Green hair algae

[Partsman41953]

Hi all,

I have a 28 gallon bow front aquarium with the following: sand substrate, live rock, small clean up crew, 2 clown fish, Xenia coral, and orange mushroom coral. My equipment consists of a Sea Clone protein skimmer (HOB), Rena XP1 canister filter, Corallife power compact fixture and a Coralife 2 bulb T5 fixture with 1 white bulb 10,000 watts and 1 actinic bulb. I also have 2 Hydor power heads on either side of the aquarium.

My problem(s) are (1) I am growing green hair algae on my power heads mostly. There may be small amounts of hair algae on one rock but mostly on the power heads. My second problem is that my soft corals are really not growing. They do not look bad, except for the fact my clown fish are hosting on the rock where my biggest concentration of Xenia are and stunting them, but for the most part they are just now growing.

I have a RO/DI system and do my water changes bi-weekly. My water parameters are within normal limits as the water was just checked by my local fish store recently but as I was told the algae could be sucking the phosphates out of the water to grow. I was thinking about purchasing a 4-bulb T5 Corallife fixture to see if that will help as my lights are old. I was also wondering if adding shrimp or a clean up crew along with adding something chemical wise to the tank would help.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks.

 

[Bifferwine]

Hello,
We will need to know exactly what your parameters are. "Normal limits" may vary depending on who you ask. If you don't have your own test kits, you really should get them. It's not a great idea to rely on your LFS to keep track of your water quality. The basics you need are pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

If you have algae, you have a nitrate and/or phosphate problem. Those fuel algae growth.

How big are your water changes? It's good that you do them regularly.

What do you feed your fish, how often and how much?

Canister filters tend to lead to algae problems in saltwater tanks. I bet if you get rid of the canister filter, you'd see an improvement. They work fine for freshwater, but for saltwater tend to lead to problems.

When was the last time you changed your bulbs? Old bulbs will also help fuel algae growth. They should be replaced at least once per year.

Adding shrimp won't do anything for the algae. But if you don't have enough snails, that could be a problem too. I would not add any chemicals. That is just masking the problem and not addresssing the cause of your algae. And chemicals can have bad side effects.