Algae war

[toddmau5]

Tank has been up and running a little over 2 solid months now, and the hair algae has been a constant battle. It has turned the sand bed into a lawn of sorts. I do weekly water changes religiously of 15-30% depending on where my levels are at. Nitrates are usually about 20ppm before water change, and back down to zero after wards. Phosphates are usually steady at .25ppm but they did get up to 1.0ppm (thats when the 30% water change came into play) I understand the readings aren't entirely accurate because some of it is already being used by the algae. Lights run for 12 hours a day, then the sump gets its lights for 12 hours when the display tank lights are off, during that time the skimmer is also running. Sump is just a bio filter, with skimmer. Decent size ball of chaeto. I guess my main question here is, is it time for a phosban reactor? or is there another step im missing to keep the hair algae under control (and possible knock the nitrates and phosphates down a little)

[Reef Frog]

Well, even if your phos test kits were off 50%, your level would still be high and is driving your algae. I'd manually remove as much as you can. And personally I would go ahead & add the GFO reactor. Reducing you lights by 2 hours or so might make a small contribution. Keep up with the water changes, don't over feed, remove uneaten food & excess detritus and you'll have it under control in no time.

[toddmau5]

I've cut back my feeding a lot I almost feel like I'm starving my poor guys. I remove as much as I can but it's in the gavel pretty good. I try to get out as much detritus as I can just before and during the water change, I've been starting to shop reactors just didn't know if it was time to pull the trigger

[thegrun]

What brand tests are you using? If you make a 30% water change and your nitrates are at 20 they should only drop to 14, not zero. 12 hours of light if that is with your daylight bulbs is too much. You would be better off running the daylight bulbs for 8 hours and your refugium lights for 16 hours. What type of bio-filter do you have, they often contribute to nitrate problems if they are not cleaned every 3-4 days. I would look into running either a GFO reactor for phosphates or a reactor with phosphate removing resin (I use Blue Life PHOS Fx resin).

[Quick_Ben]

I'm running GFO in a reactor in addition to a waterfall algae scrubber. I might suggest using an old canister filter as a reactor with bulk GFO in media bags as an alternative. The scrubber grows algae using LEDs and I clean the algae out weekly. It competes for nutrients with algae in the tank and hopefully wins in the end. Like everything else (except crashes which happen fast) it takes a while for both the scrubber and GFO to work. Eventually, slowly, the growth in the tank will lessen.
Its also important to make sure the water you're using doesn't have phosphate in it before it hits the tank. No use making the battle much harder by putting it in with the top-off water. I think an approach that combines methods can keep this under control.

[toddmau5]

API test Kits, slowly making the transition to salifert kits one by one. It might not fall exactly to zero, but I think it's somewhere between 5 and zero. But then again, with api, every level is yellow. I'll start slowing the lights down, is it better to have them come on later in the morning or shut off earlier in the evening?

[Cozwey]

So for PO4 I would pick up the Hanna checker. It works great for me. I was also at about .28 phosphate. I literally just installed the Phosban 150 in my sump and am running Phosguard. My level has already dropped to .20 in one day. I have been rinsing my food and changing sump socks daily. Nothing else has worked until now. My tank is 6 months old. Get the GFO going and you will be ok.