Green Hair Algae Problem? HELP me and others alike Fix this

[SpikeJones]

Hey guys making a call out on how to eliminate this eye sore, within our tanks, so others with this problem can learn.

As of right now my live rock is about 20 % green hair algae

My modes of action are...
I bought a PhosBan 150 reactor and am currently running it for 5 days - Probably won't see a change for a while or will I?
Within this topic of Phosban, I was unsure how much Rowa phos to put in the reactor for my tank (which is approx 30 gal) so I thought about a half a cup that probably works out to 50 g. - Should I put more or less?

And will soon be running RO water (yes i know Tap water is bad but it is all i had at the time)

Thanks

[biggerstretch]

are you getting good skimate out of your skimmer ? the fight against hair algae is nutrient control and good lights... What do you have for corals etc in your tank ? is keeping the lights off for awhile an option to help knock back the algae ?
You can also try to mechanically remove as much as you can by taking the rock out of the tank , scrubbing it with a brush and then rinseing it with fresh salt water before putting it back in the tank... If nothing is growing on the rock you may have to take the rock out , bake it and put it back in... I would first however try to limit nutrients and make sure your lights are not old and in the red spectrum. What is your water testing out at ?

[SpikeJones]

Lots of skimmate is coming out, Parameters are perfect besides the high phosphate ha ha. My lights are on 12 hours a day but have cut them back to 6 hours. My lights are brand new Ecoxotic Panorama Marine LED's. So I hope through patience and these changes i have made will help

[biggerstretch]

maybe try some bio pellets... put some in a filter bag that is in a high flow area in your sump so you don't have to buy another reactor. Whenever I see some start in my tank I try and scrub it off outside of the tank, touch the stuff in the tank and it seems to spead even more.... I was reading an article online about nutrient eporting, this guy suggested getting some xenia as it grows fast and will export nutrients... I guess anything that grows fast might help...
water changes , keep the feeding to a minimum and just keep hacking away at it ..... the less drastic changes take the most time, so I guess it comes to how long you want to fight it.
I personally have wasted alot of time fighting hair algae over the years , I tend to lean towards nuking the rock , however that is me , you may want to try the less drastic approaches. I think it is easier to get coraline algae back than it is to get rid of hair algae.

[SpikeJones]

well i actually have two reactors one rowa phos and the over carbon... should i change out the carbon?

[biggerstretch]

copied from wikipedia ...
" Carbon filters are most effective at removing chlorine, sediment, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from water. They are not effective at removing minerals, salts, and dissolved inorganic compounds."

Bio pellets remove phosphate and nitates. I would run them all if you can ,filter the water as much as you can. Do you have a sump? have room for a small bio reactor ? Dr. tims site sells some packages with a reactor , pellets and some benificial bacteria ... might besomething to look into.

http://store.drtimsaquatics.com/Mini...Kit_p_452.html

[The Grizz]

Please do not try pellets if your tank is not at least 6 month running. Pellets can strip a system super fast of both good & bad stuff causing more issues. I would say that it might be majority caused by tap water & long light cycle. HA can be a real *itch to get rid of & needs patience for it to go away. If you just added Rowa it will take some time to take affect.

[kien]

Originally Posted by SpikeJones

Lots of skimmate is coming out, Parameters are perfect besides the high phosphate ha ha. My lights are on 12 hours a day but have cut them back to 6 hours. My lights are brand new Ecoxotic Panorama Marine LED's. So I hope through patience and these changes i have made will help

If you are getting a high phosphate reading then I would start by getting this down, as you are attempting to do with the rowaphos. I wouldn't necessarily go bombarding your tank with too much stuff all at once as that might actually be more harmful. So ya, just keep running your rowaphos and wait for your phosphates go down to near zero or zero. After you've achieved zero(ish) phosphates see how the algae is doing and assess then if you should take further action.

In my experience bioPellets do not do a great job of removing phosphates. They are great at nitrate removal however. I run GFO (phosphate remover) in a TLF reactor while at the same time running BioPellets to attack the nitrates. Also, I would not recommend putting bioPellets in a mesh bag. That's is unless you don't mind shaking that bag every hour of the day. BioPellets really should be fluidized and tumbling in a reactor.

[The Grizz]

^^^ ya that to......thanks Kien you took the words right out of my brain that I was thinking of but could not put it into text

[SpikeJones]

Thanks for the input guys now the waiting game