Treefer32
Valuable Member
So, finally annoyed enough to post, primarily because my hair algae isn't going away. . . It's not necessarily expanding, and I'm trying to avoid knee jerk reactions (e.g. massive water changes, etc).
I got a bloom of forrest green hair algae. It's a deep dark green. Shows up black on the pictures.
My phosphates are .05 to .15 at the highest. Nitrates are 10-20 at the highest.
I have a 340 gallon display with skimmer rated for 500 gallons, 120 watt UV running at 1100 gph, Algae turf scrubber rated for 5 cubes of frozen food a day, a reef mat 1200, and a denitrator - cannister filter filled with matrix rock - effectively keeps nitrates at 10-20 vs. the 70+ they were a few years ago.
I feed on average 10-15 cubes of frozen food a day for 23 fish. 1 sheet of nor every 2-3 days. No water changes in around 6 months. I dose trace elements weekly. Am dosing alk and calcium at 12 ml per hour 24 hours a day. I'm dosing Magnesium chloride and sulfate mix at 48 ml per day.
The hair algae just showed up out of the blue over the last 3 -4 months. Approximate timing may or may not have been when several of my LED Diodes burned out. Never had hair algae issues over the last 7 years until this year.
I'm planning to use fluconozole to kill it over a 2-3 week period and dosing PHosphate E to manage the phosphates released. But is the sudden surge of hair algae due to nutrients, or could it be due to changes in lighting as a result of diodes burning out on each of my LEDs? (a similar number of around 6 diodes per AI Hydra 52 fixture burned out, for a total of 18 on the 3 fixtures.)
I also run T5 HO 4 x 80 watt bulbs. And those have been on the same schedules and bulbs replaced annually for the last 7 years.
PAR Is around 220 at the top of my SPS and around 120 at the sand bed. The ha is growing in a lot of the shadded areas from corals, but it's also growing in the light on one side of the tank that has lower flow from smaller gyres.
Attaching a few pictures. But, is this normal for a 6-7 year old large tank with 1-2 water changes a year? (Top off is RODI with fresh DI every 4-6 months and fresh carbon filters annually, it's also softened water source).
My question is, if this is lighting related, then will killing the algae do anything or just grow back because the lights are giving the wrong amount of light? Or is this most likely due to an aging tank and lighting has a minimal impact on type of algae growth? (Red channels are set at 1% on all the lights).
I got a bloom of forrest green hair algae. It's a deep dark green. Shows up black on the pictures.
My phosphates are .05 to .15 at the highest. Nitrates are 10-20 at the highest.
I have a 340 gallon display with skimmer rated for 500 gallons, 120 watt UV running at 1100 gph, Algae turf scrubber rated for 5 cubes of frozen food a day, a reef mat 1200, and a denitrator - cannister filter filled with matrix rock - effectively keeps nitrates at 10-20 vs. the 70+ they were a few years ago.
I feed on average 10-15 cubes of frozen food a day for 23 fish. 1 sheet of nor every 2-3 days. No water changes in around 6 months. I dose trace elements weekly. Am dosing alk and calcium at 12 ml per hour 24 hours a day. I'm dosing Magnesium chloride and sulfate mix at 48 ml per day.
The hair algae just showed up out of the blue over the last 3 -4 months. Approximate timing may or may not have been when several of my LED Diodes burned out. Never had hair algae issues over the last 7 years until this year.
I'm planning to use fluconozole to kill it over a 2-3 week period and dosing PHosphate E to manage the phosphates released. But is the sudden surge of hair algae due to nutrients, or could it be due to changes in lighting as a result of diodes burning out on each of my LEDs? (a similar number of around 6 diodes per AI Hydra 52 fixture burned out, for a total of 18 on the 3 fixtures.)
I also run T5 HO 4 x 80 watt bulbs. And those have been on the same schedules and bulbs replaced annually for the last 7 years.
PAR Is around 220 at the top of my SPS and around 120 at the sand bed. The ha is growing in a lot of the shadded areas from corals, but it's also growing in the light on one side of the tank that has lower flow from smaller gyres.
Attaching a few pictures. But, is this normal for a 6-7 year old large tank with 1-2 water changes a year? (Top off is RODI with fresh DI every 4-6 months and fresh carbon filters annually, it's also softened water source).
My question is, if this is lighting related, then will killing the algae do anything or just grow back because the lights are giving the wrong amount of light? Or is this most likely due to an aging tank and lighting has a minimal impact on type of algae growth? (Red channels are set at 1% on all the lights).
