There must be more to this???.

Tired

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It's hair algae, but it's possible there could be bits of dinos mixed in. A close look wouldn't hurt. Do you see any brown stuff in there?

Do you know if your hermits are dying off?

If I were you, I might try upping nutrients a little, until both are detectable and not hovering near zero. Your rock isn't too white, and I do see some coraline on there. It's worth a try to get that other algae growing. Especially if you don't have any corals to worry about the algae overrunning.

Did your tank ever go through an ugly stage? A big surge of rampant pest algae, that gradually faded out?
 

King Turkey

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It's hair algae, but it's possible there could be bits of dinos mixed in. A close look wouldn't hurt. Do you see any brown stuff in there?

Do you know if your hermits are dying off?

If I were you, I might try upping nutrients a little, until both are detectable and not hovering near zero. Your rock isn't too white, and I do see some coraline on there. It's worth a try to get that other algae growing. Especially if you don't have any corals to worry about the algae overrunning.

Did your tank ever go through an ugly stage? A big surge of rampant pest algae, that gradually faded out?
Sorta why I suggested an algae scrubber. Lets get it out of his tank and if he does indeed have dinos he can just dose nitrates. Than he can manager the algae easier in the display.
 
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Matt Jackson

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There are no hermits dying off that I’m aware off they are all very active on the sand bed and some on the rocks. When I blow it with the baster the loose stuff blows off but there are no clouds, it all looks the same IMO. When the tank fist cycled it did have what I thought was the ugly stage, it wasn’t as thick as this, died back but then this happened and I put it down to the lights being on so high and for extended periods plus in the summer it does get some sun light which didn’t help. I’m putting up blinds this year on the offending window.

what’s the best way of upping nutrients, is that the scrubber route?
 

Tired

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An algae scrubber lowers nutrients. The idea is that a lot of algae grows in the scrubber, which outcompetes the stuff in your main tank. If you're trying to lower nutrients, it works great. If you want to raise nutrients, it's the opposite of a help.

The best way to up nutrients is to make sure you're feeding well, and to reduce water changes. Your fish should eat a nice meal daily, or multiple smaller meals multiple times a day. If you're already doing that, reduce how often you do water changes, how big they are, or both. If that doesn't do much, you can directly dose nutrients.

I would suggest upping your nutrients. You'll need to be able to keep both steadily above 0 for corals, anyway, and it may help your rock mature further. Aim for readable on both numbers, and steadily so. Neither should drop to unreadable in the average tank, and phosphate should absolutely not hit zero. That'll kill corals, and can do so fast.

What water are you using? Is it possible the filtration needs changing out? A too-old carbon cartridge in an RODI unit can let things through that encourage algae.

The biggest problem I'm seeing is that your cleanup crew is dying. If they weren't, this would be simple- up nutrients a tiny bit, pull long algae tufts, and let them eat. I would question why that's happening. Did you get all the snails from the same place? Were the snails actually eating algae, or is it possible they went hungry? They can't eat the long stuff.
 

King Turkey

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You just add the scrubber and feed more. I can feed my tank 40 gallon 2-4 cubes of frozen food a day and dose 12 ml of redsea ab+ and feed corals 1/4 teaspoon spot feeding of reef roids 3 times a week with zero algae in tank cuz it grows in scrubber. And I can dose 10ppm nitrate a day in my tank and the morning before feeding I am at 1 ppm nitrate .02 phosphate. When I scrape the algae off I only feed 1 cube frozen till some algae grows back to start the week cycle again.
If you just add scrubber it's easier to see it in action.
 

living_tribunal

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I think I will try the blackout. Should I cover the sides to block out all the light or just not keep the lights on. It’s in a well light room and it’s quite light in the daytime as that room has big windows.
I have done the turkey baster for a while now and collected in a net as it was blocking the return going back to the sump and either starving the return pump or causing the ato to top up when not necessary.
I just keep the lights off when I do it. If you have semi-direct exposure to natural light then you'll want to cover the sides. If it's dim light then don't worry about it.
 

living_tribunal

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Here is a pic and a little video, it is pretty stirred up though as I have been turkey basting blasting and scooping it up with the net.
DD65F250-B93B-43F8-994E-0971A6FCD7A9.jpeg

What I've done in the past is use a large baster to suck up the algae instead of shooting it off the rocks. This prevents all that crap from going everywhere. You can just then shoot it into a bucket or something. It's all around more effective and would make light work of the rock in that picture.
 

living_tribunal

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Also, from the pictures you provided, I see absolutely no signs of dino. The first place you'd see it with a rock full of gha is the sandbed. Sometimes dino will take over dying gha when people over export to get rid of gha (as I said, it's a terribly difficult balancing act).

Do not increase your "nutrients" right now. You need to suck up as much gha as possible first, then do the blackout. Once you are in blackout, feel free to heavily export (no risk of dinos since lights are out, dinos require light). Coming out of blackout, this is where you'll want "nutrients" detectable but at lower levels. This will prevent the dino onslaught which happens often when eradicating GHA.
 
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