Hair algae but no phosphates

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I see lots of hair algae but phosphates are reading only 0.03 consistenly. I am using Hanna tester. What else could be a problem?
 
Algae will take a foothold anywhere were there is available nutrients
For instance a rock crevice a person may have absolute 0 po4 but the crevice is supplying the nutrients needed in conjunction with the lighting :)
Hope that help!
-Todd
 
Using RODI. Have an established refugium. Using LED lights. Water change every other week (mostly). Not sure what else needs to be done in order to get the nutrients in balance.
 
is the fuge growing well? ie removing lots of chato? keep manually removing hair algae.
you may also want to try a little waste away. it brings down exess gunk. its just a little bacterial booster.

just a note of paranoia, is it your rodi? or LFS. do you have a tds meter. sometimes good to check it.
 
is the fuge growing well? ie removing lots of chato? keep manually removing hair algae.
you may also want to try a little waste away. it brings down exess gunk. its just a little bacterial booster.

just a note of paranoia, is it your rodi? or LFS. do you have a tds meter. sometimes good to check it.
Homemade Rodi. Always 0 TDS. Have an inline TDS meter.

Fuge doesn't grow chaeto all that well. It survives but doesn't thrive like I have seen in many tanks. Have a flood light bulb running for 12 hrs on it.
 
Homemade Rodi. Always 0 TDS. Have an inline TDS meter.

Fuge doesn't grow chaeto all that well. It survives but doesn't thrive like I have seen in many tanks. Have a flood light bulb running for 12 hrs on it.
id change the bulb to something with better spectrum for plants. its usually that or flow in the chato. id bet light.
i use a full spectrum (daylight) bulb and a 3200k bulb.
 
I'm in the same boat, i just manually scrub the rocks with a toothbrush before I do my water change. Hanna checker always reads 0.0 at most 0.05. Its not crazy overwhelming but does get in my zoa garden and I pick it out.
 
If there is gha them there is more phosphates than what your tests tell you. The gha is eating up all the phosphates out of the water column which then leads to low or no readings ur test kits only read whats in the water column so if its being eaten up out of the water collumn then ur readings would be off. If you can triton water tests are pinpoint accurate and can determine the levels even with gha
 
I see lots of hair algae but phosphates are reading only 0.03 consistenly. I am using Hanna tester. What else could be a problem?

0.03 ppm phosphate is plenty for algae growth. :)
 
0.03 ppm phosphate is plenty for algae growth. :)

Ah come on...

Might I add, the display tank is running fallow currently. Feeding the DT lightly (a pinch) every few days for the shrimp and bunch of snails. My TDS is showing zero. So any idea what is the source of phosphates?
 
Probably slowly degrading organics and maybe coming off the rock.

Here's a sentence from one of my phosphate articles:

Phosphate In The Reef Aquarium
https://www.reef2reef.com/blog/?p=3184

At concentrations below about 0.03 ppm, the growth rate of many phytoplankton species depends on the phosphate concentration (assuming that something else, such as nitrogen or iron, is not limiting their growth). Above this level, many organisms’ growth rate is independent of phosphate concentration.1 Consequently, to deter algal growth by controlling phosphate, aquarists need to keep the phosphate levels quite low.

What that means is that, at least for phytoplankton, which may be different than hair algae, 0.03 ppm phosphate is no more inhibiting to its growth than would be 1 ppm. :)
 

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