hair algae
 

would the use of a phosban reactor help to control hair algae or should i just try one of the small sea hares jl has right now. id rather not get a sea hare but if i have to im sure someone else could use him when hes done. hoping the phosban idea will work.

The reactor would play a part, but overall, you need to reduce your nutrient levels. This includes PO4, but also NO3 and dissolved organics. Water changes would help, add a reactor, make sure there isn't any area where waste accumulates, in tank or sump. Use a good skimmer, and clean it often.

its a 10 gallon nano with only one fish (sand sifting goby) which i rarely feed. other than that its just sps and clean up crew. 2 gallon water changes every week. dont know what else to try really. also theres a k3 and a powersweep 212 in it so im pretty sure theres no dead spots.also running a rio nano which so far seems to be working well.

How old is this tank? How long has it been running I mean? Where do you get your water from?

the tank itself is about 2 months but every thing in it (including the original water) is from my 55 and it hasnt had any problems in quite awhile. so i guess the stock is about 2.5 to 3 years old other than the .5 inches of live sand which is actually new. all my water comes from superstore.

Hmmm. All seems ok, but I wonder when the last time superstore cleaned their system, changed filters, etc.......

Maybe try getting water from somewhere else for a while? Just a thought.

at some point , hopefully soon i want to set up a water system of my own

new sand and maybe rock? Even though using old water may cause a 'new tank' syndrome. So if you get a sea hair, it'll control it and when your tank settles, you can give it away. The hairy sea hares do a great job.

But if it's not 'new tank', then u gotta figure out what's causing the HA.

the rock is all old i just thought about the lighting change. i went from pc with t5s to 150 mh. would that do it. same photo period different penetration?

Me personally think the new sand, even with old water and rock is basically a "new setup". So the system hasn't reached equilibrium yet, ie; nitrogen cycle not in balanced yet with the bacteria that's already in the rock, also not yet in the sand and not in the balanced concentrations (how's that for a run on sentence) :). So while it's reaching equilibrium, any excess extra nutrient will be feeding the hair algae. The increased MH lights also is a variable that's helping enable photosynthesis in the algae to take up the nutrients. Decreasing photo period will help...

It'll slowly come back to balance, but it doesn't hurt to get a Sea Hare to keep the growth down while everything is coming into balance.