Green Hair Algea. Help me please

Do you use RO/DI? As mentioned, if you have hair algae than you have excess nutrients that are being consumed at the same pace as generated – thus your test results are unreliable.

Water changes with ro/di is imperative right now. Get the Phosphates down as mentioned, I like Chemi Pure Elite as well – quality product.

consider a refugium and be done with this once and for all.

 

Thank you for the tips crimson ghost. Yes i am using quality RO/DI and do 15% water changes every other friday. Should i do this more often until i get it cleared up??? (More often meaning maybe once a week rather than every other)

 

Not really. Its pretty much the max they can safely go without. I know reefers who have done it an entire week but I believe they only ran actnics during that time.

I'm strong to the finish cause I eats me spinach. I'm ReefBruh the reefing man. Toot Toot.

 

Yes, increase the water changes to weekly. Remove all the HA manually and test the water often - you may see a spike in the culpret once you manually remove it. Check the RO/DI water before you add salt to it and test it after you add salt to it -- need to make sure your filters are good and that you have good salt. Aside from this it sounds like you are on the right track.

 

Hold on everyone. (not that anyone gave wrong info, but may be down the wrong path)

Indiana Boy, if you are using test strips you are effectively not testing at all.

IMO, you have no idea what your phosphates and/or nitrates are if your numbers are coming from strips. Do they even have a reading of 0?

They are as effective as a wild @$$ guess.

I strongly recommend you take no action until you know your actual parameters. buy liquid test kits or take water to an LFS for tests. Throw strips away. They are not even good enough for a "quick check". They are nothing more than garbage.

Besides that, I agree your phosphate number you have is excessive... but I somehow doubt it's that high and this is your only problem.

I also agree with others on your light period. 13 hours is a bit on the high side. I know some do that with success. I can not keep my actinics on for any longer than 11 and my daylights on more than 9 or I get algae problems.

You may simply have too long a period. You can easily cut that back and not impact your corals. You can cut it back to 0 for a few days and not impact them either... But light solutions on algae are band-aids and do not address the problem.


I am not sure on your CuC make up. Is it sufficient?

 

@ Peredhill
I didnt mean to infer that i was using test strips. that was my grammatical mistake. I am using API Liquid Tests and comparing them to the color coded sheet "i.e. test strips". sorry about the confusion. I am using a bucket of red sea coral pro and my ro/di water comes from a friend who has big units who sells the water to smaller distributors. I have tested this and all seems fine.

My intent is to drop my photo period down to 10 and 8, as well as to place a powerhead along the back wall (its hard not to have dead spots in a 55) to remove dead spots. I will also begin weekly water changes as of this friday. A member told me to place my turbos directly onto the GHA. I tried this and was quite impressed. Quite the little grazers they are.
Peredhill, i have a CUC from reefcleaners. i have lots of Cerith, Nassarius, dwarf cerith, turbos, some crabs, etc.
I think manual removal while syphoning (as to not let spores move about) and weekly water changes/ plus using the other methods i have gathered from this thread may turn out to be helpful. I will keep posted.
If anyone has any other info i would be grateful.
thanks,
JP

 

Sounds like you got this under control. Great advise was given.

My tank is a 55. I can vouch for that!