Not understanding

[mikeyj28]

Hi all,
First off im just getting back into the hobby and have a question.
I have had my tank up and running since the 29th of december. I have no fish or corals yet. I have just been letting the tank cycle.

All my levels are at 0 as far as Ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates is very low. My phosphates are at 0 as well. What would cause hair algae only on the back wall of my tank? Yes Im using RO/DI water, which is coming out at 0ppm. What else should i test for?

or is it normal to have some hair algae? Also i have slight algae growing on my LS as well. the LR looks great.

Any help ?

 

[ed102475]

What kind of lighting and how long is it on?

 

[danch]

It's pretty normal early in a tanks life. Your test kits are sensitive enough to detect gross problems, but there could easily be nitrogen or phosphorus that they can't detect. Algaes don't really take much (unless of course they're algae you _want_: then they're amazingly sensitive).

In the normal course of things, the hair algae will die back, perhaps to be replaced by another nuisance . If your ammonia and nitriates have been 0 consistently for a week or two, you could add a small clean-up crew, if that fits with your long-term plan. You could also cut down on lighting (as ed alluded to), that could mellow things out a bit.

 

[PJSEA]

Every tank I ever started went thru a phase in the beginning with hair algae growth.

 

[mikeyj28]

I have 150 watt 14k MH thats on about 8 hours a day. I had it on for 12 but cut back.

So will this algae just die off? I have been seeing a lot of purple on the rocks starting and neon green algae. I know thats good but i was dumbfounded when i saw hair algae on just the back of the tank. and the brown algae on the live sand.

About how long does it usally take to die off or disapear?

Thanks for all the help. Oh how long should i leave the lights on for?

 

[wsamsky]

i believe 4-6 hours to zero hours in some peoples opinion.

 

[spike78]

You are going to have these cycles for 3 or 4 months at least as different species gain dominance. Here is a good reference:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=249112

I would try and manually pull as much as you can to try and export as many nutrients as possible from the system. When my 200 Gallon tank was going through it's hair algae cycle, I must have pulled at least 5 gallons of the stuff out of the tank. That is a LOT of hair algae.

 

[mikeyj28]

did you run your lights durring that time? if so for how long? And what would the brown stuff be on my live sand?