Live rock question-Algae

[carmexx]

I have some large peices of live rock in a 30 gallon reef tank that are almost covered in hair algae. There are no corals on these pieces of rock. I want to clean these rocks. What is the best way and can I prevent growth of hair algae on them after I clean them? BTW I don't want to kill the snails and pods and such in the rocks when I clean them.

Basically I am looking for the best way to rid myself of this hair algae now before I need the rock ledges to perch coral onto. I don't wanna affect my bioload so I am gonna do one rock at a time. What do you think?

[lcstorc]

That is a multi part question.
As far as cleaning the rock, I would do it after a water change. Take the old water and put it in a container of an appropriate size. Then put the rock/s in and scrub away. A stiff toothbrush is a good option.
You may need to do this more than once.
Ultimately to get rid of it and prevent it is to remove the food it needs to grow. The food is excess organics. Watch what and how much you are feeding. Skim heavy and lots of water changes.

[carmexx]

Well I am in the midst of a water change now. I pulled the rock and scrubbed it . I am wondering if i should let it sit out for a couple of days and scrub it again to get all the hair algae. I've even heard of people cooking the rock to kill this stuff.

[yungreefer2410]

if you srub it and get ride of whatever its feeding on it will stop coming back, eventually. this make take a handfull of scrubs

[Bigjacko]

This is fantastic info. I to have a bit of a GHA algae bloom and want to rid my tank of it. I did however today purchase an Emerald crab which as I type is going daft over the GHA and munching away

[OHreefer]

I have a couple emerald crabs and an anemone crab and they eat algae, but not fast enough. I recently found out that phosphates can be leached from carbon, so I'm going to try use an activated carbon that has phosphate remover mixed into it. Hopefully the hair algae will go away. It's SOOOOOOOOOOOO annoying!!!

[carmexx]

Yeah I hear ya on that one. I use Chemi pure elite which has some GFO to remove phosphates in it . Everytime I test for phosphates i come up with zero. I am still tempted to freeze the rock or cook it to kill all the algae.

[BLAKEJOHN]

You do not literally cook the rock. Just FYI

[carmexx]

Then what would one actually do?

[Clownfish518]

Scrubbing the rock without addressing the cause won't fix the problem - the hair algae will keep coming back.

What I like to do is use a refugium and grow chaeto in it to help use up excess nutrients. You might also think about planting your aquarium with macro algaes to compete with hair algae for the available nutrients - many macros are quite attractive. And if you are not setup to run a refugium, you can get one of those pod hotels from Big Jay and grow chaeto in the tank itself.

An algae turf scrubber is another good idea

Do you rinse your food? Unless you use a product like Rods Fish Food, the fish food on the market is very high in PO4. The preservatives in it are major contributors.

I do planted aquariums, do no GFO at all, and have no hair algae problems.

[carmexx]

I do use Rod's food. I currently have a 5 gallon sump but not enough room in there to grow chaeto.

[Sapphire]

I certainly agree that regardless of what you have in terms of CUC etc that to get rid of the algae you need to address the actual cause (as others have said)

In NZ we can't have crabs etc so it's much more difficult to control algae with the 'band-aid' type solutions like crabs. it really is about makng sure the algae has nothing to feed on - and that in the end that is usually about reducing feeding, increasing water change amount/frequency etc. Activated carbon is good, and you can use other products like phosguard etc.

[l3fty999]

In addition to rinsing food or using food low in phosphates, you may want to pay very close attention to how much the other organisms in your tank are actually eating. I had a problem like that before and tried many remedies, but in the long run I found that I was just over feeding. Believe me, it doesn't take much.

Take care
Aaron

[Sapphire]

totally agree!

[BLAKEJOHN]

"Cooking" LR is a term used for the process of curing uncured LR. It involves placing LR into a container with vigorous circulation and aggressive skimming, allowing it to "cook" for a week or two covered with no light. Some people will do water changes during the process, some don't. It allows the dead and dyeing material to decompose outside the actual DT.
AKA curing live rock