Help!! before I quit this hobby. I have a 120g tank that has been running for nearly a year. I am overrun with hair algae. These are my tank conditions as of testing this morning. Temp range is 77-79Sg is 1.025 constantCa is 420Mg is 1440Alk is 7.3 ( I use Tropic Marin pro which seems to produce low alkalinity?)Nitrates are 10Phosphate always reads 0I have a Mag 950 return pump, 2 MP40'S, I Koralia 4 and 2 Koralia 1's., so flow is good (too good according to my frogspawns)I run an Octopus 150 protein skimmer and a BRS dual reactor with GFO and carbon.My fish load is 1 Powder Blue1 Tomini2 Clowns3 Wrasse1 Blenny4 Anthias.3 shrimpsI have 4 T5's and 2 150 MH , T5 7 hrs a day, MH 5 hours a day. These were all new 2 months ago.(Could they be the problem?)I do a 25 gallon water change weeklyNow,here is the strange thing. My CUC is disappearing. I have hermits which are OK, but my snails are dying. I have no idea why, my shrimps are great. I am at my wit's end, but don't really want to use chemicals that may harm my fish which are thriving.Any ideas???
I feel like quitting
- Thread starter dereksund
- Start date
Puffer Chick
New member
do you use ro/di or tap if tap id say thats your main cause
Ding2daDong
New member
Alk is low so that should be higher. Try to stablize your temp swings with fans in the sump and around your lights when they are on. Lower your light period as to not grow more algae. Is your skimmer working well? You shouldn't have any nitrates. Do you do regular water changes and with what water? How old are your filters in your RO/DI unit? Get rid of your dead/dying anything and throw it away.
Maybe do 3 days without light to help with the algae control.
If you want to talk about it PM me your number and I will give you a call to try and work it out over the phone.
hth
-Matthew
Maybe do 3 days without light to help with the algae control.
If you want to talk about it PM me your number and I will give you a call to try and work it out over the phone.
hth
-Matthew
Puffer Chick
New member
oh how old are your bulbs? a lot of times aging bulbs causes algae outbrakes
Ding2daDong
New member
What is your pH?
-Matthew
-Matthew
Ding2daDong
New member
^ditto
So was your tank always overrun by algae or only after changing to your new lights? Also your CUCumber probably died and maybe is aiding to bad water quality depending on how big it was.
Do you have a grounding probe? You could be leaking electricity into your tank causing lots of issues. I had the same issue with my old Mag drive pump.
-Matthew
Ding2daDong
New member
No you have average ALK but I just keep mine higher. I don't think it algae grows faster in low ALK just saying you might want it to be around 8-9, but thats what I prefer.
Skimmer could be the problem with nitrates and excess nutrients. Are MH double ended and has the glass covering them?
How much GFO do you use? That could be stripping the water clean and making your lighting more intense. Then with the excess nutrients causing the algae to grow like crazy.
-Matthew
Skimmer could be the problem with nitrates and excess nutrients. Are MH double ended and has the glass covering them?
How much GFO do you use? That could be stripping the water clean and making your lighting more intense. Then with the excess nutrients causing the algae to grow like crazy.
-Matthew
agold11520
New member
Just buy A Sea hare. I had the same problem in my sump ( although my display was clean). I also had a huge amount of hair algea in my 30 gal quarenteen tank. The sea hare cleaned them both spotless in about two weeks. He is still doing fine eating whatever he can find plus Nori which I place on the bottom held down by a small rock.
salttess
New member
I had the same problem...tons of hair algae and hated my tank. I hunkered down and did water changes every four days, manually pulled it out dailey,changed my bulbs, changed my ro/di filters, skimmed, and cried. :sad2: It took several months of doing this and got a handle on it and it went away. I read every post on HA and did it all. I was determined, but also thought about quitting also. Im glad I didnt, I love my tank now. I believe mine was due to bad husbandry....basically I got lazy. But never again....Good Luck
jcolletteiii
New member
TDS of 100 is high for RODI - when was your membrane last replaced? Do you have a see-thru cartridge for your DI resin? I have high nitrates in my tap water - uses up DI resin pretty quick - might want to check the NO3 and PO4 coming out of your RODI.
footballdude2k3
Active member
if you do your own RODI do the filters need to be changed?
vbsaltydog
Member
Try adding some chaeto to your sump with a light over the chaeto on a reverse lighting schedule to your display tank lighting schedule to control the algae and stabilize the PH swings.
jasonrp104
New member
kent Tech M. Get the Mag up in the 1500 range. Worked so well for me that I keep my mag this high at all times
ha
ha
you might try just using the mh for several days ,as I'm also using t-5s only and have had an algae problem for a while .I left the lights off for a few days and the algae was gone .turned them back on and within a week it came back.my nitrates are 0,nitrites 0 .can't check phosphates as I lost one of the solutions for testing.I recently qt a new fish in a 55 and took live rock and water from display for it.the live rock had algae on it going in qt and was spotless coming out using just fluorescent lighting a week later .one of my lfs told me that t-5s cause bad algae problems and I'm beginning to believe her now.
ha
you might try just using the mh for several days ,as I'm also using t-5s only and have had an algae problem for a while .I left the lights off for a few days and the algae was gone .turned them back on and within a week it came back.my nitrates are 0,nitrites 0 .can't check phosphates as I lost one of the solutions for testing.I recently qt a new fish in a 55 and took live rock and water from display for it.the live rock had algae on it going in qt and was spotless coming out using just fluorescent lighting a week later .one of my lfs told me that t-5s cause bad algae problems and I'm beginning to believe her now.
phenom5
Member
A few things.
PO4 test kits aren't really reliable. Generally, the test kits aren't able to accurately read PO4 at the low levels we'd like it to be. A hanna meter is the best way to get an accurate reading on PO4 levels. PO4 can also read low because they are being consumed by the algae...so even though you're getting low readings, you can still have PO4 feeding your algae.
Fish load seems high. Not really high, but definitely up there. What are you feeding? How much? How often?
PO4 test kits aren't really reliable. Generally, the test kits aren't able to accurately read PO4 at the low levels we'd like it to be. A hanna meter is the best way to get an accurate reading on PO4 levels. PO4 can also read low because they are being consumed by the algae...so even though you're getting low readings, you can still have PO4 feeding your algae.
Fish load seems high. Not really high, but definitely up there. What are you feeding? How much? How often?
