green hair algea

[jdr8271]

I have green hair algae that has taken over my tank. I brush it off of the live rock with a tooth brush, and pull out what I can. It goes away for a couple of days, but then comes back a week later in full force again. When I test my water,

phosphates = 0 and nitrates = 0.

So I am not sure what the problem is... Could the live rock itself contain phosphates / nitrates?

Is it that the hair algae is eating all of the phosphates / nitrates and that is why the water is testing zero for both?

Someone else told me that the problem could be that I have too high silicates. I have never tested this, could this be the problem?

Another person told be that it could be old light bulbs on my metal halide lights?

Does anyone have any insight to this?

I am thinking about putting some macro-algae into a refugium and brushing off the green hair algae every day, so that the macro-algae will eat any nitrates/phosphates in the tank and starve the green hair. Would this solve this problem?

Thank you for your help

[Craig Lambert]

You need to post alot more information about your tank. Equipment, bioload, how often and what you feed, filtration, water source etc. If you have algae, you have phosphates. Old lights do not cause algae. They may help it, but you have to have excess nutrients to begin with. A fuge would help. A phosban reactor as well, but you need to determine the source of the problem.

[jdr8271]

I have a red sea Berlin protein skimmer, the water is ro water. The tank is 90 gallons + 25 gallons in the sump. There is also a uv steralizer in the sump.

The problem began before I added fish or coral to the tank.

Right now I have one tomato clown fish, one kole tang, a mushroom coral and a hammer coral. I feed the clown fish frozen blood worms. The kole tang eats the hair algae.

Is this enough info? thank you

[SALT WATER CRAZ]

So I am not sure what the problem is... Could the live rock itself contain phosphates / nitrates?

Yes it could suck them up if it was in the water then leach it back out.

Is it that the hair algae is eating all of the phosphates / nitrates and that is why the water is testing zero for both?

Yes it is takeing them up thats why you dont see it in the tests.

Someone else told me that the problem could be that I have too high silicates. I have never tested this, could this be the problem?

Silicates and phosphates go hand and hand some times. Phosphate removers will take out silicates after the phosphates are removed.

Another person told be that it could be old light bulbs on my metal halide lights?

Old bulbs if the spectrum changes in the bulb it can do this some what. But the algea also needs the nutrents in the tank to like phosphates to grow.

I am thinking about putting some macro-algae into a refugium and brushing off the green hair algae every day, so that the macro-algae will eat any nitrates/phosphates in the tank and starve the green hair. Would this solve this problem?

A fuge will help it will take out the nitrates for the most part, Make sure you are using ro/di water, And I would run a phosphate remover to. Cut back on feeding to 99.9% of foods have some phosphates in them. I would skim wet to if you have a skimmer.




How long has this tank been set up?

It is comon to have this after a cycle.

[pledosophy]

Turing the lights off for three days at a time will be a good bandaid until you can fix the source.

[njdevilsfan]

get a 50 mexican turbos a week for 2 weeks
or a bali sea hair
while you are waiting to figure out what is causing your probs