Can Ph imbalance cause algae to grow?

I came home from college the other day to find my tank pretty well overtaken by green hair algae and my two SPS very dead, I really wasnt sure what happened, my dad had been taking care of the tank while I was gone. I asked him what chemicals he had been adding to the tank and it turns out for a month or so he had not been adding any ph buffer whatsoever to the tank which would most likely explain the killing off of the sps...... however I am not sure if the ph imbalance would also be causing/ allow green hair algae to grow. That is really the only thing I can think of that has not been kept up with correctly seeing as the tank was perfectly clear of GHA when I left, I am running HOB skimmer, lights are up to date. Nitrates and phosphates right now are at 0 but that is most likely due to the algae in the tank. Any other ideas of what could be causing this algae break out if ph is not the culprit.

He also did not remove the two dead sps, I am pretty sure that the decompsing SPS would cause a rise in nitrate/phosphates but please correct me if I am wrong

 

bump

 

When thinking about algae growth, you always have to keep this question in mind: "what factor is limiting?"

By factor I mean light, N, P, C, and minor elements. pH is not a growth factor, but it can be a clue as to what is happening. In oceanic phytoplankton, the limiting growth factor is often iron. In a lab setting, algae is usually only limited by light. In the aquarium, algal growth is usually limited by N and P... especially in a reef aquarium where light and minor elements are abundant.

In my experience, algae are capable of tolerating a wide pH range. There is an "optimal" pH for growth, but growth outside of this optimal range is barely reduced. pH can change the availability of nutrients to algae though. A change in pH can change the rate at which metals complex with carbonate and can effect the solubility of metal-carbonate complexes. Again, while you can read this information in a text book and it may sound like an important factor for algae growth, in my experience it is not. In an aquarium, those metals rarely limit algae growth.

You said your dad stopped dosing the buffer. This would reduce inorganic carbon in the aquarium. To the algae, this doesn't really matter. Generally in the reef aquarium there is lots of carbon available to algae due to the number of organisms respiring in the tank. The only aquariums where carbon becomes limiting is in planted aquaria, which is why you often see CO2 supplemented in them.

In my opinion, your dad was either over feeding or something died in your aquarium that caused a nutrient spike. You said some SPS died. Lets say those SPS died of an unknown disease while you were away. This in turn released nitrate and/or phosphate into the water. At that time, the algae were no longer limited by those two nutrients and grew quickly. This explanation is far more likely than any to do with your dad not dosing buffer.

Hope that helped.

 

In low pH levels it can actually cause more algae growth, the same with higher temperature. Not sure why though, but i know it does.

 

So what do you mean by "buffer"? Actually buffer? When you have your alk and kalk right, you do not really need buffer. Everything in your tank is a buffer.

But ya, what was said I second. I would definitely suspect overfeeding by a sitter over chem problems... not to say obviously sitters can make chem mistakes. But algae grows from nutrients. If you nutrients are in balance and you don't have algae in the tank... then changing PH does not grow algae.

 

ok thanks for the input everyone

 

How long were you gone for? could this be a result from not doing water changes? Or routinely cleaning the tank. Maybe he let a bunch of sunlight hit the tank, Or possibly overfeeding? Just throwing out some ideas here... I am no expert

 

Well DAMN! Hair algae isn't normal!?? I thought that was to cover all those blaaaa rocks with a nice flowing green color!