Hair Algae Problem

[DeepCutta720]

My tank has slowly been developing a bad algae problem. Its a 20 long with a 65 watts 50/50 Power Compact. Flows about 400gph.

My dead bask rock and aragonite substrate is starting to be covered with hair like brown green algae. One of the rocks has 8" long strands of red tentacle looking algae.

The water is crystal clear. Parameters are close to perfect. I left the tank for a week and my room mate said he left the light on for 8-10 hrs a day. He said each day the algae just got worse and worse.

Phosphate ~0 ppm
Nitrate ~0 ppm

I dont even know where to start to get rid of this ugly mess off my rocks and substrate.

HELP

 

[seaham358]

Test for silicates also and what is your water source? Tap, ro , ro/di....
How old are the test kits? they do go bad, any way to have the LFS test for you... Most will

 

[electrikat]

Pick it off as much as possible. It will come off of the substrate in sheets. How many cleaners do you have? We had a pretty bad prob in our 20g at first but I picked up an extra 15 or so blue leg hermits and they wasted it. I picked out as much as possible from the bottom and pulled out an scrubbed the rocks that were only baserock. It took about 2 weeks to clear it up but it hasn't come back in several months.

 

[DeepCutta720]

Water is always RO water from the LFS.

Both test kits were bought about 6 months ago

I guess ill do water changes for the next few days to reduce any silicates that might be present. Take out the rock and scrub it and throw out the top layer of substrate.