Algae ID and plz help!

Steve McGlamery · Dec 18, 2016

Chiefmaster30 said:
At tax time I am going to add a sump

Can I put in my two cents???? I just solved a hair algae problem in my 120 gal mixed reef tank. It took 5 months to solve.I tried everything...Read books, R2R LFS etc nothing worked. No3 5 ppm (Nyos) PO4 0.00 (Hanna). Only feed once a day. Manually removing the algae. Spent a lot of money on more CUC. Nothing worked. Then I relate really started to crashad somewhere to raise my Magnesium To 1800 ppm. (I never got it that high though). Started to raise the Magnesium. I started to remove the rocks that I could remove easily and washed them with 3% Hydrogen Peroxide. Got a big bottle with a squirt top and would squirt the rock down and let it set for about 4 minutes and put it back in the tank. Still manually removed as much as I could. Kept raising Magnesium. (it got to about 1500 pp when I stopped dosing).I was starting to win.... Then I decreased my photo period. Algae really started to crash. Kept up with the H2O2 treatments and the manual removal. I now have 99% of the Hair algae gone. But I keep asking the important question....What actually got rid of the hair algae? A combination of every thing or just one thing? If I had to guess....reducing the photo period had the biggest effect. I hope this helps.

Chiefmaster30 · Dec 20, 2016

Thanks for your input! I'm gonna try that!

Steve McGlamery · Dec 20, 2016

Chiefmaster30 said:
Thanks for your input! I'm gonna try that!

A little more information. My NO3 and PO4 still read the same today that they did during my hair algae outbreak. I keep a log of my tank and looking back over the log I see no change from when the hair algae was out of control and today. The biggest change I made, and I think this had the most effect, was the change in photo period. The change was only an hour but what a difference. I was also using H2O2 at the same time. I would take any rock that was easy to remove and squirt them with 3% H2O2 solution, let them sit for about 4 minutes and placed them back into the tank. I did not lose one coral doing this. I tried to keep the H2O2 off the corals but, I know a lot of H2O2 got on the corals. Didn't lose one. During this time I was also manually removing all the algae I could. Things I tried that had no effect. Complete darkness for 4 days. Ultra low nutrients. (bio pellets and GFO). Buying more Clean up Crew. More CUC. When the hair algae started to disappear it disappeared fast. Within a couple weeks. Be patient. Go slow and watch for changes. Don't over do anything. Good things happen slowly...Bad things happen fast. I hope this helps. Le me know how it goes for you.