Hair Algae Invasion

[Opaela]

For some weird reason, hair algae( very thin and flimsy ) starts appearing in my tanks. I have been manually taking them out and even remove all my macro algae too in one of my tank just to completely remove the roots of those things. But they always come back! I remember I didn't have those when I started my tank.

It's bad for the shrimp because I saw they struggle escaping from it. Also I had to remove the prominent oxygen source(macro algae) from my tank to stop hair algae spreading. Do you guys have the same issue? Will oxygen be an issue when I remove all my visible algae?

[Zlatan2601]

Hi,
Sorry i cannot help but i trust others can. Would it be possible sending a picture of it?

[mike.d]

You won't be able to remove all the algae so oxygen won't be a problem. You have a cycled tank. You can try to remove all the algae but you won't be able to; At least not without taking the tank apart and washing it out.

Also, I thought there was gas exchange at the surface. I might be wrong about that...

These shrimp starve for years in EcoSpheres. You'd have more algae growth long before that.

I had hair algae in my tank when I first set it up. (I used rocks straight from a freshwater tank that had hair algae problems. I think some hitched a ride on some marimo I bought from Amazon.) I took out the marimo and picked out all the hair algae I could see. Two years later it's back again but not as bad. I'll get in there one of these days and get it out again.

[Opaela]

Thanks for the reply guys. Sorry I can't provide a picture( too hard to capture by camera). I am removing them once in a while and it's not very troublesome to me. However, I am still curious if this is a concern to other folks too.

[Super Jess]

I had hair algae appear out of nowhere, too. I just pull it out with long tweezers whenever I see some, and after doing it for a while it now takes longer and longer to reappear. I think it's just one of those things, a war of attrition. We'll win eventually!

[Oople]

I have a hair algae problem too and I’m not sure what triggered it. It’s growing on almost all the rocks in my tank and it’s attached so don’t pull out easily. I just try to remove what I can and haven’t fed them for over a year. It’s hasn’t gotten worse in the last month so I’m counting that as progress.

[Vorteil]

It seems that there are nutrients in the tank that are feeding the hair alage. Probably the waste from the opae. What about a partial water change? Ihad the same issue before. I would always pick out the hair algae by fingers. Eventually I did a partial water change and that helped. There's still a lot of surface algae and biofilm in the tank for feeding on. I also have the macro algae in there too.