. This is achieved by frequently testing your water, adjusting your various chemical levels with supplements, and by doing frequently water changes. Within a week, my hair algae died and was gone. My tank stayed pristine for weeks. It was gorgeous, beautiful white sand and Coraline covered rocks.

The return of the Hair Algae

Some weeks later, I noticed few small areas of hair algae starting to appear again. I didn’t think much of it as I hear of many very experienced hobbyists having small hair algae blooms here and there. Well, a few weeks later and my tank was again covered with it. All of my live rock and sand is covered with 2-3″ strands of dark green hair algae!! This hair algae was far worse than the last, the stuff was everywhere.

What did I do wrong? Why did it return? At first I didn’t have a clue. But I started aggressively attacking it by:

• Purchasing a Clean-up Crew - I purchased a clean-up crew consisting of snails, hermit grabs, lettuce nudi-branch, and some sea cumbers. I also bought another lawnmower blenny.  Check out Saltwaterfish.com, I’ve had great success with them.
• Doing frequent water changes - I started changing 10-15% of my water weekly, both to reduce phosphate levels and to replenish the tank with necessary nutrients.  I wrote about a how I do water changes a while back.
• Reduced my feeding - I cut back on how much I was feeding, switching to every other day rather than daily. I also payed close attention to not feeding them more than they could eat in 5 minutes.
• I wet skimmed - I lowered the collection cup on my skimmer to begin wet skimming instead of dry skimming. This would remove more nutrients from the water and hopefully pull out any algae spores in the water.
• Filled my canister filter with Phosban - Phosban is a phosphate absorbing product. I filled two micro bags full and placed them in my canister filter to absorb any excess phosphate that might be feeding the algae.
• Purchased a TDS Meter - I also bought a TDS meter to ensure my RO/DI water was pure. The meter showed 3, which isn’t perfect but well under the required 5. TDS meters are inexpensive and will provide a level of confidence on the quality of water you are placing in your tank.
• Manually pulled the algae out - I had read that an effective way to remove hair algae was to physically pluck it out. We did this almost nightly for weeks. It did help, but didn’t solve the problem.

None of these things made a difference, at least not to the algae. I’m sure my water quality overall went way up which made my fish very happy, but the algae continued to grow. Our tank looked gross. The biggest problem was that we were in the process of trying to sell our house, and my aquarium is one of the first things you notice when you walk into the house.

Nitrates

I headed back out on the internet and continued reading about hair algae and the causes. I’m not sure how I missed it, but while Phosphates are on of the main causes of hair algae, high nitrate levels are as well. I continued to read focusing on nitrates and trying to identify the cause of the high nitrate levels. Turns out, canister filters and their filter media can serve as Nitrate beds and cause high levels of Nitrates. I immediately turned off my canister filter.

We continued manually removing the green hair algae and low and behold it stopped coming back. What we couldn’t remove slowly started turning brown and presently there is only a small amount left. It will take some time for the decayed algae to go away and my tank to look pristine again, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel. The canister filter was the problem all along!

Ongoing, I won’t be running my canister filter all the time. I’ll only use it for short periods of time to polish the water, run carbon or other buffering products (like Phosban). Going forward, I’ll rely solely on my protein skimmer and live rock to keep my tank clean and filtered.

I hope I never see hair algae in my tank again!

I’ve had 2 false Percula clown fish almost since the very beginning of starting my 75 gallon aquarium. My first fish was a blue damsel that lived through the initial cycle and is still alive today, although a far fatter than he used to be. My clowns were the next two additions to the tank.

It was really a toss up as to which were my favorite fish, my 2 Percula clowns or my flame red hawk fish. Unfortunately my decision was made for me last week when “Red” as we called him was found dead one morning. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I guess fish sometimes die for no apparent reason. Losing him or her was tough though as both myself and my family grew to really like him. If you are looking for a fish with some beautiful color and personality, get a red hawk fish. I swear “Red” was more like a dog than a fish!

Anyway, back to my clowns. I tried my first anemone about 3 months ago, a blue Condylactis. They were really inexpensive at the local pet store and I was really hoping my clown fish would host in them. They didn’t even give it a second look. Each day I’d wake up hoping I would find them nestled in it’s testicles, but not such luck.

Saltwaterfish.com had a special a month or so ago on Curly Q Anemones. I didn’t think the clowns would like them, but again they were inexpensive and neat looking. I figured it wouldn’t hurt. They arrived and took up their positions in my tank.The clowns?  They could care less. They hung out by the same rock outcropping in my reef they had been at for more than a year. By the way, the Curly Q Anemones aren’t near as pretty in my aquarium as I thought they would be. A few people have mistaken them for algae! Personally, I wouldn’t purchase them again.

A carpet anemone

I was off from work today as my wife had what we thought was going to be an all day commitment. Turns out she only needed to stay for the morning, so we headed out to grab some lunch together while the kids were in school. On the way home, we stopped off at the local pet shop. They had a beautiful purple colored carpet anemone. It was a little steep in price, but not too bad. It looked very healthy, so I decided to try one more time to find my little clowns a “house” to live in.

Christmas Tree Rock

While having the clerk fish out the anemone, my wife found something pretty neat called a “Christmas Tree Rock“. Its a rock covered in coral, that contains what looks like multi-colored and tree shaped feather dusters. I had never heard of this before. I’ve learned the hard way a few times to not purchase anything without researching it first, but since it was the last one they had I didn’t want to miss out on this little find either. So I pulled my Blackberry out and did a little surfing.

While Christmas Tree Rock aren’t easy to keep, they didn’t seem to hard either. Just basic filter feeders that require low light and don’t like to be in an area with too much motion. I had the perfect place in my 75gallon, so I asked the clerk to bag up the Christmas Tree Rock as well.

In the tank

I floated them both for about a half hour and opened the bags. I did the Christmas Tree Rock first, placing it in that perfect location. I them opened up the Carpet Anemone. I poured both the anemone and water into the net. Another lesson I learned a while back is to NEVER put water from the pet store in your tank. With Anemone minus water in the net, I placed it in the tank, below where my clown fish hang out.

The Carpet Anemone didn’t land exactly where or how I wanted it (my wife said it looked like it was showing it’s butt to us), so I reached in to move him. Unlike other anemones I’ve dealt with with in the past, these guys are sticky! REAL sticky. So instead of using my hand, I used the net to position it.

We watched things for a while. The clowns were curious, but didn’t look like they intended to go too near it. My kids came home from school, and we all gathered around the tank watching the new additions. A bit later, my wife and I headed to the grocery store to pick up some dinner.

Upon returning we were greeted at the door with a loud “Dad! The clown fish are in the Anemone!!!!”. What??? No way!!! I rushed to the tank and sure enough both clowns were in the anemone. The female in particular. She was having a blast, nuzzling it, rubbing herself all around in it and cleaning it out. The male kept trying, but she would push him out. He was a persistent little guy though and she finally let him in.

I was grinning from ear to ear. My little clowns had finally hosted in an anemone, and not just any anemone a really beautiful and rather large carpet anemone. I asked my wife to snap some pictures. My favorite is the second picture in this article.

Ah, the joys of a saltwater aquarium! I know they are tough, and sometimes I just feel like quitting, but it’s moments like these that make it worth it. They are so cute!

I recently wrote about my battle with hair algae, and the battle still rages on.  While it has subsided some, it is still far to prevalent for me.   I had a bad outbreak of hair algae in my tank right after I first set it up as I was using de-chlorinated tap water.  I adjusted my water parameters to the correct levels and within a few weeks the hair algae was gone.

The beginnings of the hair algae

About 2 months ago, my snails suddenly started dieing and the hair algae returned, and with a vengeance.  I’m pretty confident that the death of my snails was caused by stray voltage in the tank.  I voltage issue was fixed by installing a ground probe.  I removed the snails as quickly as I could, but the hair algae continued to grow all over my live rock and overtaking my corals.

I again checked my water parameters and all where within acceptable range.  I then ordered some PhosBan and placed two bags of it in my canister filter in order to remove phosphates. Excess phosphates are the main cause of nuisance algae in a saltwater tank.  While I do believe the PhosBan helped, the algae was still there and still growing.

My routine over the past four weeks has consisted of checking my water parameters weekly, along with plucking the hair algae out of the tank by hand.  It just doesn’t seem to want to go away!

The good news is that I have some macro algae growing as well, which I hope will overtake the hair algae some.  I also added a new lawn mower blenny today as well.  Our old one, “blenny” as my kids named him decided to check out the inside of my powerhead.  Needless to say, he never returned.  Monday I’ll also order some turbo snails.  Hoping they can make a dent in it.

All out of ideas

Beyond what I’ve done, I’m all out of ideas at this point and open to any suggestions or ideas you may have.  Please respond via a comments with any ideas of perspective you may have.  My tank was gorgeous for more than 2 months, and now even though I’m using RO/DO water, checking maintaining my water parmeters, and doing weekly water changes, it is now full of ugly hair alge.