Problem!

[dhg23]

Hey everyone, If someone could please help me out i would really appreciate. Here's my predicament. Of course it has to do w/ hair algae. I've read all the posts so far and have tried to comply w/ everyone's suggestions but to no avail. currently i have a 46 gal bow front FOWLR (or what used to be LR, 20 lbs of it) that has been running for about 3 yrs. For filtration i have a fluval 404, a Emperor 280, a Prizm Skimmer and two Penquin 1140's in the corners for additional movement, one of which powers an additional bio-wheel. For lighting i have pc's totalling about 192 watts. one is a 10k and the other is a 50/50. the lights are less than 2 months old. to try and get rid of the hair algae i've been doing a 20% water change every week, put in place a phosphate sponge and some additional phosphate remover additive directly to the tank. i do a light feeding of flake every night. The water is RO/DI that i buy from a lfs which i've tested for phosphates and it comes up 0. I've also cut down the amount of light to only 4 hours a day, but w/ no luck. for fish i have a small sail fin tang, a lawn mower blenny, who seems to be loving it, a purple basslet, a 3 inch maroon clown and a blue damsel. I also have 3 crabs and 5 snails, but they don't seem to be getting the job down. I would like to ad more crabs but i've heard that they will also eat coraline algae which i'm trying to propogate and kill the snails who seem to do a better job of getting rid of the algae albeit a small contribution. My readings as of last night were ph-8.2, alk 3.0, Ca-350-400, phosphates .5 (source of the algae problem i know) and my temp is at a steady 78 degrees. to try and grow more coraline, which seems to turn white on me and die, i've been adding Marc Weiss's Coral Vital DNA. It states on the bottle that it doesn't contain any phospahtes so i've continued it's use. I did use a calcium additive by Tropic Marine, but it doesn't state on the product that it doesn't have phosphates so i've discontinued it's use. so here's the deal. How do i get rid of the hair algae and keep my other parameters in check? Any suggestions would really help. Thanks in Advance,
Dave

 

[leigh]

more crabs more snails. that's my take. i haven't had crab on snail issues or crab on coraline problems. they fight for bigger shells sometimes but that's it. my crabs are all scarlet and zebra hermits if that helps.

 

[sebae0]

you really need to get that phosphate level down, does the flake you add have phosphate in it? try feeding every other day and continue to do water changes and run the phosphate sponge. something is adding the phosphate since your ro/di for changes reads zero.