Hair/String Algae

Mark6rules

AC Members
Sep 28, 2000
14
0
0
Bartlett, IL
I moved about 2 1/2 months ago, and my 150 gal. FW tank hasn't been the same since. I have not been able to rid the tank of string/hair algae, slime algae, and a blue-green algae that has coated my plants. The slime algae and hair algae is easily reomved, but grows back in about 24 hours. My tank is reef-ready with 2 prefilters and a large trickle filter. I have live plants (not doing well because of the algea, and am going to remove them and start over), and use a pressurized CO2 system delivering about 1 bubble per second. Water chem is as follows:

pH: 6.6 having hard time increasing it to previoius level
of 7.2)
NH3/NH4: 0
NO3: 5
NO2: 0
dGH: 1
dKH: 6

The tank stays lighted about 9 hours a day with 4 power compacts (384 total watts on different timers). The tank gets less natural light than it did in our previous home. I've placed a phosphate sponge in my trickle filter return (phosphate is over 9 out of my tap), but that hasn't helped. I don't even want to think about a RO unit -- for my size tank, I shudder at the cost. The aquarium service that reset my tank up took my two plecos and bristlenose cat because they said they were eating my plants -- I swear they weren't. The only other algae eaters I have are about 6 Cory cats. I wanted to get the algae problem under control before I purchased any more fish.

I don't get it --- what am I doing wrong, or not doing that I should be? It's been nearly 3 months, now, and I'm thoroughly frustrated. :confused:

Doug
 
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Go To Plant Page

Go over to the plant page. There are a number of us who have experienced the same problem with BBA(Black Beard Algae) and rather than repeat all the stuff that's been said I'll just refer you to that page.
Len
 
Hi Doug. Your problem is not unique so don't get discouraged. It would be a good idea to browse the plant page as djlen suggested. One quick remedy to help get rid of some of the algae is to leave your lights off for 48 hours and then once every few days. This will have a greater effect on your algae than it will your plants (moreso if you still plan to remove the plants anyway).
 
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