hair algae wont go

D

dhaddad

AC Members
Oct 7, 2005
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0
I have hair algae which has covers all my rocks. Nothing appears to get rid of the stuff. Algae blennie, Tang, Mexican snail, Sea Hare wont touch the stuff. I have removed what I can by hand but it comes back. Any ideas. I use RO water only. Lighting is on min period. Food is given min levels. My tank is 9mths old. phosphate is 0.3. I have a phosphate reactor, caulerpa in sump.
I have a TMC UV sterilizer running and V600 protien skimmer running all the time. My temp is slightly high 78-80 due to everything running which does not help. But just need something to eat the stuff or get rid slowly. No snail appears to touch the stuff. It looks like soft hair algae.
 
Quite possible its briopsis, which not a lot of inhabitants feed on..What are the water test results for your RO water? if possible, can you test this for nitrates and phosphates and post up the results....You wont be detecting much in the tank as the current algae is using up the nutrients....Adding something to clear it up is only really masking the actual issue. We need to find the route cause of the algae outbreak first..Also, what sort of container do you store the RO in??
 
Any pictures?
 
I rarely feed frozen food now mabe the odd pich one a week. As I read abot phospahtes in frozen food so cut back about three months ago. My salt said no nitrates or phosphates. I did a test for phospahtes and this was untraceable. I will test for nitrates as I believe my reading was 30.
I increased my pumps to aquamedic 3500. Added another powerhead about a month ago. No difference to hair algae

I thought about the following
1. Cover tank up for three/four days so no light on live rock to see if this helps get rid. i have about 3 corals so was thinking of placing these in the sump with strong lighting so they dont die.
2. Black Long spine sea urchin to see if this will eat the stuff? Nothing else touches it.
3. My tank a betta lifespace 680. One sump compartment contains bio balls. Could this be the issue. Should I take them out and replace with live rock?

My fish load is small
Tang, Flame angel, two damsels, algae blennie
Various critters inc hermit crabs which never seam to go near the ahir algae. Same as everything else I have tried. In despair
 
I would remove bio balls! I did remove my bio balls and nitrates are much easier to control. However you need to test for phosphates as well.
 
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