Question..
My tank is currently about a month and a half old.
Definitely feels like I'm going through the ugly phase right now with GHA and brown hair algae?
My current parameters are the following:
Alk: 137 ppm
Calc: 433
Nitrate: 0.00
Phosphate: 0.05
I have no fish in there yet (Will by the end of the month after the quarantine)
I have a few corals (frogspawn, hammer, zoas, GSP)
Some inverts:
1 Tuxedo urchin
1 Nassarius snail
1 Cleaner shrimp
3 bumble bee snail
3 trochus snail
1 golf ball size dragons breath macro algae
None of the snails look like they are eating the hair algae.
I have been feeding reef roids, reef energy AB+, and phyto feast (to feed the copepods) all about once-twice a week.
Question is, should I be running my protein skimmer?
I'm trying to get past this ugly stage sooner then later, not sure how effective using a protein skimmer would do.
Would it strip out any of the nitrate and phosphate I have in the system to 0? I don't want to bottom out and get hit with dinos.
My plan of attack is do a pull and scrub all of the rocks + sandbed (algae is starting to form there too) and do a big water change to get as much of it out as possible.
![tank 8-8.jpeg tank 8-8.jpeg](https://www.reef2reef.com/data/attachments/2221/2221111-834ba6458142436751cc97b8433e7ce7.jpg)
My tank is currently about a month and a half old.
Definitely feels like I'm going through the ugly phase right now with GHA and brown hair algae?
My current parameters are the following:
Alk: 137 ppm
Calc: 433
Nitrate: 0.00
Phosphate: 0.05
I have no fish in there yet (Will by the end of the month after the quarantine)
I have a few corals (frogspawn, hammer, zoas, GSP)
Some inverts:
1 Tuxedo urchin
1 Nassarius snail
1 Cleaner shrimp
3 bumble bee snail
3 trochus snail
1 golf ball size dragons breath macro algae
None of the snails look like they are eating the hair algae.
I have been feeding reef roids, reef energy AB+, and phyto feast (to feed the copepods) all about once-twice a week.
Question is, should I be running my protein skimmer?
I'm trying to get past this ugly stage sooner then later, not sure how effective using a protein skimmer would do.
Would it strip out any of the nitrate and phosphate I have in the system to 0? I don't want to bottom out and get hit with dinos.
My plan of attack is do a pull and scrub all of the rocks + sandbed (algae is starting to form there too) and do a big water change to get as much of it out as possible.
![tank 8-8.jpeg tank 8-8.jpeg](https://www.reef2reef.com/data/attachments/2221/2221111-834ba6458142436751cc97b8433e7ce7.jpg)