hair algae

[digital-audiophile]

What is your water source? Tap, RO/DI?

[michika]

Tell me about your rocks.

[landshark]

I'll try to answer all your questions. Lights are nova extreme,T5HO 18" . Current 10000K and actinic, 38watts total. I've cut back to 6hrs daily. I am using r/o. Rocks are Fiji C/W lots of coraline algae from well established tank.

[michika]

I'm guessing rocks have phosphates/nitrates in them and they are feeding your GHA outbreak. Manually pruning seemed to work best for me, it took about 6 months for everything to leech out of the rocks.

[digital-audiophile]

Are you running a phosban reactor or have the ability to run one?

[michika]

Another thought, are you sure its hair algae and not bryopsis? You can try algaebase.org for a clear ID. There are different proceedures for dealing with each.

[dsaundry]

See if you can borrow a sea hare, just make sure you cover all your filter and pump intakes with sponge. They are great little lawnmowers...

[Myka]

Originally Posted by landshark

I'll try to answer all your questions. Lights are nova extreme,T5HO 18" . Current 10000K and actinic, 38watts total. I've cut back to 6hrs daily. I am using r/o. Rocks are Fiji C/W lots of coraline algae from well established tank.

Do you have a photo of your tank that you could post? What are your water parameters? Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, temperature, salinity, and phosphate. Calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium if you have kits for those. Those last 3 can be bigger contributors than many people are aware.

[mseepman]

When you say bigger contributors...what do you mean. I'm getting some hair algae for the very first time since I started my tank over two years ago and my Calcium and Alk are very high. Mag is normal.

[Myka]

A lot of people who are having hair algae issues have low calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium. The latter two being more significant. Saying your cal and alk are "high", and your mg is "normal" doesn't say anything...what are they actually at?

A prime example...I noticed the tiniest of shoots of hair algae in my tank, so I tested my parameters which I haven't done in awhile. Hehe...oops. My magnesium was down around 1250 ppm, my alkalinity was just over 7 dKH, and my calcium was down at 370. I brought my mg back up to 1400, and my alk back to 9-10, and my calcium to 430, and poof hair algae gone. I didn't do anything else to the tank. My tank hasn't had hair algae since it was first cycling over a year ago, so I knew something was up.

"Everyone" knows that nitrates and phosphates are significant contributors to algaes in general, but keeping all your parameters in check is important even in FO tanks.