Green hair algae

[Masoniac]

I have green hair algae growing on my sand bed its getting to look like grass what can I do to control it? I change my water once a week. All my levels are 0

 

[begginersluck]

Get a tang! That'll eat it up lol!

 

[Masoniac]

It's only a 15 gallon tank or else I would have got one along time ago

 

[begginersluck]

What fish do you have in the tank?

What Corals?

What are your nitrate readings?

What are your PH readings?

 

[Masoniac]

2 blue/green chromis

Molly miller blenny

Yellow clown goby

Frogspawn

Goniopora (flower pot)

Pulsing Xenia

Nitrates .5

PH 7.8

 

[begginersluck]

The best way to get rid of Hair Algae is to starve it. It feeds off Nitrates, phosphate and your lighting. First try getting your nitrates down a little with a couple of water changes then reduce the amount of time your lights are on?

What lights are you running?

 

[Masoniac]

I'm running a coralife t5 4 bulb 108w my atinics come on from 7-10 my day lights from 10-7 and my moon light are on all the time

 

[Flaxon-Waxon]

Do you use tap water for top offs and changes or RODI water?

 

[begginersluck]

Be careful but i would try reducing this as much as possible without disturbing your corals. The hair algae is being multiplie because it is feeding off your lights mainly. Reduce your nitrates and phosphate too if possible.

You can pick at it and manually remove it which obviously wont cure the problem but with all these things put together it should work!

 

[Flaxon-Waxon]

Don't manually remove it. If you pull it off, it will most likely spread worse if you aren't incredibly careful.. You need to correct the problem not put a band aid on it. And the phosphate level is going to be the culprit if anything, I wouldn't agree so much with the lighting.

What kind of water do you use?

What are your phosphates testing at?

 

[Masoniac]

100% rodi water

 

[begginersluck]

I'm interested by that as i was informed lighting was its main source.

 

[Masoniac]

Phosphates 0.1

 

[Flaxon-Waxon]

Anything higher than .03 for phosphates is considered high and can be a problem for hair algae. Could be over feeding, too much fish waste, etc...

 

[Flaxon-Waxon]

I'm interested by that as i was informed lighting was its main source.

Lighting CAN be a cause of it, but the algae feeds off of phosphates, and then you have a problem like this one..

 

[Flaxon-Waxon]

What phosphate test are you using?

 

[Masoniac]

API test kit

 

[Flaxon-Waxon]

API test kit

So how did you conclude that phosphates were at .1? This is what my chart looks like..



Seems like saying .1 is kind of guessing...

 

[Masoniac]

Well it's not even 0 or .25 it's more in the middle I meant to put .15

 

[Flaxon-Waxon]

So yes that's high. I know it's on the low end of the chart, but with phosphates you basically want "0" all the time. You can always get a Hannah checker for phosphates which are accurate. I would assume this is why you have your algae problem. What equipment is on your tank for filtration? If you have a HOB you can get some GFO run that to reduce phosphates, that's what I do...