back to green hair algae.

[thorton]

I know this is a dead horse but, I've been around the block and can't beat this last bout with GHA. SG. 1.022, nitrate under 5 and dropping fast, ph 8.1, phos. under .2 and cal. over 450. I have not checked alk. but, with ph and cal. in check alk. must be as well. I only run MH lights for 4 hrs a day 6 under dual actinic. so, I'm unsure of issue with green hair algae. I have reef devil skimmer and skimmate is normal nothing out of norm. as well I have 2 large bags of elimiphos in sump and still no resolve. Little background. 75 gal. reef. durso, wet/ dry for a 250 gal. tank convered to berlin. no bio balls, no refugium, only true filters are poly filter between sump dump to return pump and reef devil for mechanical filtering. tryed to answer any questions that usually come up. any ideas?

[madcowz]

Are you using RO/DI? Whats the TDS of the water? What are you feeding? How many fish? There are a ton of ways for excess nutrients to get in your tank.

[thorton]

yes, ro/di with fresh filters and I test that water too. no nitrate/phos. I was feeding tank every 3 -4 days. I have not fed in a week. In 75 gal. I have 8 fish total none over 4in. so I know that bio load is more than suffecient ofr the size. I do have about 150 lb of LR qnd a 4" SB.

[DarthBaiter]

Three days with no light did wonders for my tank. I taped garbage bags all around it and on top to make sure no light got in. All my animals did fine as did the few coirals I have int he tank right now, but 90% of the hair algae turned grey and is getting blown off by the P.H.s.

[Dewey58]

Hey Thorton,
You don't by chance have a Perfecto tank with a corner overflow?
Their corner overflows have a removalble plate that must be cleaned on a regular basis. Otherwise, the gunk builds up.
HTH
Dewey

[reptilemanmark]

How long has this tank been running. I recently lost my pump on my skimmer and went with a smaller pump. Less bubbles but it seem to be skimming it caused a bunch of problems. Hair algae & red slime algae for about 2 months. I broke down and bought a bigger pump within a couple of days everything cleared up. I'm getting some nasty stuff out of the skimmer again for about a week now. I never thought that the skimmer wasn`t working right until now!

[thorton]

I have considered the skimmer as possible issue it is a reef devil and I'm running the CA1800 that came with it. I may stop today and get a mag 7. Otherwise, I may just black bag the tank for a few days and try first. To answer previous question I have an all glass 75g. with mega flow. I clean it often. As well I have ordered 4 koralia #2 pumps in an effort to step up the current in the tank to help the live rock filter better.

[madcowz]

What are you testing po4 with?

[thorton]

salifert test kit.

[Monstrigity]

A po4 reading of .2 is very high. In fact that is Ideal for growing hair algea. A lot of people with hair algea read 0 for po4 because the algea is using it up as fast as it enters the water, so imagine what yours would read with no hair algea. Get a phosphate reacter and some GFO and try to improve other methods of nutrient export (skimming, refugium, water changes). You will most likely want to replace the GFo on a weekly basis until the algea is gone.

[Monstrigity]

Also, remember that when the algea starts to die it will release po4 back into the water colum, so manual removal is very helpful.

[thorton]

hmmm. sorry. GFO is a new one for me. :confused:
.2 high really? that is the lowest the tester goes.... ? before it is under the scale.. btu, I have algae none the less. I will have this issue resolved in one way or the other by the end of the weekend.

[Monstrigity]

GFO is granular ferric oxide. Rowa Phos, Phosar, Phosban are all GFO's. You should aim for<.02 po4. So yes, .20 is very high, 10x higher than it should be. Even if you were showing 0.0000 po4 you still have phosphates bound up in your rock, sand and the algae itself. To compound this problem, hobby grade test kits are very inaccurate down to the levels that are useful. It is highly unlikely that this problem will be resolved by the end of the weekend. I would be looking at weeks to months with good husbandry for the problem to slowly fade away.

[Mavrk]

I totally agree with using a phosban reactor filled with GFO. Personally I rocommend PHOSar.

[thorton]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12148109#post12148109 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Monstrigity
GFO is granular ferric oxide. Rowa Phos, Phosar, Phosban are all GFO's. You should aim for<.02 po4. So yes, .20 is very high, 10x higher than it should be. Even if you were showing 0.0000 po4 you still have phosphates bound up in your rock, sand and the algae itself. To compound this problem, hobby grade test kits are very inaccurate down to the levels that are useful. It is highly unlikely that this problem will be resolved by the end of the weekend. I would be looking at weeks to months with good husbandry for the problem to slowly fade away.

I'm sorry I was at work when I was answering questions... I checked my test kit when I got home. it was .02 not .2 sorry. Yea I have put 2 bags of elimiphos in the sump so we will see how we go. I'll keep you guys informed. Thanks in advanced for the help.

[thorton]

well got a mag 7 for the skimmer. Imop they should sell that with the CA1800 what a difference. Took the skimmer out and cleaned it. WHOA. talk about full of Crud. Got that tuned back up. put felt filter on exaust from durso to sump and exhaust from skimmer solved all my micro bubble issues. will have to wait for protien to build back up in skimmer to see tru effects. manually removed about 50% of hair algae by hand. No if I can just get my darn diamondback goby to stay in the tank I will be happy. I had to fish him out of the overflow by removing the durso and dump him to the sump. :rollface:

[thorton]

well I'll keep posting to my own topic =) Woke up this am and the skimmer broke in over the night. I got up and checked it @ 9 and was blowing foam out from the collection cup. re-tuned and watching... still ahve not seen the diamond goby since I got him back in the display.... time will tell. Oh if you have an ETSS reff devil..... get up from the keyboard and go clean it. I'm still in shock.