Bad Hair Algae

[likwid]

I am using pre-bottled RO water from a company called Arrowhead that is less than 5 ppm per bottle. I dont think the water is the cause of this. I would try a phosban reactor, but I dont think I have room in my tank for another ugly pump. I have an aquaclear 500 converted into a hang ob back refugium, and I run a bag of rowaphos, a phosphate sponge, and a bag of de-nitrate in there along with my macroalgae and live rock rubble.

I am almost ready to give up on saltwater.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by likwid

I am using pre-bottled RO water from a company called Arrowhead that is less than 5 ppm per bottle. I dont think the water is the cause of this. I would try a phosban reactor, but I dont think I have room in my tank for another ugly pump. I have an aquaclear 500 converted into a hang ob back refugium, and I run a bag of rowaphos, a phosphate sponge, and a bag of de-nitrate in there along with my macroalgae and live rock rubble.

I am almost ready to give up on saltwater.

Can't help without more info. Answer the questions I laid out for you in my last post.

Sometimes there ends up being for much waste breaking down in an aquarium that the rocks and sand become loaded with phosphates and nitrates. The only decent way of fixing that problem is to break the tank down, and "cook" the rocks in a dark bin for for several weeks doing waterchanges (using RO and salt obviously) every few days, until phosphates read 0. It may also be neccessary to replace the sandbed with new sand. Since your tank has been like this for a long time, I'm lead to believe this may be your problem.

If your phosphate and nitrate test kits are reading 0 that doesn't mean anything. You have so much hair algae that it is eating all the phos and nitrate out of the water so your test kits won't read it.

Get rid of the hair algae and the cyano will follow.

[TANGOMAN]

As mentioned, RO is good but the resins in DI will eliminate compounds which are suspended in a liquid form. Phosphates were mentioned, silicates are another pottential nutrient for the nucience algae. I've been there and replacing the DI resins made the difference. It's a small system which makes it very unstable! Change your Source water, try a different salt too. Keep it simple and stick to the basics. It's a crappy battle, I think we've all been there.