Hair Algae!!...please Help?
 

Well....i am having a little bit of a hair algae problem left town and came back and now its like this....all my levels are fine..so i am not sure what it could be...put a bigger clean up crew in there (snails, etc) but they cant keep up with it. i do a 5 gallon water change every friday...and its a 29 gallon BC....sun hits it for about 1 hr direct each day before the lights turn on...? any suggestions...(mangroves?) please let me know and if anyone has anything they would like to give me to help let me know too thanks!
Tim

[IMG]http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e339/halami/M01A0005YELLOW.jpg[/IMG]

........

do bigger water changes and increase the flow along with a few more members of the CUC... more flow = less settling/growing of algae

Make sure you are using r/o water. Also how often are you feeding the fish?

feeding about every 2-3 days...will consider the flow part too?

you're lucky it's mostly on the back wall. Take a razor blade and scrape it off, then put a new hungry turbo in there to keep it cropped back. Remove as much as possible by hand then step up the water changes for a few days.

Phosphate is the primary fuel for hair algae. Tests will often show zero, but that's because the Algae is consuming it. Check your Alkalinity, when it drops, hair algae can get a foothold.

Sorry to get off topic, but any ideas from what could be causing green algae build up on my glass? I thought it was maybe due to the lights being on for to long possibly. Its in a 12G Nanocube Deluxe. I just added fish, but I don't think me feeding them are to blame since it was occurring before then slightly. Are you only supposed to feed every 2-3 days? Thanks in advance. Just thought I would spare starting a new thread and clogging the forums.

Get a good phosphate remover in the sump. Then you gotta pull out as much as you can. Growing macroalgae will help too.

Hi Al,
A sea hare would eat all of that up in a week, but you might want to test your food for phosphate. If it has it, you might want to change to formula 1...if you're feeding them flakes/pellets.

The question was asked but not answered:

RO/DI water used?

If not, when you do your water changes, chances are you're going to get new spurts of algae growth the next day.

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10711475#post10711475 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jimbo327 [/i]
[B]Get a good phosphate remover in the sump. Then you gotta pull out as much as you can. Growing macroalgae will help too. [/B][/QUOTE]

Yup. This is exactly what I did with my aquarium. Also, as was mentioned before, make sure that you are using RO/DI water.

lighting, flow, and a good cleanup crew will make a difference, but the quick and easy answer is to use RO/DI water and to use phosphate removal media.

I added a phosphate reactor to my sump and haven't had any issues since. The phosphate reactor I have (a two little fishes phosphate reactor) costs about 40 bucks. The biggest pain in the butt part is trying to either get another pump to feed water through the reactor or to plump a "T" into your return pump and direct a small portion of the flow to the reactor.

The reactor has more than enough room to hold all the phosphate media I need, plus a bag or two of chemi-pure (nitrate removal media) and carbon.

marine S.A.T. by TLC for marine aquariums, stuff is awesome.

link below is home page of product
[url]http://www.tlc-products.com/pages/1/index.htm[/url]

here is label of product
[url]http://www.tlc-products.com/images/Label_-_Marine_SAT.pdf[/url]

here is were to buy it
[url]http://www.aquaticexchange.com/product_info.php?cPath=203_477&products_id=1826[/url]