I have developed long stringy green algae on rocks and tank.Can someone tell me why this is happening and how to get rid of it,been doing extra water changes,have clean up crew for algae. ph-8.0 alk-143 cal-300 amm,nitrite,nitrates are 0. I know cal. is low,mag is 1040 have not tested phosphate.
long hair algae
- Thread starter DPayne
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kingston.buck
Community Member
A pick of the algea would help, not all clean up crew members eat every type of algea. If you can physically pull that stuff out of the tank do it, remove as much as you can and what test kit do you use?
GRIFTY
Community Member
What's your lighting schedule like it could be because your lights are on too long... I had a similar problem then changed my light schedule and bought an urchin and haven't seen the hair algae since.
GRIFTY
Community Member
12 hours at full intensity is quite a long time but then again every tank is different.. I use LEDs I have my lights at blues 80% whites 35% at its peak with a 2 hour ramp up ramp down 8:45am till 6:15 pm.. Then at night I run 1% blues and 0% whites.
GRIFTY
Community Member
There was a professor from I forget what university that published a paper on coral growth and it said that coral grows for a maximum of 6 hours a day so if you ran your lights for 6 hours on 6 off 6 on 6 off you would essentially double your coral growth in a day.. I never tried it but that would make sense why your corals aren't doing so hot under 12 hours of full intensity.
jcdeng
Valuable Member
Your lights might be set to too long and too strong, but depends on what kind of corals you are keeping. SPS is okay but the ramp up and ramp down should be 2 hrs each like others have mentioned. However, unless you have a lot of red Leds on at full power, lighting is not really the main contribute to algae issues, and phosphate is, are you running GFO or refugium? if not, you can add either one to your system and see if it will help. As for CUCs, they usually go for short algae, if your HA is long and wavy, try to manually remove them. Or try a sea hare.
kingston.buck
Community Member
How long have you been fighting the hair algea? What other methods of nutrient export are you using besides gfo? How big and often do you do water changes, skimmer big enough? How much and how often do you feed?
kingston.buck
Community Member
O and if it breaks free and is floating everywhere try using a fish net to catch as much of the algea that floats away.
I have had it for about 5 months,I am using a canister filter under tank and a protein skimmer( little bigger than i actually need).I was doing 20 gal water changes every two weeks(125g tank).My phosphates where at 1.10 i did two 30g changes and the phosphates came down to 0.15,i have 4clowns, 1 yellow tang, 3 goby's,and 1 flame angel,many many snails and crabs,feed once a day half cube frozen brine.I have been brushing some loose and catching in net.also my ro/di water is 0.12.my corals where not doing very well till i did the big water changes now looking better.I didn't do weekly water changes because all my test where coming out good.I am new at this tank is almost a year old.
kingston.buck
Community Member
Sounds like it's your phosphates man! Gfo would definitely help. What do you have in your cannister filter now and how often do you clean it? Never had one but heard they can be nitrate and phosphate factories
