Hair Algae and Flow from Power Heads?

[fltekdiver]

Thanks for helping

Been in the hobby a year now, and my 180 Reef Tank is just hitting 6 months up and running.

I've just encountered my first few pcs of hair algae growing on a few pcs of rock, but one rock is getting covered pretty good, small pcs of hair algae, but enough to concern me

I use Coral Pro Salt, and do 20% water changes every other week. Last 2 weeks, I did 20% back to back weeks.

My lights are Reef Breeder LED's, and ramp up to 75% blue and 60% whites, and are on a total of 12 hours, with 4 hours of very low blue lighting as they ramp up and down

I have a MR-1 Reactor running HC GFO from Bulk Reef Supply. I changed it every 2 months, the media

I have a large CUC also

I just changed my RO-DI Filters for the first time in the year, but my PO4 has been reading 0 on the Hanna Checker , and my TDS Meter says 0 on the out

I use 2 - Jeabo WP -25 Power heads, and I'm thinking my movement in the water is to little. I keep the power heads on a med to high setting

My return pump is a Reef Octopus DC5500

Nitrates = 10 ppm

Nitrites= 0

PH 8.4

Ammonia = 0

PO4 = 0.00 on the Hanna Checker

SG = 1.022

Temp on my Apex is 77.8 , it ranges from 76.7 to 78 winter, and 78 to 80 during the summer months

Here's a video shot 2 weeks ago, of my tank and it's 6 month up date

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cXtWc2nFN0

[rosek007]

do you have pics of the rocks with hair algae?, corals look like they're growing nicely.

[thegrun]

Even though you are showing zero for phosphates you have a phosphate issue if algae is starting to grow. I suspect you are going to need to change out the GFO every 3-4 weeks, perhaps even more frequently until you get the algae under control.

[fltekdiver]

Ok, should I continue to use the HC GFO ? Or just the regular GFO for the time being?

Excuse the pics, I had to zoom all the way to get the Algae

Here's so pics of the Algae

The last pic is the rock that has allot of it, weird, only one pc

It's hard to see because their really small pcs, and my CUC I noticed has been busy with them

[fltekdiver]

Originally Posted by rosek007

do you have pics of the rocks with hair algae?, corals look like they're growing nicely.

Coral and everything else is doing great, parameters have been perfect since the tank start up 6 months ago

[Rokwell33]

I have the same problem. Phos reads 0. I took my tribal blenny out b/c we was eating gsp. Now I see it here and there. Why?

[fltekdiver]

I just bought 2 lawnmower Blennies

a month later I still have it

Did 4 water changes in a row, every week, over 20% and nothing changed

I'm still trying to figure out how I got it

Only thing I can think of, was I exhausted my RO-DI filters, and was possibly over feeding with frozen Mysis shrimp

[Rokwell33]

Still no luck with tests reading 0?

[fltekdiver]

Yeh, the 0 is coming from the hair algae consuming all the nutrients

I haven't cleaned my glass in weeks

I keep changing the GFO also, hoping it will absorb it all, but I don't know when the GFO is exhausted, because I'm getting false PO4 numbers

The highest they read was 0.04 ppm

[Mael]

are you running any biological filtration? Like macro in a fuge or soemthing? When I finally ran my HOB fuge and added soem macro my algae slowly declined(also due to increasing my CUC)

Both my turbo snails and the emerald crab eat the hair algae.

[fltekdiver]

I have a large CUC, a mix of a ton of stuff. I just bought a sand sifting blennie also

I have a large serpent star, 2 other star fish, horse shoe crab, a ton of snails, crabs, blue legged crabs, emerald crabs, turbo snails etc

Here's a You Tube Video last month, right before the hair algae problem

I also have Chetto in my fudge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkHLN...NrKEs7kBWJQudA

[fltekdiver]

Here's my sump etc, but this is 6 months ago when I first started the tank up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB4MP...NrKEs7kBWJQudA