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this topic has been used a million times i know but:

This brown algae in my tanks has got to go and i really need to get rid of it. So far ive taken the following steps:

reduce # of hours the lights are on
use distilled water
scrape algae of rocks

and some of these things seem to helping but none of it (so far) has stopped short strains of hair algae on my crushed coral which is the most annoying spot to have it(hair algae)

what can i do to get rid of the hair algae once and for all? And id prefer to not use chemicals to kill the algae. But if it is my ONLY option i guess ill have too.




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pnh

It's not going to go away over night. You have to dilute all those chems that you put into the tank with tap water. Eventually using pure water, frequent water changes, fresh carbon, phosguard, snails and other algae eaters, reduced feedings, good skimming, manual removal, and all the other little things, it will go away. Might take a few weeks or a few months, but keep on top of it, don't take the easy way out or shortcuts and it will eventually be a distant memory.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

good plan mr. man!



thanks for the input matty!

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pnh

any other sugestions?

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pnh

I'm in the same "boat" fishkid99! It's so frustrating. Darn diatoms!

-Josh

o yeah i couldnt agree more


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pnh

Grab a few more algae eaters if your tank doesn't have too many already, do some more frequent water changes, and wait. Be glad all you have is hair algae and diatoms. *Goes back to sucking out cyano sheets*

the most interesting thing has happened>>>


When im not running my wt/dry filter my brown algae dissapears when it is running it comes back...

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pnh

Do you have bio balls or a sponge in the wet/dry? It could be that they are holding areas for gunk and decaying organic matter. When the water flows through this, it acquires nutrients that feed algae blooms in the tank.

That's my theory. On the off chance that I'm right, rinse out the sponge or bio balls in some old tank water. That should help the problem.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Err...dont use distilled water, use RO/DI water.

Somebody once told me that abalones are good for eating up diatom algae...maybe worth a try.

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

I don't mean to hijack the post at all (so please forgive me fishkid99). Brown algae is the devil As I mentioned previously I have the same problem. For the past week I have had the lighting off pretty much 22 hours each day. I only turn it on to feed the fish and give the live rock a little light. When I had my lights on 6 hours/day the algae would get out of control. Isn't this algae suppose to thrive off of too much light?

-Josh

It doesnt thrive off of too much light, it thrives off of excess nutrients and the wrong spectrum of light. My guess is that if the algae doesnt go away then you are having a problem with atleast phosphates. If you are dosing Iodine, STOP. Iodine is also used by diatom algae.

If your parameters are in check, phosphates, nitrates, etc and your alkalinity is in check then you shouldnt be having problems combating the diatom "sheets" you will however still get the hard diatoms on your glass.

I had a 175w halide over a 13g tank and had the diatom problem at the beginning stages of the tank and with keeping water parameters in check it went away.

you may also need to replace the tubes in your hood.. Old lights will contribute to algae growth...

Does anyone here think i can run my filter with out bio balls or anything like that so i can still use the skimmer thats in the wet/dry filter.

So what im saying is:

should i take out all the filter media in the wet/dry filter but still run the filter so the protein skimmer can still clean the water.

Like a berlin set up (i guess)


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pnh

The diatoms are going away now that my lights are off. I checked my parameters a few days ago and they look darn good. I checked everything...Hopefully I'll starve the algae out. We'll see....

-Josh

Err...dont use distilled water, use RO/DI water.

What's wrong with distilled? Many a thread has come up on nano-reef.com saying distilled is at least as good if not better than RO/DI.

I believe, and someone please correct me if I am wrong, DI water has no buffering capacity.

-Josh

Same for RO and for distilled. They're all "pure" pure water, so no buffers or dissolved stuff. Sometimes carbon dioxide gas can get into the water soon after it's purified, but otherwise there's nothing in it.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Yeah so and the pH is at a neutral 7.0 so you need to add water or something with a proper pH For your tank to keep the pH at the right level.

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pnh

The purer your starting water before you mix up the salt the better. The salt mix you use should contain all buffers and trace minerals needed. You should not need buffered water with the correct ph. Additional buffers are only added when needed and usually by more experienced aquarists with specific tank setups that require extra buffering. I use reef crystals salt and RO/DI or lately distilled water which tests a ph of 6.8 before mixing and haven't had any problems. The RO/DI I was buying wasn't pure enough and the apartment managers won't let me setup my own unit. The phosphate in particular was causing algae blooms I'm still working on fixing.

I had my lights off pretty much 24 hour/day for a week and a half and my brown algae problem is cured! I accidently left my lights on for 12 hours yesterday. Typically, that would mean that I would have to scrub for hours. I don't see a speck of algae anywhere! YEY/:'

-Josh