Water Stats & Pics of Problem

[Rv5]

as ive posted before, im battling a real serious hair algae problem. i did a complete rundown of water conditions and took some (bad) pics of the tank. for whatever reason, i cant ever get my tank pics to turn out worth beans, but hopefully you can at least see the type of algae. my filtration is simple, relying on a protien skimmer and a charcoal canister. its a 50 gallon tank. I did a 50% water change more towards the beginning of the year. heres my water stats:

alkalinity - 3.77
kh - 10.6
ph - 8.1 or 8.2
nitrite - 0
salinity - 1.023
amonia - 0
nitrate < 2

i know my alkalinity is high. how can i bring it down? is it related to the algae problem? if not, how to get rid of all this algae?

 

[Dubge]

Pull out as much as you can by hand.Becarful not to let any blow around the tank when you do or it will spread. Are you using tap or RO/DI water? Have you tested for Phosphate?
Do you have a fuge on the system? A fuge would help remove some of the nutriants that is feeding the hair algea.
I am also having a battle with it again after upgrading my tank from a 75 to a 120. I did more water changes and ran the lights on my fuge longer
last time and it was going away

 

[i2ik]

How long your tank is running?
If you just started, then you are on your cycling period.
What is your reef crew?
If you dont have a big enough, turbo snails are really good for this. I had the same problem 3 months ago and 5 turbo snails was much enough to get rid of the algea in 3 days (33G).

If not you can buy a salfin blenny that will eat everything out!
I see that you have some cyano (red slime algea) with its form my a high level of phosphate and lights. If you dont have any corals, it will be good to reduce the light time also and with times, everything will be dead as algea lived from photosynthesis.

Good luck
Richard

 

[i2ik]

By the way, for you camera, dont use flash and if you want to take a shot at that distance, use macro. i guess it will be much better :wink:

 

[joekr]

The turbos are great for hair algae if your cycle is over. Also, I bought a dedicated tooth brush for hair algae in the beginning of my setup and it worked like a champ to assist in the removal process!

 

[Ben1]

It could also be byropsis if it is looking more feathery then the typical hair algae. In your case it looks like it could be a P04 problem. I say this b/c from the photo it appears you had some nice coraline on the glass at one point which is now bleached and dead. This is usually caused by to much p04 stopping the calcification process.

I would do as others said and manually remove as much as possible, do a large 50-70% water change that the new water has the same pH and temp as the old water. And then run some carbon/rowaphos in a reactor. That should clear it up.

 

[Anonymous]

Your alkalinity is fine fwiw, I keep mine at 4meq/l

your nitrate is high, should not be detectable on an extablished reeftank, same with po4

do you have any form of algae predator? Ie a tang, rabbitfish, etc?

If you only did 1 water change this whole year, then the source is not the water change water (sense you dont do any!)

It's probably overfeeding, or underfiltration.

what type of skimmer?

What are you feeding, and how much?

How much tap water makup are you using, and have you ever tested the tap water for amonia/nitrite/nitrate/phosphate?

If it's got clorine/clormine in it, most of the chemicals that "remove" it simply bind it with phosphates which causes algae, this may have changed, as I have not done any research into tap water filtering sense I've had an RO/DI for almost 10 years.

 

[Rv5]

I do not use tap water, I use an RO system. The skimmer is hang on style remora, and I have a charcoal canister, which probably needs to be recharged. The tank is pretty well established, started in jan of this year. No predator fish, and my clearn crew of hermits and snails is running thin. I feed my fish mostly brine, but sometimes ill throw in some flakes. ill pull out as much as i can today, and get some turbo snails tomorrow. hopefully that will at least be a good first step.

 

[HClH2OFish]

How old is the charcoal canister? If it's too old, could be clogged w/detritus which could be providing food for the algael growth

 

[Dubge]

From what I have been told bring is loaded with phos