Rule One...Know Your Enemy

[andysgirl8800]

SO......I've been fighting algae for a solid 4 months now. What I would like to understand is how my algae changes and what it might mean.

I started with a terrible outbreak of stringy brown hair algae that covered every surface. After trying a few things over several months, I ended up with thick green carpets of hair algae on most of the rocks, and still stringy brown stuff on the glass and sand. Now....I am back to the stringy brown HA covering everything, no green stuff.

What does this mean? Am I fighting two different kinds of HA, one brown, one green? Or is this the same stuff that is going through different growth stages? I would LIKE to think that it is the same stuff and the brown stage is its weak and unhealthy kind, on its way out the door.

What I'm terribly afraid of is that I've come full circle with NO progress whatsoever.

Any thoughts?

 

[Rcpilot]

I did several black outs in my old 10g frag tank when it was covered in hair algae. Followed by massive water changes.

 

[andysgirl8800]

I've tried so many things. Its really starting to get to me.

 

[Reefrookie]

Do you have any Chaeto in your fuge?

 

[d.french]

use ro/di water if not buy distilled water from walmart.
do not add bunch of fish to tank 1 fish every 2months.
order media reactor from bulkreefsupply.com and some phosphate remover.
kick your light cycle down a little and make sure you have new bulbs.
good flow in tank is a must cause left over food sittin tank will cause hair algae.
watch food with high ash content that also helps algae blooms even more.
chaeto is nice to run in fuge cause good nutrient export and safe haven for pods to breed and stomatellas all the nice free tank cleaners breed in that stuff.

Good protein skimmer is a must, always use skimmer oversized for system if you can.

 

[RyanG]

What is your photoperiod like, water-movement? etc. I cut about 20 hours a week out of my photoperiod and it helped immensely.

 

[andysgirl8800]

I've posted a few other threads, so sorry to any of you who have read all this before....

My nitrates seem to stay at 20 PPM and I'd like to get that lower.

I have a fuge that doesn't seem to grow anything but dinos, red slime, and GHA. Everytime I put chaeto in there, it dies. I have a CFL 23w (100w equivalient) light over the fuge. Fuge also has a 5" DSB.

I tried unsuccessfully to grow the Chaeto in the sump, but it never looked as green as I've seen in other tanks. It just kept getting bogged down by red slime and hair algae. I kept trimming it, and rinsing it in clean SW, but it never ever improved, and it never ever grew any. I changed out the lights to something more resembling true sunlight, but still nada.

At the moment, it looks disgusting, with red slime coating everything, diatoms in the sand, hair algae on the glass, and (I think) dinos. Gratefully, this is all in the sump, and not in the DT.

My DT has 2 175w MH (3h photo period) and 2 110w VHO (8h photo period).

I have a very low bioload with 1 PBT, 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 railway goby, and 1 dragon goby. Inverts include about 10 red-legged hermits (can't seem to keep more than that alive), 1 black long spine urchin, 2 skunk cleaner shrimp, and 1 peppermint shrimp.

I have about 150lbs live rock and a 2" sand bed in the DT.

I was doing a 20% WC every 3 weeks, but upped that to 30% every 2 weeks. I use RO/DI water only.

 

[Bifferwine]

What kind of flow do you have in your system? Flow must be pretty low to be growing all the red stuff.

 

[andysgirl8800]

The flow in my fuge is pretty low. I did this to minimize bubbles. I can put a PH in there, if necessary... The flow in my DT is pretty good, with 2 K4s in addition to my return lines. I know I am missing something. I just don't know what it is. We tried the black out too, with massive WCs. It all came back. I keep telling myself it will eventually go away and some day, I'm going to have a beautiful reef in my living room instead of this beastly muck covered tank.

 

[Bifferwine]

Do you have crushed coral in your display? Or sand?

 

[andysgirl8800]

I have sand.