Originally Posted by asylumdown
(Post 917527)
I'd agree with this, but not because I think the detritus itself is causing nutrient issues. If the detritus is building up, it means the export systems aren't working very well and that there's dead spots. By the time you see it as 'detritus', it's pretty much inert refractory organic matter, most of which is produced as a byproduct bacterial metabolism and is as decomposed as it's ever going to get. Vacuuming up the detritus is like vacuuming up a pot plat that's been knocked over on to your carpet - the dirt's already spilled, so to speak.
The stuff you should care about, uneaten food and fish poo, gets scavenged and eaten by critters and bacteria very quickly. Yes, detritus is the eventual end result, but if you've got detritus accumulating it means you probably don't have enough flow in enough places to get the stuff you should care about to your skimmer/filter socks before it breaks down. Vacuuming up the mess is pointless. preventing the mess from accumulating in the first place is important. Perhaps we're arguing the same point.
However, I still stand by the premise that the "root cause" of many problem algaes is no more complicated than the presence of that algae in the first place. Just like the root cause of dandelions in my back yard is the dandelions growing in the alley behind it. A great many (most?) of the corals we keep come from waters with enough nutrients in them to support verdant growth of macro and micro algae. Reefs dying under a choking chemical assault from lush fields of simple 'hair' type algae is a well known consequence of humans fishing out all the herbivores on a reef.
The OP has already stated that his PO4 readings are undetectable, because the algae is sucking it up as fast as it's produced. GFO is great at lowering PO4 when it's present in detectable quantities, that's been shown in test after test. But he doesn't have any PO4 in his water to lower. The algae already sucked it all up. And what's a better competitor for new P as it's added: A bed of algae in the same box where all the P is added, with an absorbable surface area probably measured in square kms, receiving 100% of the flow of the system across it every few minutes, or a teeny tiny reactor in the sump that gets the equivalent of 100% of the tank's water through it every few hours? On top of that the algae is producing a slew of tannins and noxious chemicals designed over hundreds of millions of years specifically to kill the competition.
Step one should be removing the algae. Step two should be adding flow and rearranging the rocks. Step three, once the algae is dead and gone, should be diagnosing whether a nutrient problem actually exists or not. If the OP removes all the algae and phosphate and nitrate levels climb to unacceptable levels, then there's things that can be done. But they might not, and anything you do to try and control nutrients while the algae is in there is going to be like trying to roll a boulder uphill.
There is a simple, safe, and effective treatment for almost all kinds of hair algae. Thousands of people (including myself) have used it, and other than a few anecdotal cases of some shrimp or some coral reacting negatively, most people (including myself) see an immediate improvement in the vigour and colour of their corals once the hair algae starts to die.
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