Hairy Algae is BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sentinel

sentinel

New Member
]After shutting off the lights in my tank for 4 months after a horrible green algae outbreak that killed all my corals I am back at setting everything back. I have a 72 gal bowfront with 2 175 metal halides retros, plus a berlin skimmer and using 2 bags of chemipure carbon on my sump and a chiller set at 77 degrees..I also have a denitrator which I restarted and is working great.BEEN BUSY FOR THE LAST 6 WEEKS setting everything up and except a few fish losses in the first week everything was looking great.I did a 60 gallon water change with Ro water from my ROunit at home. After 4 weeks at it and replanting new corals guess what , the hairy algae is creeping back!If the nitrates are at 0, phosphates 0 and reunning the MH for 6 hours a day, and having almost no cleanup critters, what must be happening? By the way I have never been succesful growing coraline algae at my aquarium, which was running for five years before the outbreak. The more significant change on this 5 yrs was the addition of the MH lightning system. Can lights alone have caused this outbreak with everything else ok?Why no coralline? I always added the calcium, strontium and magnesium and iodine on a weekly regimen. Calcium levels in the 400's, dkh at 12, nitrates right now are at 0. What are my options? I have been doing 10 gallons water changes every 14 days:help:
 
fbm

fbm

Active Member
Have you been testing for idodine? It is toxic if there is too much. Do you have anything that has been eating the coraline? Do you have any coraline at all? Have you tested your RO to see what you have in it? More specifically copper? Did your tank cycle before you started putting livestock back into it? Do you have a cleanup crew?
Could just be part of a new tank syndrome. I believe you have to go through all the algea stages to start with. My tank is still new and I think I just went through the last outbreak of algea. My sailfin tang did a great job of eating the hair algea.
 
sentinel

sentinel

New Member
Dont test for iodine, just follow the weekly manufacturers recomendation of 2 capfuls per week,, just today I ckecked parameters, Ammonia, nitrites, phosphates and nitrates at 0, ph 8.2(I adjust RO/DI water to 8.2) before changing.CORALINE JUST WONT GROW. Increased flow a couple of days ago and blew up my substrate(live sand) and water was cloudy for a couple of days, reduced back and everything settled back but tongue coral began like peeling off after the stronger flow, a frogspawn which opened great 2 days ago is dying, brain is not opening as before.Greenstar polyps havent opened since buying 2 weeks ago,spaguetti leather burning at the tips(black).Bubble coral though is opening great.Coral losses amounting to a great extent, I am killing this beautiful creatures and dont know why!!!!!!!!!!!!Fish are thriving, 4 damsels are beautiful, cleaner shrimp also great,but corals are all dying slowly. Past couple of weeks lost a new elegance coral and a gigantic hammer coral, same pattern from one day to the other after opening great they start dying off on me. Sumarizing, total chaos.Maybe I restocked too fast but if all parameters are ok, what is happening? Trying to get a cleanup crew to deal with the algae but have to look overseas, as no store in Puerto Rico carries them. Please help
 
trainfever

trainfever

Active Member
What is your lighting schedule? Do you have macroalgae in your sump? If not, then put some in there with a light over top. Algae needs two things to survive, nitrates and light. If you have macroalage in your sump, and increase lighting over it, it will starve the hair algae and the hair algae will die off.
 
sentinel

sentinel

New Member
I have the pump for the skimmer, guess will have to create space for some caulerpa. Do I need substrate for the caulerpa and what kind of light will I need. It is placed in a closed cabinet under the aquarium. A chiiler is also in hte cabinet.
 
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