unknown reason for hair algae help????

[hondaboi2000]

I currently have a 55 reef tank with 4 fish...3 clowns and one six line wrasse...lighting from power compacts for a total of 210 watts of light on for 8 hrs daily...I originally had very high nitrates in excess of 100 ppm, but they are now down to around 20 ppm and hopefully down even more in the next few weeks with regular water changes...Zero phosphates...I had bad green hair algae growth which I was sure was the cause of the excess nitrates, but now when I get in the tank and scrub away the algae it seems to start re-growing within a weeks time...What else could be going wrong? I have some red legged hermits, but they show no interest in the algae..any suggestions?

 

[little fishie]

we had that problem and we got a tang and he ate all of the algea and he keeps it gone, thats what helped us, but im not telling you to get a tang, because, i dont know if you have room for it, we have a 50 gal. tank and he is our only fish. hth <img src="graemlins//yeahright.gif" border="0" alt="[yeahright]" />

 

[richard rendos]

It could be silicates. Usually this only happens in old tanks where the silicon in the corners has gotten old and is breaking down, but it may be worth checking. What kind of sand did you use? If you used a silica type sand, that could be the problem.