Undetectable Nutrients but still have hair algae

[Travis Stewart]

A possibly might be since your clean up crew doesn't seem to be eating the algae do you think they could be during off slowly and be creating excess nutrients? Not really sure if that's how that works?

This is a very good point because I have a bunch of astrea snails and they haven't evolved to be able to flip themselves over. I've noticed a bunch of upside down . I also have blue legged hermits which I heard like to eat and take over shells

 

[Michaelriccs]

I had two little blue legs that wiped out at least 20 snails every kind finally caught them and brought them back.

 

[Travis Stewart]

I had two little blue legs that wiped out at least 20 snails every kind finally caught them and brought them back.

Haven't caught them yet

 

[prsnlty]

This is a very good point because I have a bunch of astrea snails and they haven't evolved to be able to flip themselves over. I've noticed a bunch of upside down . I also have blue legged hermits which I heard like to eat and take over shells

Astrea snail's never evolve to flip themselves over. This is the big problem with those. When you find them upside down you have to turn them over yourself or they'll starve to death or if you have hermits in there and dont turn them over they will eat them.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

So one thing I like to do when my tank is starting to bum me out and not look so spiffy, is to get a few extra buckets of fresh saltwater amassed at the house. Four at my house and tank sizes.
Then for like two weeks I'll deep clean and detailing a bit of the tank and do a water change. Five gal each time
Spring clean. And reset. The alge IME gets beaten back and manageable for a couple months. Then all I do is look at the tank really. Back to regular water changes.

 

[Slm222]

I have a 125 with undetectable levels. (Via masspec) I have algae as well, gha and turf, from what I can gather it's due to the red field ratio being off. 16:1 = N

 

[ReeferDave01]

Hows your RODI quality and water flow? When I started this hobby I was battling these issues for 9 months until I changed my RODI filter from under the sink kitchen 5 stage (that came with house) to new bought 7 stage just for the tank and increased water flow. No issues since.

 

[taintstick]

Hows your RODI quality and water flow? When I started this hobby I was battling these issues for 9 months until I changed my RODI filter from under the sink kitchen 5 stage (that came with house) to new bought 7 stage just for the tank and increased water flow. No issues since.

I concur haha, RODI quality is one way to rid algae from growing. Even RO water will contribute to algae growth, IME. Algae can thrive with all sorts of water conditions and lighting. I would guess it has to do with the water quality coming in and possibly lighting...

 

[ReeferDave01]

I thought all RODI systems were the same. Was a bit naïve until I bought TDS meter. Faucet gave me reading in 400s. My kitchen RODI was reading 27. I connected my new RODI filter & got a zero reading. That was my AHA moment. Added one more water nozzle to my then 60 gallon tank and never experienced any sort of algae. Months later when I went to my 250g, have had it set up for 4 months now, no algae growth whatsoever.

 

[Travis Stewart]

I thought all RODI systems were the same. Was a bit naïve until I bought TDS meter. Faucet gave me reading in 400s. My kitchen RODI was reading 27. I connected my new RODI filter & got a zero reading. That was my AHA moment. Added one more water nozzle to my then 60 gallon tank and never experienced any sort of algae. Months later when I went to my 250g, have had it set up for 4 months now, no algae growth whatsoever.

My TDS meter on my BRS 5 stage reads 0. Is there s time you change it even when reading 0?

 

[ReeferDave01]

My TDS meter on my BRS 5 stage reads 0. Is there s time you change it even when reading 0?

Depends on your use. Normally, for sediment filter, between 6 months to a year. Carbon filters are about a year life span, and the DI a few years. Checking TDS will determine how good it is. Again it also depends on how much water you are having to make, which factors include tank size, how fast your water evaporates, and how often you do water changes. If it starts creeping up above 3-5, you may want to start looking at RODI maintenance in above order.

 

[Travis Stewart]

Got ya. I was just curious because I'm guessing my water is fine. I replaced rather recently and is resding 0. I have changed to see if the TDS was changing for water coming in vs coming out

 

[prsnlty]

There are many contributors that can cause the many varieties of algae. You can have Rodi at 0 TDS always, undetectable p04 and low to no no3, proper light pur and par. You can do everything right and still get one of them. It can come in on a frag unseen or have a bad batch of salt just to name a couple. Not all can be killed either but most can be managed. 1) you have to find the source and fix it. 2) You need to determine exactly what you have. 3) Research and plan a course of action and stick with it.

 

[prsnlty]

My TDS meter on my BRS 5 stage reads 0. Is there s time you change it even when reading 0?

No. If you have membranes a year or less old, carbon blocks under 9mo, and your sediment filter looks pretty clean the issue is DI. DI burns up faster than anything else. I make 116 gallons of water for water changes alone every month for three tanks and 145 on average for ATOs and about 30g for cleaning and such. That's just a hair under 300g of Rodi on a 150g dual carbon & dual Di unit monthly. If my TDS ever shows anything other than zero I DON'T use it until I change out the di and it reads 0. I change the carbon blocks every 6-9 months depending on if my sediment filter ever got really nasty. That can happen sometimes because I'm on a well. If I run out of salt in my full-house softener system that's what will happen. I change out my membranes once a year whether they need it or not because there is no way to tell for sure. My sediment filter good changed every 3 months and Di as needed. In every single case that my TDS meter read something other than zero it has always been the DI.

 

[Travis Stewart]

Okay 10-4. Thanks for the info

 

[Bruce Burnett]

With that much algae your test for phosphate and nitrates don't mean a whole lot. You may have also have high co2, and phosphates in your rocks. Are you using any GFO if not and your rock is full of phosphates, then GFO and water changes are needed? I do not have any cleanup crew and have no algae at all. I am fighting a little cyano or spirulina.

 

[Hans-Werner]

Against common belief low phosphate causes hair algae in most reef tanks and does not help fight them. The cause is quite simple: With low phosphate the coral growth is phosphate limited. In this situation hair algae find enough phosphate in the rocks and enough nitrogen compounds in the water. If you have some phosphate in the water corals make use of the phosphate for growth and feed up all the nitrogen compounds and keep nitrogen (and maybe trace metals like iron and manganese) in the water extremely low. This makes the hair algae starve and disappear. So the key in fighting hair algae is to have some phosphate for the corals and no or very low nitrate for the hair algae.

 

[Centerline]

Against common belief low phosphate causes hair algae in most reef tanks and does not help fight them. The cause is quite simple: With low phosphate the coral growth is phosphate limited. In this situation hair algae find enough phosphate in the rocks and enough nitrogen compounds in the water. If you have some phosphate in the water corals make use of the phosphate for growth and feed up all the nitrogen compounds and keep nitrogen (and maybe trace metals like iron and manganese) in the water extremely low. This makes the hair algae starve and disappear. So the key in fighting hair algae is to have some phosphate for the corals and no or very low nitrate for the hair algae.

Learn something new everyday! Thanks.

 

[usc_lax9]

Depending on how bad you have it I would try this link. I know it's for byropsis, I used it in my tank to kill byropsis, but it also obliterated my hair algae and my byropsis. I didn't have any problems as far as issues in the tank.

The link isn't working but it's a reef2reef post called " byropsis cure: my battle with byropsis using flucanzole"

 

[Julian Sprung]

This whole thread is about why GHA (Derbesia) grows despite low phosphate. So much speculation beating around the bush and totally missing the truth. "... low phosphate causes hair algae in most reef tanks"? That's a complex theory that I believe is nonsense. Many years ago I wrote a book, Algae: A Problem Solver Guide. In it I gave the answer to the question posed by this thread. It's simple. GHA is a symptom of low alkalinity. The photo of Tristan's tank on page 3 of this thread screams LOW ALKALINITY. Practically no coralline algae anywhere. GHA taking over. Phosphate does play a role in GHA growth, but removing it is not the only solution... you have to boost and maintain alkalinity. Try dosing kalkwasser daily, and add C-Balance to maintain an alkalinity at or slightly above 8 dKH with a calcium level at or slightly above 400. The GHA will die back and the corallines will take over. Nitrate is hardly relevant. There are additional influences that sometimes are involved in these GHA blooms, such as a excess source of iron and persistent low pH (closed air space, elevated CO2), but in most cases the problem is simply a matter of the maintenance of calcium and alkalinity balance and keeping alkalinity up.