major problem !!!!!!!!

[nudy6969]

i have been infested with green hair algae, it is absolutely everywhere. i had my tank up for 4 months now. what the hell can i do? my tank s disgusting now and i cant stand looking at it. my lights are 5w per gallon pcs, nitrates and ammonia are at zero, and i feed every other day. i do a 15% water change every week and i currently have no skimmer.

[Piggy]

I would up my water changes to at least twice a week. Shorten light time. Are you using frozen food? Any phosphate media. What livestock?

[daugherty]

mex turbo snails will eat hair alage

[cthegame]

I agree with Piggy. I would do water changes twice per week for a few weeks until algae starts to go away.

[Damseluver]

Since this is such a small tank it probably would be best/easiest to take livestock to lfs for credit and start over. Ya I know; not what you wanted to hear.

My best wild guess as to the source of the problem is the PC lighting. They probably gave you cheap bulbs with the fixture and they have gone far off spectrum. Even good PC bulbs will do this around the six month mark and create problems like this IMO.

Here is what I would do.

Break down tank and hold rock in dark tupper ware container scrubbing off every few days and changing some water. Do this until your confident the rock is clean.

When you set back up use a vary shallow sand bed. With a shallow sand be you should be able to clean or even replace portions of it with out causing problems. Half inch or less. Add a skimmer; even a cheap coralife super skimmer should do for this type tank. Increase flow and either use a t5 fixture or replace PC bulbs often. Decrease light period. There are 85 days a year of overcast conditions on the natural reef and full intensity on cloudless days only last 4 hours or so midday.

When you add corals stick with non lagoonal species that will enjoy the increased flow or at least wont mind it. Xenia, zoos, polyps and with five watts a gallon even sps should do fine IMO. Corals that wont like the increase flow; mushrooms and most LPS

[ladypheesh]

do you have any snails or other janitors?

[ccCapt]

Hair algae and cyanobacteria are the result of high nutrients.....nitrates, phosphates and silicates. Are you using RO/DI water for top offs and water changes? Are you running any phosphate removal media (GFO)? A skimmer would be very helpful too.

[nudy6969]

heres my plan,

im doing a 50% water change friday, im going to take my bad lr out and put in in a bucket with a heater and a power head untill the algea dies, then i am going to sift my wand to get rid of the algea. im going to buy a skimmer and a viper hqi light. my live stock will remain in the tank since all i got is a clown fish, 2 crabs. and some snails. i got 4 zoos, 1 kenya, 1 xeinia.

[ladypheesh]

sounds like a good plan of attack. I think a skimmer will help you a lot.

[yote]

Looks like your pretty well covered.So I'm only going to suggest using some Marine SAT.It will do a number on the hair algae.