Something Growing

[mig]

Sorry not the best pic but can anyone identify this grassy crap? It's spreading like crazy. I cut my light time way back but no effect.

 

[SamB]

Green Hair Algae ?

 

[monizb]

Pull it out and clean it up with a brush as much as u can and get a yellow tang or khole tang help clean it up

 

[Kyle1970]

Oh oh. Bryopsis. Can google it. Looks like green feathers.
If it is, high Mag levels will take care of it.

 

[mig]

monizb i have a blue tang and it has not interest in this, and unfortunately Kyle I think your right that it is Bryopsis. I googled it and found a thread on reefcentral that also mentioned success in raising mag levels to kill it.. so.. for one thing i dont have a mag tester so I dont know what my current level is at.. so whats the recommended product to raise mag and what level should I raise it too?

 

[Kyle1970]

Need to get yourself a mag test.
Bag of epson salt and some RODI water
I believe I had to raise mine to 1800 for about a week or two. Maybe if lucky someone has a mag test kit you could buy what's left as they are typically not used much. Plan on testing every day until you figure out how much to dose per day to raise slowly.

 

[JamesHurst]

Blue tangs suck at grazing lol. Yellow tangs are good. Turbo snails and hermit crabs help too.

 

[Kevin Tran]

Also naso tang and purple tang will chow down on that really quick

 

[mig]

So I am trying a fat Sea Hare and so far I am very impressed.. took him a day to acclimatize to my tank but he found the biggest patch of algae and is devouring it like crazy

 

[mig]

Is it possible to take out a couple of the worst rocks covered with the algae and scrub, power wash, and let dry out for a month, and then put back in the tank or can this cause other problems? Problem is the rocks all have soft corrals growing on them but truth is I am getting board with the look of it and I eventually want to replace alot of it with nicer stuff when I see so many nicer setups then mine. However first i need to get this algae taken care of. Im not sure if its hair algae or Bryopsis but the sea hare is loving it but not sure if he will ever be able to eat it all... maybe i should get a couple more...

 

[JamesHurst]

What are your levels, nitrates and phosphates, its great and all havong something to chow down on it but its important to find the cause.

 

[mig]

I totally agree James I definately need to find the cause of this and its very frustrating atm. Nitrates on my ATI test is low..0 or close to it. Phosphates I need to check again but last I checked I think they were around 3.1 range. Do you think this is too high and causing my issue or is there other things I should be checking? Alk 141, salt 1.025, temp I was 79.5 but I dropped it to 77. I also cut my light time back to about 5 hrs the couple of weeks, also since I switched to 6- T5 bulbs from my old MH light the algae has really exploded maybe by conincidence or not. How important is calcium and mag testing for this issue because I dont have testers for these.

 

[JamesHurst]

Old bulbs can cause issues. With your particular issue, important ones are nitrates and phosphates.

High phos will feed the algae for sure, aim for 0.03 to 0.09 to cut future growth. If you can, tear what you can out snd suck it out of the tank.

 

[Chrismayu]

I had the same problem in my tank - Only to find out my refuge lights were not coming on in the middle of the night like i thought they were. Fixed that and the problem almost went away.

 

[Reef Hero]

Assuming your po4 testing is accurate, your phosphate is almost 40x what natural seawater measures at.....this is your issue. Are you running GFO? Removing the rock or finding things to eat it is a never ending battle. The best way is to lower your tanks po4. Same goes to anyone who thinks they have po4 in their rock also..... Best way to get it out is to put it in a tank with proper po4 levels and let it leach out naturally....


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[mig]

I just tested my phosphates and it measured 0.1 so I think I had the decimal in the wrong place when I typed 3.1 yesterday. Yes I am running gfo and carbon on separate reactors.

 

[JamesHurst]

Is the gfo gradually dropping the phos or is phos on the rise?

 

[mig]

I've been running GFO for several months... I was very surprised it was down to .1 its been flocculating between .25 to .4. I'll check it again in a couple days to make sure that was a good reading. If it is that low I wonder why I'm having this algae outbreak. The more I look at it the more I think it is hair algae and I think I've always had it (had the tank for almost a year and it was a used set up, about 8 years old) but its much worse now.

 

[monizb]

my dad had same issue u pulled the rock pulled all the hair off and kept on it till it was gone added a sea urchin and never again he has seen hair Algee

 

[EricTMah]

I've been running GFO for several months... I was very surprised it was down to .1 its been flocculating between .25 to .4. I'll check it again in a couple days to make sure that was a good reading. If it is that low I wonder why I'm having this algae outbreak. The more I look at it the more I think it is hair algae and I think I've always had it (had the tank for almost a year and it was a used set up, about 8 years old) but its much worse now.

You may need to change your gfo more frequently.

But also I'm sure someone has already mentioned it. But you need to find the root cause of it or it's going to be a continuous battle.

Gfo is only going to act as a band-aid until you can figure out what's causing your high po4.

Have you taken your water to your lfs to have them run some tests? Just to confirm your test kits are giving the proper readings?


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