nuisance hair alge...HELP! YM

[JOHNNIE]

I recently had a crash in my tank now it is full of hair alge all over about 60 pounds of rock . I have tried turning the lights out for two weks ...no luck its so bad looks like a forest...Shouls I get rid of the rock or try putting in a rubbermaid bucket and letting it sit longer. One other side note is I do have taken all my power heads out of the tank as I thought i this was adding to the problem including the bio wheel in whitch I only use for flow.....THanks for the help...

[outta names]

I had a H.A. outbreak on a couple of rocks last month, so what I did was took out those rocks and scrubbed them in fresh water and it solved the problem. The only setback is I lost most of my zoos that were on those rocks.

[Sk8r]

I'd go for mother nature's solution and get a mega-cleaning-crew, including turbos, astraeas, and a fighting conch. That way you support a healthy creepy-crawlie base under your biomass and know that if something else happens they'll support the tank. Meanwhile they'll eat your spare food.

[Bandsaw]

Can you give some details about your tank? Have you tested for PO4/NO3?

What is your Ca/Alk/Mg?

What are you feeding? How often? Do you use RO/DI Water?

Are you skimming?

HA is almost always an issue with PO4. Not all test kits will show all types of phospahtes. Some won't show any because the HA uses it as fast as it is produced.

Also, how old is your tank and why did it crash?

[JOHNNIE]

thanks for the replys....A few notes the tank has been running for about 2 years now...i have only had a few frags at a time and just last summer i upgraded my canopy to include a 2x 400 w 2x 96 w pc. Up until about six weeks ago everythhing was fine...Then everything started to go first my rio's started dying now I have none working the skimmer I had to place it inside my main tank until my fuge/sump was set up...(That I will do for sure now). But since it is too big for the sump I will either trade it online or find something smaller...its a venturi with a 2100 rio pump..(I think the pump is shot too)....

Water I have been using walmart ro but I only top off the evaporated portion.....i probably should be taking out 10% every other week as well. Hardly any clean up crew left...and the bottom is filled with brown gunk....Basically neglected...I don't think the rock can be saved as it is really bad ..I mean half the rock has THICK hair alge I tried pulling it off but is engraved in the rock pores...so my next option may be to get the rubber maid and place it with salt water in total drkness for like a month since two weeks didn't wotk..........Dosent this stuff have spores and just grow back..amy have to consider getting new rock too...You know it actually looks like aia have a 55 gallon refuge..ha ha can only laugh now as I seek help....

lastly, my new son last year has kept me from doing all the little things, so I will have to try and balance the hobby with kids and such...thanks in advance!!!

[Bandsaw]

Well,

You can scrub/cook the rocks if you want but you will loose a lot of creatures doing that. I'll say one thing about HA - the pods and the like love it for breeding and hiding.

I can relate to your pain. You should have seen my tank at the height of my outbreak. Can you say "green garden"?

Most certainly get you skimmer going. That should be first on the list. Heavy skimming will assist in removing spores and other nutrients being added to the water by the HA cycle.

Do pull as much HA as possible by hand. That is the best way to export all the stuff that the HA consumed in the first place. If you just let it die, it will release those nutrients and PO4 back into the water to be reused again by more HA. Same with any clean up crew. They eat the HA - poop the HA which becomes more food for the HA.

What do you have for livestock? What are you feeding? What is your Alk level (higher Alk promotes coraline which competes with the HA).

I know the HA thing is a drag, but stay with it and find the source of PO4 and get rid of it. It has been a long hard battle for me, but I am down to only a few stubborn patches of HA left and it is just now starting to turn brown and fall apart. It has been a 6 month battle.

Personally the things I did were;

1. Upgrade to a real skimmer - that another story.
2. Found out that the cheap floss material I was using leached PO4
3. Learned that the packing juice in frozen brine/mysis is PACKED with PO4 (Jet Fuel for the HA). I rinse before feeding now.
4. Cut back feeding to every other day.
5. Rotate my feeding between flake (3 kinds) and frozen
6. Run PhosBan and good carbon.

It all made a difference for me.

[JOHNNIE]

Thanks....You know the funny thing is I read that somewhere before about the brine....I use that reguraly, for the five fish I have....guess I won't anymore or at least till I get this cleared up and then rinse it first...Yes I m looking into upgrading to a Real skimmer...hmmm po4 haven't tested it im sure its into the heavens!I will do that this weekend...and just start scrubbing...

But first of all I will get that skimmer working correctly, till I upgrade then maybe like one rock at a time scrub....Yeah that sounds like a nice 1 hr ordeal apieace!! But I will stick with it all my frags and shrooms are gone///bummer nothing like loosing your first frags ..luckly the fish are liking the rainforest...ha ha

[JOHNNIE]

any other suggestions????

[reverendmaynard]

That's a lot of light for a 55. I don't know much about mhs, can you replace the bulbs with lower power ones?

PO4 is usually the problem. Good skimming, and a phosphate remover should knock that down. The iron based ones seem to work best. I'd take the worst rocks out and scrub them with a bristle brush. Lawnmower blennies eat HA, and would be a good addition probably. Clams and other highly photosynthetic desirable organisms can help to use up the nutrients the HA needs.