sevlar vs. the hair algae

[sevlar]

I don't want to jinx it by calling it too soon, but it looks like I've finally beaten my hair algae problem! Woo-hoo!

I thought I'd share my experiences in case it might help someone engaged in a similar battle.

I've had my present 34 g tank for a year and a half, and the hair algae went on the offensive last fall. It was a constant battle siphoning and scrubbing my rocks, and cleaning my overflow and powerhead intakes. After a water change it would look slightly better, only to get overrun in a few weeks. I thought I had a good system with a decent skimmer and a refugium with tons of chaeto, so obviously it was frustrating.

Anyway, here's a summary of my strategy, in chronological order, starting from about 8 months ago:

1. hair algae becoming a problem; took out most of my rocks and scrubbed them
2. tested parameters, nitrates < 5ppm; phosphates <0.25 ppm
3. increased water changes from 5 to 10 g every two weeks
4. bought 6 more margarita snails
5. replaced metal halide bulb to phoenix 150w 14K
6. bought 15 more margarita snails, 7 red-leg hermits
7. removed and scrubbed most of the rocks again; did 60% water change. algae kept coming back
8. after my flame angel died, I decided not to add another fish until the algae was under control. so I now only have 2 fish and feed them less
8. put activated carbon in my sump
9. put chemi-pure elite in my sump
10. installed baffles in my sump, added 3" DSB in the refugium section
11. thoroughly cleaned skimmer
12. added auto top-off system to keep salinity constant. algae STILL a problem
13. removed ALL rocks, scrubbed them, siphoned sand with gravel cleaner attachment, did 75% water change...and SUCCESS!!! The algae never came back and the remnants have been slowly declining over the last few weeks. Now there are only a few small tufts of it.

The lesson I eventually learned is that I apparently had a huge sink of nutrients in my sand bed that was not being removed with water changes.

Why didn't I think of that sooner???

[MustangBill]

Sometimes you learn the hard way, same thing happened to me a few years back excpet it was in a 200 gal tank,

[HandyCaptPuffer]

Interesting.

[elvis142]

maybe i should clean my sand? the damn hair is out of control!

[CNCreefer]

siphoned sand with gravel cleaner attachment

I am having a similar problem. What exactly is this gravel cleaner attachment?
In the 70's when I first started with aquariums, I had an electric gravel vac that had a cloth bag on it. I wish I still had it...I don't think they make them anymore.

[jcal]

Should just buy a couple of large sea hares...the big ones...they'll do the job in less than a week...that's my experience...

[sevlar]

I am having a similar problem. What exactly is this gravel cleaner attachment?
In the 70's when I first started with aquariums, I had an electric gravel vac that had a cloth bag on it. I wish I still had it...I don't think they make them anymore.

The thing I used is just a small cylinder that fits onto the 1/2" tubing I use to siphon. You stir up the sand with it and it sucks up small particles but leaves the sand. It's like this one: http://www.marineandreef.com/Pro_Cle...p/rpy06163.htm

As for using sea hares, I don't think they would've worked in my case. They'd have chomped all the algae but with the nutrients still in the sand it would've just come back like it always did.