Help removing HA from around animals

[ibanez2k]

Been fighting this HA mess for about a month now in my 10g nano. I've got my params pretty much down perfect now. I do a 25% water change every 3 days and feed my 2 fish only a very, very tiny bit every 4 days (feel like I'm almost starving them but I'm trying to get out all the nutrients from the tank). I have two pieces of LR that are my main problems. They are LOADED with HA! Only thing is they both have animals on them as well, lots of yellow polyps and mushrooms. I don't know how to remove all the HA without disturbing the animals. The poor yellow polyps have elongated themselves out to get to the light since the HA around it is now 4 or 5 inches long. What can I do for these. At this point both of these little rocks are loaded with phosphates and are feeding the algae. Maybe I should just try to remove the yellow polyps and mushrooms from those rocks to my rocks that aren't covered with HA and just get rid of the HA rocks? Any advice from the experts? Thanks soooo much!

[zero186]

i am feel your pain i just had to pull my Mushroom rock out last night and do its weekly HA cleaning i love my shrooms but fraging them is to much work and i wont fix the problem.

just shooting in the dark on this one. would putting them in a QT type of tank that isnt getting any food (b.c of no fish) help to kill off the HA?

i was reading today about Seahares seem to be HA worst nightmare as well

[mcbunnymama]

just rented a sea hare from lfs today- so far he is going to town on the HA- you can follow my thread- I need an attack plan for my HA to see what hasnt worked so far- good luck!

[ibanez2k]

yeah, sea hare's look like they chomp that stuff down pretty good. I wish I could get one here in the middle of nowhere. Ugg. Closest LFS is a two hour drive from me. I've only bought livestock from two online stores, Blue Zoo Aquatics and Reef Hot Spot. I buy from them because they are fairly close (at least comparatively to others) and have good service. Neither of them carry sea hares. I don't really want to get one either cause it'd die after all my algae was gone. AHHH!! This stuff is frustrating. I just want it to go away. I blast the rocks with a baster, do regular water changes with clean distilled water and Instant Ocean salt and feed very little as it is and only have my tank under full lighting for 8 hours a day (full lighting for me is 40 watts of PC bulbs (10k and actinic). Just trying to starve this algae out but on these two particular small rocks the HA has gone CRAZY and has built up a good turf I'm sure. It's blocking out light from the animals on the rocks and I don't know what to do. I absolutely LOVE my tank but just hate this HA.

[YLChik]

you have got a good start on it by getting your water parameters in check and doing regular water changes

You can trim the HA, or pull it out manually from the rocks that it is on in order to get your corals more light. It will go away eventually if you keep up on tank maintenance.

Remember it didn't get there over night and it won't go away over night either

[ibanez2k]

Thanks WLChik, it most certainly didn't get there overnight so Im prepared for this to take a while. Thanks for the encouragement. What is good for trimming HA? I have some large forceps I got from Marine Depot that work great for pulling chunks but it mostly just thins it and leaves long strands in between. This stuff is nasty. I keep wondering if I should set up a fuge with some macro algae but I hear alot of mixed things about that.