hair algea problem

[guy84]

Hi everybody,
New as a member, but not to the sight
The tank has been set up for 2-3 yrs
Algae started 5-6 months ago (first tank though)
equipment
200 gal tank
50 gal sump
Coralife skimmer
lighting: Ultra light w/ 3 400w mh (only run outer 2 icecaps, w 2 60in vho super actinic & actinic white
mag 1200 return pump
korline power heads
rodi water with sachem salt have tds meter
new phosphate reactor
Levels api test kit (new)
Calcium 420
Alk 9
phosphates 0, but has to be some for algae
nitrites & nitrates 0
salinity 1.025
don't have anymore hard corals, but haven't had to add any calcium in over a month?
has gotten little better not much since phosphate reactor was put in last week,
mushrooms wont even hardly open
any advise is appreciated
Thanks

 

[usefulidiot213]

It comes down to one simple issue, and that's too many nutrients in the tank. The issue is finding what is causing the high nutrients. So the best way is to improve as much as you can, and check everything.
-First check your RO/DI water. If you are buying it or filtering it yourself with your own filter get a TDS meter and measure the TDS in the water. One of the bigger contributors to algae issues is old filters & resin in RO/DI filters.
-I don't know if you steered up your sand band, but if the tank is a couple of years old, your sand bed can get a pretty nasty build up in the lower layer, and if they get steered up it releases all that crap into the tank.
There are a couple of things that work well with high nutrients & Algae issues.
You can increase the Mag levels in your tank to about 1750 and that has been know to kill off the algae. Please read about the proper way to do this.

You can start dosing vodka that will create a bacteria bloom that consumes the nutrients so that the Algae can't. This works very well, but it's very easy to screw up and nuke everything so if dosing vodka is something you want to do, please start doing some reading/research

on how it's done. The process is not hard, but there is a process.

 

[asharp13]

i agree with the idiot. the problem is excess nutrients. to knock out the problem you need to remove them. to get rid of the current algae that is in your tank, kill the lights for a couple days and add some hermits and emeralds. when introducing the hermits, place all of them in he problem area and they will eat the remaining pieces. again tho, your problem is nutrients which always want to be avoided in reef tanks. killing the lights will let you get a jump on the problem but it will resurface if you dont fix the antagonist

 

[guy84]

thanks for the advice it seems to be dieing off,
but very slowly