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goochesfish
02/06/2010, 10:25 PM
What's the best way to test for phosphates? Salifert and ATI come out zero but i still have hair algae

Octoshark
02/06/2010, 10:30 PM
One reason could be the hair algae absorbs all of the phosphates from the water column so then when you go to test for them they are no longer there to give a reading because they have already been consumed by the algae.

falconut
02/06/2010, 10:35 PM
Octoshark, beat me to it. If there is algae, then there are phosphates and nitrates. You'll just need to lower them. If you havea reactor, you can use some GFO or similar or just do multiple water changes. Try testing your nitrates. When I had my year long algae problem, my phosphates were always reading 0, but my nitrates always read something. I did larger water changes and bought a reactor and added GFO. The algae slowly went away and has stayed away for a while now. I still occationally run a small amount of GFO mixed with carbon in the reactor. HTH

costellow
02/06/2010, 10:42 PM
what's GFO?

Octoshark
02/06/2010, 10:46 PM
what's GFO?

Granular Ferric Oxide

Ferric just refers to iron, but with a specific charge (iron can take on more than one charge so you have to note which one).

Octoshark
02/06/2010, 10:50 PM
GFO and Phosphates on ReefKeeping:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-11/rhf/index.php

Randy Holmes-Farley
02/07/2010, 10:49 AM
Some people get distracted if you say they need to "lower" nitrate and phosphate when they cannot detect any, when a better description might be to intercept them before the algae gets them. You really do not need, and sometimes cannot even use phosphate measurements to do this. Rather, you just increase the export of nutrients with GFO, skimming, organic carbon dosing, refugia, etc. :)

goochesfish
02/07/2010, 10:48 PM
Some people get distracted if you say they need to "lower" nitrate and phosphate when they cannot detect any, when a better description might be to intercept them before the algae gets them. You really do not need, and sometimes cannot even use phosphate measurements to do this. Rather, you just increase the export of nutrients with GFO, skimming, organic carbon dosing, refugia, etc. :)

The frustrating thing is when I've done all of the above and still have hair algae. I bought a very small tuxedo urchin today so hopefully it can get in the nooks and crannies of the live rock better.I also aimed flow towards the rock. BTW, I only have algae on 1 rock at the bottom of course! The hair algae problem began probably from over feeding by my pet sitter. My fault since I set aside daily feedings that was too much volume.

I thought about the vodka dosing but am afraid of what might happen when I'm away on vacation and can't dose.