Would Purigen help with my nitrates...and hair alg..

jden092901 · #1 12/23/2007, 05:25 PM

I want to get some Purigen...would that help with my nitrates and hair alage...my rates are at 5...but want them lower..sometimes there at 10, but not often.

Josh

kau_cinta_ku · #2 12/23/2007, 05:28 PM

it prob. won't help much. do you have a phosban reactor? my guess is your phosphates are what is feeding the alage.

or you could add a fuge with some cheato.

jden092901 · #3 12/23/2007, 05:31 PM

Thats what's weird...it says my phos is 0...I have a 30 gallon tank..not drilled..would it be really hard and $$ to add a fuge

kau_cinta_ku · #4 12/23/2007, 05:34 PM

your phosphates read 0 because the hair alage is using it up. most phosphate testers can't read phosphates good enough. but if you have alage then you have phosphates.

jden092901 · #5 12/23/2007, 05:43 PM

So what should I do? I dont want my tank to be kicked in the butt....

jden092901 · #6 12/23/2007, 06:56 PM

What ya think?

kau_cinta_ku · #7 12/23/2007, 10:33 PM

I would get some phosban. cut down on feeding a little, and do water changes with rodi water.

also some turbo snails, and a lawnmower blenny will help.

marioensf · #8 12/23/2007, 11:22 PM

You can get a cheap HOB refugium from aquatraders, I had one but I removed the skimmer function of it and set the flow from the stock pump to about 1/3 so the macro algae could feast on nutrients.
I took it apart when we moved and now I'm using an old HOB wet/dry as a refugium just need to fix an extra baffle to fully take advantage in the mean time my sump works as refugium, have a little clown there recovering from a brutal beating from the other fish ?? Hope is not a mantis shrimp hiding somewhere!!

sanababit · #9 12/24/2007, 10:12 PM

get a shulphur based denitrifier to get rid of nitrates and a phosban reactor with phosban media to get rid of phosphates, and after a couple of months it will go away

sana

uscharalph · #10 12/24/2007, 11:18 PM

Pick the hair algae as much as you can and cut down on feeding.

svynx · #11 12/25/2007, 01:13 PM

I'll agree on the fuge. I have a 30gal with a 5gal fuge. I had really hard (used the magnet scraper on it, took so many times over it)green algae on my walls. I set up the fuge about 2 weeks ago, and the algae is almost gone. I started with an ounce of chaeto, and it's tripled in size. I'm very happy with the results. I bought a 5gal tank for $6 at my LFS. I bought a small piece of plexiglass, which I cut to make two baffolds, added substrate and light, and I let that run for two days. Then I added the chaeto. Works great. All in all, it cost me about $15 (I had to get a pump).