running out of ideas

[sansouci01]

Some of you may have seen my posts on a hair algae problem I have. I have tried and checked everything you have told me but the problem doesn't seem to be getting any better. My tank has been running for about 3 months. I have a 20 gallon tank. Two clowns, two chromis, a serpent star, black urchin, peppermint shrimp, and an assortment of snails. I use ro/di water for both salt and fresh water top offs. I do 25% water changes weekly. I feed every three days. I have a 4 bulb t5 set up. I have even cut down on the light cycle. I have read some articles stating that phosphates may be leaking out of my rock. I purchased the rock from a company called Marco rocks in the Florida keys. It's cured dry rock. My phosphate and nitrate levels are always at 0. Is it possible that my rock could be the problem ? I would really hate to have to remove the rock and start over and I really don't want to use chemicals to control the algae....

 

[Sniperhank]

Battling hair algae is never a quick battle. It takes forever. I battled my first hair algae outbreak and it took months. You are on the correct path of correction though. If you want to consider reactors to run filter media in them to help out the cause, then that option is still open to you. At this point, I would think that your tank is 'maxed out' in terms of fish and is also feeding your problem without something like a protein skimmer on the system to pull the gunk out of the water column.

 

[sansouci01]

Oh yeah...Forgot to say, I do have a protein skimmer and it does pull a lot out on a daily basis. I have a HOB filter that I'm running some chemipure elite in but I'm not sure if it's really helping. Any type of phosphate pad or filter I can run in a HOB filter ? Is there enough flow in a HOB to even pull water through a phosphate remover pad. I guess I can just keep pulling it out when I do water changes and hope that I win the battle...

 

[Sniperhank]

It takes time. Just keep with the plan of correction.

 

[Bray84]

I had bit in my tank before and when I done my wc I kept the bucket of tank water and pinch the hair from the rock and removed from tank and put into bucket of water and washed of fingers in ro water and done it over till all gone as your cuc won't touch the long stuff only the new bits that grow. I also done bigger wc twice aweek for few weeks and never came back.

 

[54seaweed]

depending the amount of algae you could get a false reading on phosphates
I had the same kind of problem than one day I had enough did a 50% water change than another the next day a week later the tank was clean of any phosphates and algae receded
along with it since it no longer had any thing to fuel it