KoNP
New Member
Even though I get the feeling nobody is reading this anymore, I'll continue posting.
The hair algae not only stopped receding over the past day or two, it exploded almost out of control again. I'm sick of trying to control my nutrient import/export by starving the tank and changing the water really frequently as that's only going to lead to more headaches. Instead, I invested in an aquarworld WG-308 skimmer, and yanked out two thirds of the rock and scrubbed it mostly clean (left two large chunks so that there was still some beneficial bacteria not getting annihilated by the treatment). It also gave me the chance to aquascape a small cave on the left of the tank. Additionally, I put a very thin layer of coarser substrate on most of the visible surfaces after cleaning it in RO water raised to the correct pH. I was losing too much sand siphoning out the algae so I had to do SOMETHING.
Time will tell if this was the right thing to do, but something had to be done as the algae was practically choking the tank to death - between that and me starving the tank in a hopeless effort to get a barely-registering phosphate level lower and FAILING something had to give, really.
Here's a BEFORE shot - although it's a few days old, I'm not kidding when I said the algae reached embarassing levels. It was about 1.5x as bad as this, even with manual removal and phosphate-limiting attempts.
AFTER the rock-scrubbing - the bit shaped like a hand in the middle (left of the skimmer), and another bit out-of-view down the back were the two I left in to keep a biological filter intact. My bioload isn't huge, so it should be enough, plus the skimmer should help.
Here's the skimmer - it's taken a bit to get it foaming the right amount. At first it was just causing water to fill the cup in a matter of minutes. Right now it's pulling some grey-black crap out of the water in small amounts.
The hair algae not only stopped receding over the past day or two, it exploded almost out of control again. I'm sick of trying to control my nutrient import/export by starving the tank and changing the water really frequently as that's only going to lead to more headaches. Instead, I invested in an aquarworld WG-308 skimmer, and yanked out two thirds of the rock and scrubbed it mostly clean (left two large chunks so that there was still some beneficial bacteria not getting annihilated by the treatment). It also gave me the chance to aquascape a small cave on the left of the tank. Additionally, I put a very thin layer of coarser substrate on most of the visible surfaces after cleaning it in RO water raised to the correct pH. I was losing too much sand siphoning out the algae so I had to do SOMETHING.
Time will tell if this was the right thing to do, but something had to be done as the algae was practically choking the tank to death - between that and me starving the tank in a hopeless effort to get a barely-registering phosphate level lower and FAILING something had to give, really.
Here's a BEFORE shot - although it's a few days old, I'm not kidding when I said the algae reached embarassing levels. It was about 1.5x as bad as this, even with manual removal and phosphate-limiting attempts.
AFTER the rock-scrubbing - the bit shaped like a hand in the middle (left of the skimmer), and another bit out-of-view down the back were the two I left in to keep a biological filter intact. My bioload isn't huge, so it should be enough, plus the skimmer should help.
Here's the skimmer - it's taken a bit to get it foaming the right amount. At first it was just causing water to fill the cup in a matter of minutes. Right now it's pulling some grey-black crap out of the water in small amounts.
This is one of the most popular threads on the site! :razz: I hate all the problems you have had but you are doing well. It's not a quick fix, but if all else fails you can take the tank and wrap it to deprive it of sunlight for three days (move any remaining corals to your other tank mayber?) and do a water change each day. That should really do a number on the algae in your system.
