i can't seem to beat this algae! help please!

[Bram]

Hello reefers,
A burning question! my aquarium has just become 6 months old. however, I have been struggling for the last 4 months with a recurring algae problem that I do not get the hang of. The alga is brown in color, looks like thin fine hair and feels slimy. they contain no trapped air bubbles. Does anyone have any idea what this can be and what I can do about it? all my stones are under a thin layer of this stuff

My values are:
nitrate = 0 ppm (redsea Pro)
phosphate = 0 ppm (hanna ultra low)
pH = 8.3
kH = 7.7 dKH (redsea pro)
Ca = 420 ppm (redsea pro)
Mg = 1340 ppm

I dose: Alk, Ca, Mg an manually reef energy (4 ml/day on reefer 170)

 

[sfin52]

Could be a sponge or bacteria.

I would also suggest to get p04 to .03 -.1 and n03 up to 2-5 ppm. It wasn’t till I got these numbers up did my corals start looking better and growing.

 

[mcarroll]

Possibly chrysophytes, but here's the problem you need to address:

nitrate = 0 ppm (redsea Pro)
phosphate = 0 ppm (hanna ultra low)

That will encourage nothing but bad stuff to grow. If my guess is right and it's only chrysophytes now, you're lucky since they clean up relatively easily.

A $10 toy microscope will let you avoid guessing what it is BTW. Highly recommended. Take some pics and (hopefully) a movie through it using your cell phone and if needed, post them and folks can help you ID it.

To begin with, stop doing everything "extra" you're doing for nutrient export. Skimmer + live rock should be it it for now.

With any luck, doing that, scrubbing this algae and boosting your CUC will be all it takes.

 

[mcarroll]

Selecting a microscope
I considered lots of options there, but with me as a complete microscope newbie I went with the $10-$15 toy scope. You won't be fooled – it's a toy scope. But it's a working scope with a decent light and it really does work well enough all the way up to 1200x.

(And I'll have a much better idea what to shop for next year when I get a real scope!)

 

[Bram]

Possibly chrysophytes, but here's the

Thnx mcarroll,
My alga is very similar to chrysophytes, so that could be my problem. A few weeks ago I discovered that silicates were in my RO/DI water (about 2 ppm). I then connected a second resin filter to my RO/DI unit, and now it is no longer present in the water. so that should solve it right?

However, how do I raise nitrate and posphaat in a proper manner? I do not dose anything to keep my nitrate and posfaat that low. The only thing I have is a cheato reactor, which does not want to grow. probably due to the lack of nitrate and phosphate.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

My self , is encourage extra feeding.
I know , its counter initiative.
But a nutint limited tank can cause wacky problems.

I'd skip some water changes, remove N/p removing media.
Beef up the cuc Esp snails , scrub a lot and step up mechanical filtration. To get as much of the bio mass out as possible
Ie canister filter or reactor with floss or micron sock only.