Algae

Marcus K · #1 10-05-2004, 04:09 PM

I have been at battle for about a year now with algae and need some advice. My tank is a 90gal with 500watts of PC, 20lbs of live rock, CC bed about 1.5" deep. For filters I have a amiracle sump, Lifeguard UV,SWC beckett skimmer. I have just purchased a 6 stage RO/DI unit, was purchasing water from safeway culligan RO machine. I use IO salt and have just removed about 10lbs of Lava rock. For fish I have a Yellow Tang, Kole Tang, Maroon Clown, Five Green Chromis, and a Diadema Dotty, Cleaner shrimp, Toadstool, couple of Zoo frags, RBTA, Xenia, Lots of green hair algae and now some read slime. After removing the lava I added a pouch of allgone. Not sure what else to do, my refugium is getting taken over buy the red slime.

Am I doing anything wrong.

Marcus

marie · #2 10-05-2004, 08:14 PM

Are you vacuuming the cc bed regularily? It can build up with gunk that can feed algae. Lava rock also seems to be a hair algae magnet. I didn't get rid of my hair algae until i replaced all my lava rock with fiji rock.

Marcus K · #3 10-06-2004, 02:58 AM

Thanks Marie, I do vacuum the CC but maybe not enough. I guess I should wait and see.

marcus

Beverly · #4 10-06-2004, 01:22 PM

Marcus,

Have you tested the Safeway RO water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphate? Any of these substances in the water could be part of the problem.

Doug · #5 10-06-2004, 01:23 PM

Marcus,
A friend had some hair algae on some base type rock, that refused to go away despite numerous cleaning.

After running PhosBan on my suggestion for some time now, its completely gone. He swears by the stuff. I guess he had phosphate problems.

However,

, he also added some calerpa to a section in his 100g sump, under a pair of 40w 65K shop lights. Not sure how much it helped but one must assume some. He ran my large turf scrubber when I was between tanks and still had the hair algae, although it helped his bubble algae problem.

Marcus K · #6 10-06-2004, 05:55 PM

I have been using Phosban and one other German type for about three months now. I thought that the filters may be old so I tested the safeway water only for amonia and found small amounts with a hagen test kit. I have purchased a RO/DI six stage and using that for water now. I need to get a TDS tester now. When I get some extra time I will go at the LR with a brush again. Calerpra caused a huge green water problem year and a half ago as it seemed to keep going asexual in my tank. None of my friends had this problem, but none of them had Lava rock. My refugium has two types of tang heaven and two other kinds ( forgot the names).

chrisd · #7 10-07-2004, 08:00 PM

I had a problem with red slime as well and had to repositon my powerheads to fix a few circulation dead spots. I read on wetwebmedia that poor lighting, poor water conditions or lack of circulation could be the cause so I fixed all 3 by adding some matal halides and did weekly water changes as well. It's gone for now and hopefully doesn't come back.

DEAD_BY_DAWN · #8 10-12-2004, 06:13 AM

Quote:

Have you tested the Safeway RO water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphate? Any of these substances in the water could be part of the problem

this stuff is totally a waste of money i had far better results from tap water as soon as i stopped useing there R.O water all my algae problems went away in two weeks,try there distilled water a little more expensive but works great.