High Phosphates

[skip_16157]

I am having major hair algae problems and after information from the forum members I have found that my tap water is high in phosphates 0.5 or higher. I used a red sea test kit.

I have found a good supply of some distilled water that is nitrate and phosphate free. A friend has a culligan water treament system. I plan to use this for top off water.

My question is how should I go about getting rid of my hair algae. Should I take my LR out and clean it along with cleaning my glass.

Should I do a partial water change at the same time? The phosphates in my tank are 0.1 or lower right now but I still have algae. I do have a refugium and skimmer running. This is how I think the levels are lower now.

Thanks for the help.

[Electrobes]

I had the exact same problem as you.. the phosphates actually caused madd cyano bacteria to grow on top of hair algae. I did water changes (changing the tap water out for RO water). It has worked for the most part, the only issue is the stress it causes on corals or fish that might be in the tank at that time. The cyano is completely gone, and the is some hair algae still remaining but the Algae blenny I recently got will hopefully do some damage to it

[reefrunner69]

Manual removal and improving water conditions are the only way to win with hair algae long term. Use of RO/DI for top off and waterchanges will help, using a good skimmer will help also. You will want to remove the PO4 that is currently fueling the algae, you can do a series of water changes that are free in PO4 as well as use a PO4 removing resin like RowaPhos. If the algae is real bad, you can reduce the photoperid of the tank to give you a head start, but if you don't get the PO4 outta there, it will come right back when you turn the lights back on. Turn them off for 24 hours then go to a 4 hour photo period for a week or two. This will cause the algae to die back some, but you have to be doing water changes to remove the nutrients it puts back in the tank as it dies.

[skip_16157]

How often do you reccomend I do water changes?


Thanks for the quick responses.

[reefrunner69]

I would do, 10% every couple of days until there was 0 reading on the test.

[skip_16157]

Well I think I need more help.

I had hair algae real bad and couldn't control it so I took all of my rock out and scrubbed it and cleaned the glass. I then continued with Reefrunner's advice.

Today I tested my PO4 and it was 0.1, calcium 450, PH 8.1, nitrite 0, nitrate 0. I haven't received my alk. kit yet.

These are the results after 3 partial changes started (1-21-04) with IO salt and Distilled water from wal-mart. I have been running lights 4 hours a day and using kents phosphate sponge. My hair algae continues to grow slowly on the glass. I think this got out of control originally due to the flake food I was using and tap water.

I started kalk. last night and it has seemed to raise my calcium to 450 and my PH is up from 8.0 to 8.1.

I ridded of omega flakes as they were of the chart in a PO4 test. I am now just doing frozen brine rinsed in RO water before feeding. I feed very little.

Any suggestions??? And should I continue kalk. dosing?? How high is to high for calcium levels?

Thanks again.

[mansiz]

If I have a snail in my tank, will it get rid of the hair algae? Cas I see my snail keep on grubbing through one LR to another LR.

[skip_16157]

I think I read somewhere on this site that they used water from Wal-mart out of a machine? Is this water ro and di processed?

Any help from my previous post?

[skip_16157]

I have performed 4 water changes and yet my po4 is still 0.1 or less. I cannot locate any water that is 100% po4 free. Algae is starting to grow back on the back glass and the turbo snails are not effective. Is this enough po4 to fuel algae growth? Any recomendations?