Old live rock

joe0813 · Mar 4, 2020

My tank has been running for almost 10 years now. I haven't changed my feeding habits or lighting since I bought Radion gen 4 pros about a year or two ago. Recently within the past 6 months all of the rock is covered in what looks like brown hair algae. tested nitrate and phosphate both at zero because its being used to grow these weeds. Tangs or clean up crew haven't touched it either. Ive tried lights out, reef flux and pulling the rock two months ago to spray it with hydrogen peroxide. Algae came back and covered the rocks all over again. Now im on my 3rd week of vibrant and still nothing has changed. Is it possible the rock is just old and now a phosphate factory?

lapin · Mar 4, 2020

You might try a sea hare if you have a big tank and a lot of algae. They can starve in a tank without tons of algae.

joe0813 · Mar 4, 2020

lapin said:
You might try a sea hare if you have a big tank and a lot of algae. They can starve in a tank without tons of algae.

180 gallon.. I was always told they really don't climb around the rockwork

kput · Mar 4, 2020

Dose nitrate and phosphate. Turn off fuge if you have one. Remove algae via siphoning when you can.

joe0813 · Mar 4, 2020

kput said:
Dose nitrate and phosphate. Turn off fuge if you have one. Remove algae via siphoning when you can.

why dose nitrate and phosphate? won't that just feed the hair algae to continue to grow??

fish farmer · Mar 4, 2020

What type of CUC crew? Have you tried urchins? Or turbo snails? i have a pesky red algae that nothing would touch, but the turbos took care of a lot of it.

joe0813 · Mar 4, 2020

fish farmer said:
What type of CUC crew? Have you tried urchins? Or turbo snails? i have a pesky red algae that nothing would touch, but the turbos took care of a lot of it.

I have turbos and other snails. No urchins though.

kput · Mar 5, 2020

joe0813 said:
why dose nitrate and phosphate? won't that just feed the hair algae to continue to grow??

I'm assuming that the 'brown hair algae' is actually Dinos, which thrives in no nutrient systems. I just dealt with them on my frag tank.
Dosed nitrate and phosphate, turned off fuge, removed as much algae as I could, and did a 3-day blackout. Problem solved.

I was also researching "brown hair algae" but it doesn't really seem to be a thing. The purpose of dosing nitrate and phosphate is to provide food for other types of algae that are less obstrusive to outgrow the dinos, much like diatoms in a freshwater setup.

joe0813 · Mar 5, 2020

its definitely not dinos. I have some of those from the hair algae sucking up all my nutrients. The algae for whatever reason is classified as green hair algae.