trippclark
Member
Okay, I know that the simple answer is anything over zero is too high. I have been battling brown hair algae for over a month now and have mentioned this in other threads as I toyed with lighting adjustments and such. The Brown algae has not gotten much worse, but it has not gotten any better either . . . even after dropping hours of light to just 4 per day. I am now still at between 5 and 6 hours a day (440W VHO flourescent Actinic White over 55 gal tank).
Last night I checked levels again. Temp is steady at about 80 degrees. pH is at 8.3, Nitrates and Nitrites are at 0. Ca is at 420 and KH is at 12. SG is at 1.025. Phosphates are at 0.6 on a low-range test kit. I know that 0.6 is higher than I want, and I picked up a phosphate sponge today to start bringing them down, but to me 0.6 sounds pretty low to be causing all of the algae I am seeing. So at what level do phosphates start throwing things out of whack? Am I above this level, or have I still not found the cause of my problem.
Or, another thought is that Phosphates are consumed by the very brown algae that I am battling, so the fact that they are ONLY 0.6 is because of the brown algae, and that actually I am creating or intruducing much more Phosphates, and much of them are being consumed by the algae???
Last night I checked levels again. Temp is steady at about 80 degrees. pH is at 8.3, Nitrates and Nitrites are at 0. Ca is at 420 and KH is at 12. SG is at 1.025. Phosphates are at 0.6 on a low-range test kit. I know that 0.6 is higher than I want, and I picked up a phosphate sponge today to start bringing them down, but to me 0.6 sounds pretty low to be causing all of the algae I am seeing. So at what level do phosphates start throwing things out of whack? Am I above this level, or have I still not found the cause of my problem.
Or, another thought is that Phosphates are consumed by the very brown algae that I am battling, so the fact that they are ONLY 0.6 is because of the brown algae, and that actually I am creating or intruducing much more Phosphates, and much of them are being consumed by the algae???