LF Skimmer Advice

[hfp75]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

I came home from out of town to a tank full of hair algae.

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Oh, and I get 3 hours of direct sunlight every day in the tank. It does not pose any problems.

Really....

I do agree that if you are having water problems start with water changes.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by hfp75

Really....

Ya, really The algae was due to things dying. Water changes cleared it up.

[hfp75]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Ya, really The algae was due to things dying. Water changes cleared it up.

IC, so the GHA was from excess nutrients in the water then.

[reef-keeper]

I would try a product called Re-Fresh from DrTim'saquatics.com. It is a bacteria to fight the Cyanobacteria. We all know that algae is a high nutrients problem and when you kill the Cyano you create more organic nutrients that cause a never ending cycle. So water changes more frequently and testing the phosphates every couple days. Will help lots. Re-Fresh is what I found help my massive 9 month ordeal with algae. All this with a phosphate reactor should do the trick I believe. Hope this helps.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by hfp75

IC, so the GHA was from excess nutrients in the water then.

Correct. sunlight has hit my tanks for 5 years, I had HA for 2 weeks after a large loss of fish

[jostafew]

hfp75 thank you very much for all the info it is very helpful, and to the other replies as well. I've got a good idea where I need to go from here, will report back with results after some time.

[jostafew]

3 week update.

Status: tank still not pretty, but very little cyano growth, diatoms significantly reduced (still wide spread, but not as thick), GHA is still there but it is hurting. I can tell the GHA is not healthy because it was coming off the rocks easier during the big cleanup tonight than it has in the past.

Changes: brought up the Alk a bit (was on the low side), continued with usual water change schedule (still struggling a bit to find time for the tank), but the big change is that I began carbon dosing. I was considering bio balls but after some reading I felt that vodka or vinegar would be easier to manage and cheaper to run, and generally gave better results. So pulled out the dosing pump, grabbed a jug of vinegar, and began dosing 7.5mL once per day (50gal total system volume). After one week I increased to two doses, and after 2 wks I increased to three. I just finished the 3rd week, and no sign of bacterial problems so I just increased to four doses per day. As much as I would like a sand sifting star, aside from the odd person's own experience all my reading tells me that it's going to be tough on the star and tough on my sand bed so I think I will hold off on that one. I do intend to pick up a goby to sift the sand though (orange diamond or similar) the next time I can get out to J&L.

The skimmer is pulling more junk out of the tank now so that tells me that the bacterial colonies are growing and as I harvest them I'm slowly pulling nutrients out of the tank. I'm sure that in the past with such established algae in the tank, the flora would consume any nitrate / phosphate / silicate before the other processes could take care of it, hence why I've never measured any detectable amounts of these substances in the tank. I feel like I'm seeing a slow and steady improvement now and will continue on this path for a while. Will update in a few weeks again.

Once more, thanks for everyone's input.