green hair algee, GGRRRR! how can i get rid of it?

What kind of clean up crew do you have? IMO the best GHA eaters are the Mexican Turbo's (really big snails) and of course a Sea Hair. The problem with the sea hair though is it ONLY eats GHA so once it's all gone, it'll starve to death. The Mexican Turbo's will eat pretty much all algae (mine have even eaten cyano before), but they're pretty clumsy and will knock over corals every now and then. You just need to make sure they're eating the algae you want. If they aren't near the GHA just pick them off the rocks and put them on the GHA and they'll start munchin away. Make them work for you.
How old is your tank?
 
How large is your tank? I'd add some more mexican turbo's if ya can. Just to let you know, I've got a 45 gallon tank with about 35 snails...mostly mexican turbos, and a couple crabs.
 
i had emeralds
and they died, but after they did they hair showed up
i never even saw them realy, mayb like twice in the 3 months i had them
 
You need to solve the nutrient problem first. Find out why you have excess nutrients in the tank. Are you over feeding? Under skimming? Putting more snails (waste) into the tank won't do a whole lot if you don't solve the nutrient issue.
 
the biggest thing to note here is what chris mentioned, what is causing the excess nutrients in the tank that is allowing the green hair algae to grow? yes, there are several methods to try and subdue it, but if you dont eliminate why its there in the first place you WILL have another breakout down the road. check the two things he mentioned carefully, likely the problems. i know i had an initial problem with overfeeding and the green hair algae started taking over. once i corrected that i could see its growth stunted and to get rid of it i turned out all lights for 3 days and i was clear.
 
I have to agree with a post above about finding out what is the cause of your extra nutrients.... in my case it was because of several things that built up over time *it took about a year before hair algae outbreak*....
Here is a summary of my causes and what I did to fix it
1. I had tried to reduce my water changes to 30 gallons every 4 weeks.
2. I tried to run my 150 without any extra powerheads in the main tank so not enough circulation
3. I also had not added any additional clean up crew in a long time.
These were my attempts to fix the issue and the last was the ultimate fix that worked!
1. I increased my water changes.... sucking off every piece of hair agae that I could only for it to return in full force by the next water change.
2. added lots of clean up crew.... Turbo snails are a waste of money in my opinon... they just die quickly..... Sea urchins work very well but cost more to add but do a great job in cleaning up EVERYTHING.... good and bad algae I noticed.
3. added 5 korola powerheads in the main tank placed all over the tank for overall extra circulation.
Mind you all the above were of small assistance to the bad hair algae problem..... then came the fix.....
I went to my local fish store and they had a 90 gallon tank that had been neglected for awhile and had a simular hair algae issue as my tank. They hired a new young worker that took out every piece of rock in this tank and he scrubbed it with a brush to get all the hair algae off.... the tank looks great now and still does now... So after much frustration with my hair algae and watching how the store tank was staying clear of hair algae I decided to try this overhaul method with my tank.... I took over a 1/2 day to this project.... I did a water change then slowly took out each rock and used a small brush to clean the rocks and rinse each one in used salt water and I also had to be carefull brushing rocks not to damage any of the coral attached to the rocks. This was a long process but WORTH the effort...I was surprised with all the debrie that came off the rocks when they were rinsed... I think this was the extra nutrient build up that was causing my hair algae issue. The tank today is doing very well now and all the corals are open and happy. Hopefully with all the new routine changes my tank will be able to maintain itself and not get a high level of extra nutrients again. Its been a few months now since this overhaul and all if GOOD... I'm happy to report! :D This was my first and hopefully last experience with HAIR ALGAE! :wink:
 
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