Phosphorous or phosphates? Or is that the same thing. Mine has been going on now since September. Much worse than Dr4gonf1y.

I would post a pic of the entire tank, but too embarassed.

I have no Nitrates and all parameter are fine. Phosphates show 0.

More flow and snails should help you out.

Try feeding a little less. Especially the tang. It should encourage her to eat more hair algae.

Maybe try ROWA Phos.

I am surprised the phosphates are zero. How about lighting? Does anyone think about cutting the lighting way back? I've heard urchins eat it like crazy. I never used them since my tank settled down.

Did you test change water with a tds meter? What does it read?

Other than phosphates I noticed early on that your Nitrates were not zero. I have and still am fighting the same problem. I'm winning if that counts for anything.

My tanks are only about 7 months old since we moved and both the reef and the FOWL (They share the same water source) had/have HA problems. The reef tank is clean now and the other is well on its way. Most of the HA in the problem tank is dying off, which actually looks worse than when it was green, and I have to remove the dead clumps. Where the HA has died it's not coming back.

So.. back to the nitrates. Something is feeding you HA and nitrates will do that. My refugium has about 10" of sand to help complete the nitrogen cycle and my Nitrates, Phosphates, Nitrites, and Ammonia are all zero. I also have a really large EuroReef skimmer to eliminate any nutrients from the water. My HA is starving to death, but it takes some time. Like months once it starts to go.

Good luck.

I'll bet the PO4 source is being leached out from the Rocks. You are probably only testing .5 because the HA is using it up so fast.

Here's another though and something I do. Try dripping Kalk, it will cause the phosphates to precipitate out of the water column.

Well, here is something odd. A few weeks ago, prior to my start of ha in the main tank, I took a rock out of the main tank and put it in the qt tank. (I didn't like the placement of the rock and so put it in the qt tank until I decide where I want it). The qt has been empty for some time. No fish so no feeding. We tested all parameters over this weekend in the qt as we plan on putting something in it this week. I just looked at the qt tank and there is a small patch of ha growing on that rock. The lights have been off all this time, no feeding at all, and ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphates and silicates are all zero.

So, if the common belief that overfeeding and phosphates are the cause of ha (as well as possible lighting problems), why is this ha starting in the qt tank??????? Remember, that rock went into the qt prior to any ha appearing in the main display tank.

Lossman, you are correct, you can have hair algae with no food, and no fish and little light. Food and light will just make it grow more. You can take clean seawater with nothing in it and put it outside for a couple of weeks and it will grow algae, for a while.
After the algae exhausts the nutrients in the water, it will die.
Thats why I have been getting algae cycles in my reef for over thirty years. I know that it will disappear on it's own as long as I don't change the water at least for a few weeks or a month, maybe two, as long as it takes. The first thing that people do with HA is change the water, if you read all the posts on HA look at how much water is being changed. It will not help and will probably add to the problem.
Take care.
Paul

Actually, we haven't changed the water in about 3 weeks, only because nothing has been in there and we weren't overly concerned about the water quality. We have a hob filter as well as the airstone with bio sponge in the tank so there is plenty of water movement as well as filtration. Just odd that it started growing like that with little to no nutrients going into the tank.

I'm in the process of battling the HA as well. It's been a several month process, but it's finally starting to recede. I had algae that looked like the pics posted, so it was pretty bad. The only thing that helped me was that I knew what the culprit was. I had a RBTA that died in my tank while I was away on a long trip, so by the time I got back, my tank looked like a forest. It was pretty depressing because I lost just about everything, but atleast I knew that I only needed to get rid of all the excess nutrients.

What I've been doing to get my tank closer to its old form is more diligent maintenance such as cleaning out the skimmer and doing the water changes. I also had to manually remove the HA biweekily because I think that the HA fuels itself. I figured that if I manually removed as much HA as possible, I'd slowly start removing trients as well.

So now I'm at the point where I don't even need to do the manual removing of the HA. I just let the snails chomp down the algae.

My only suggestion is to continue with the water changes, pull out as much of the HA as you can, and to make sure you're skimming well. Good luck with your battle.

PaulB,

Thats a really good point about water changes. Do you think it would have the same effect on Bubble Algae?

Also...If you use RO/DI, would you still not reccomend changing water?

Sindjin, I don't know if it would work on bubble algae, I never get that but hair algae I have been dealing with for fifty years.
Paul

Oh Well. Thanks anyway.
Never get Bubble Algae?
If you want some, let me know....I'll send a bushel or two!

:)

TDS Meter finally arrived today.

Tap Water no treatment = 57

DI only water = 2

I don't think your chemistry is the problem. I reckon you need to focus on the biology.

For a start, I can't see a single snail, crab or other type of cleaner in your pics. You have no hope of controlling algae without a decent CUC.

Also, I wonder about your gas exchange. Algae also use CO2.

Light compertition is low, too.

Going without partials is a bad idea, I think, and could only work for a limited time, if at all, as you will need to change water at some stage. Besides, most reefers can make regular partials and have little trouble with algae. Perhaps it will help to get on top of the situation before adding a goodsom CUC.

You really need to go back to basics because all of this complication doesn't seem to be helping you much.

Algae would dominate on natural, pristine reefs if it wasn't for the grazing animals that we use in our CUCs.

A CUC is very helpful and will improve your situation more than any other measure. Without a large CUC you will be chasing your tail as nothing will deal with the continuous growth of algae with the same effeciency. You can't eliminate algae, you must control/deal with it. A CUC is your best tool for this.

The only place I have noticable algea is in my fuge where the grazers can't get at it.

Roll up your sleves and start pulling the GHA off of the rocks etc dip your fingers into a bowl of fresh and repeat until you have removed as much of the GHA as possible. Bend the head of a tooth brush and zip tie it to the end of a water change hose. As you siphon off water scrub with the tooth brush. Reduce feedings. Do 10% Water changes weekly until you have removed most of the GHA. This process took me 4 months to remove all the GHA in my tank. Once you get control of it Run carbon and keep your skimmer going 24 7.

Right now CUC consists of:

25 - Blue Legged Hermits
20 - Scarlet Hermits
1 - Pincushion Urchin
1 - Lettuce Leaf Nudibranch
1 - Sand Sifting Star
1 - Lawnmower Blenny

I'm not a big fan of snails. They only ever seem to work on the glass.

Dr4g0nf1y,

You started this thread 6/05.

Have you Cooked your Rocks?

Very much agreed. I have two 210 gal tanks that share the same water source. The reef tank has the standard CUC and grazers, the other has a porcupine puffer, tusk, and Passer angel--obviously no CUC (that would be expensive fish food). The reef is clean while I still battle HA in the other. I'm winning the battle in the other, but most likely because of the reef and FUGE that are depriving the overgrown tank of nutrients.

Even a few snails, hermits and emerald crabs will make a world of difference provided everything else is right.

Sorry.. this is off topic but I just noticed Sindjin's tagline and I couldn't hardly breathe from laughing.

The thought of an inland ocean springing up in florida just struck me as funny.

Back to the thread at hand. Rock cooking, is something I'm going to have to try and talk the wife into accepting. Being that it's the middle of a deep freeze here the last couple of days, I'd be doing this in the house. The thought of tubs of sewage like decaying matter in the house isn't at all something I wanna spring on her while she's at work.

Assuming the pond has an average depth of 3 ft. using Oceanic Salt mix he would need approximately 2100 pounds to reach 1.024 SG.

Still off topic, but qualifies as boring fact of the day.

Thanks for the compliment on my Sig. :)
Just imagine the Closed Loop Id need!
:)


dkeller...

Thanks for tha stat!
:lol:


I would definately Cook your rocks. You have been dealing with this far too long.

OMG IM SO FRUSTRATED! I finaly found the time to do a 50% water change.... so i take out all the stuff, and half of the water... I siphoned and got all the junk out of my sand bed, so now i go to put the water in, and I see a thin blanket of green covering EVERYTHING in the tank, and the water is all cloudy! I just siphoned ALL the stuff, and in the prosess took out 50% of the water, and im left with a dirty tank? What do I do I dont want to take out any more water, but at the same time I dont want all this junk floating arround.