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.
Doug
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.

Doug
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