st9z October 5, 2007 Author October 5, 2007 Update: I've been aggressively using Kent Phosphate Sponge to remove phosphate in the water so far the HA are retreating. (wooHoo) Quick question though I tested my Nirates at 2 yesterday. Is there anything I should do to reduce it besides water changes?
jnguyen4007 October 5, 2007 October 5, 2007 Update: I've been aggressively using Kent Phosphate Sponge to remove phosphate in the water so far the HA are retreating. (wooHoo) Quick question though I tested my Nirates at 2 yesterday. Is there anything I should do to reduce it besides water changes? Have more macro algae in your sump.
wreck October 5, 2007 October 5, 2007 Clean out any prefilters or filter media daily if you have any. If there is excess detritus in sump/refugium, try to clean some of it out withour disturbing the sandbed if you have one. Also helpful if post your actual test numbers such as pH, salinity,Alk, Calcium, Nitrate( you said 2), Phosphates, there are lot of very knowledgable aquarists here that can help if they have more information. Rick "Wreck" Update: I've been aggressively using Kent Phosphate Sponge to remove phosphate in the water so far the HA are retreating. (wooHoo) Quick question though I tested my Nirates at 2 yesterday. Is there anything I should do to reduce it besides water changes?
st9z October 5, 2007 Author October 5, 2007 (edited) Clean out any prefilters or filter media daily if you have any. If there is excess detritus in sump/refugium, try to clean some of it out withour disturbing the sandbed if you have one. Also helpful if post your actual test numbers such as pH, salinity,Alk, Calcium, Nitrate( you said 2), Phosphates, there are lot of very knowledgable aquarists here that can help if they have more information. Rick "Wreck" hEY Rick My reading are as follow using Salifert Alk= 12 Calcium= 250 Nitrate 2 Phosphate = 0.05 PH= 8.4 salinity= 1.026 Nitrites=0 ammonia=0 I have to raise my calcium up to about 350. It drop recently because of the boom of coraline algae grows now on the back of my tank and also the power heads. As for Nitrate i am going to do a 10% water change. any other suggestions? Edited October 5, 2007 by st9z
wreck October 5, 2007 October 5, 2007 Well, your numbers are similar to what I used to have before I raised my calcium up to 400ppm and started dripping Kalkwasser. After I raised my calcium slowly over a period of two weeks, using Reef Complete, I started dripping Kalkwasser as my top off and my phosphate and nitrate levels went to zero and I have not had any algae problems since( I used to have some GHA and red cyano). I also placed Chaeto in my sump under some lights, which probably helped lower the nitrates. I am no expert, I've had my tank setup for only two years, so I'm just stating what worked for me. Dosing Kalkwasser is a pain, I manually mix up a batch every night and fill my auto-drip reservoir with Kalk mixed the night before. I think I'll get a small Kalkstirrer very soon, so if anyone has a used one let me know. Good luck, Rick hEY Rick My reading are as follow using Salifert Alk= 12 Calcium= 250 Nitrate 2 Phosphate = 0.05 PH= 8.4 salinity= 1.026 Nitrites=0 ammonia=0 I have to raise my calcium up to about 350. It drop recently because of the boom of coraline algae grows now on the back of my tank and also the power heads. As for Nitrate i am going to do a 10% water change. any other suggestions?
st9z October 5, 2007 Author October 5, 2007 i have heard that if you increase your mag to 1600 it will also reduce HA... anybody else had any luck on that?
Krewlor October 6, 2007 October 6, 2007 i have heard that if you increase your mag to 1600 it will also reduce HA... anybody else had any luck on that? I did read a long thread on Reef Central about raising mag levels to 1500+ to help fight HA. I believe the argument was with mag levels that high, the HA could not reproduce (?), giving your cleanup crew more time to catch up and eliminate it. It was still a highly debated practice on the thread. I am still so new to SW I do not even test mag levels yet. I do think I have that nitrogen cycle thing down though.
Rascal October 6, 2007 October 6, 2007 hEY Rick My reading are as follow using Salifert Alk= 12 Calcium= 250 Nitrate 2 Phosphate = 0.05 PH= 8.4 salinity= 1.026 Nitrites=0 ammonia=0 I have to raise my calcium up to about 350. It drop recently because of the boom of coraline algae grows now on the back of my tank and also the power heads. As for Nitrate i am going to do a 10% water change. any other suggestions? Sounds like you are on the right track. Get those nitrates and phosphates down to undetectable levels and you should see improvement. Make sure to manually remove the HA as it dies off. Just keep working at it. I did read a long thread on Reef Central about raising mag levels to 1500+ to help fight HA. I believe the argument was with mag levels that high, the HA could not reproduce (?), giving your cleanup crew more time to catch up and eliminate it. It was still a highly debated practice on the thread. I am still so new to SW I do not even test mag levels yet. Me too. If I remember that thread right, I think there were a few people who lost their SPS because of manipulating Mag levels that high. The whole idea seemed a little risky to me. No reason to depart from the tried and true here IMO.
rrubberbandman October 6, 2007 October 6, 2007 Guys, i used to have HA so bad i couldnt even see my rocks....and my hermits would get lost in it....i tried the kalkwasser milkshake addition...that i read about in the "book of coral propagation"...i forget the author. this seemed to help ALOT....probably a combination of a few things put together though...higher ph...higher meq/l alk...and cleaner environment from kalk use???? granted you must use PH meter for adding kalk this way...and i didnt have any SPS. Bryan
st9z October 15, 2007 Author October 15, 2007 UPDATE I took out all the rocks that had HA and scrub it off as much as I can. Then i added 2 cups of Kent Phosphate sponge and 1 algae free nirate packet in the canister and religiously changed the media every 3 days. After 4x of changing every 3 days no sign of HA. So far the HA has left the building oooH except a few strands here and there but my yellow tang and lawnmover are munching on it. Friday I removed all the kent and nirate packet and now i am only running the active carbon Black Diamond in the canister. Testing to see if the HA will come back. I will do a test tomorrow for any phosphate or nirates in the water.
rrubberbandman October 15, 2007 October 15, 2007 UPDATE I took out all the rocks that had HA and scrub it off as much as I can. Then i added 2 cups of Kent Phosphate sponge and 1 algae free nirate packet in the canister and religiously changed the media every 3 days. After 4x of changing every 3 days no sign of HA. So far the HA has left the building oooH except a few strands here and there but my yellow tang and lawnmover are munching on it. Friday I removed all the kent and nirate packet and now i am only running the active carbon Black Diamond in the canister. Testing to see if the HA will come back. I will do a test tomorrow for any phosphate or nirates in the water. cross your fingers and toes!
st9z October 16, 2007 Author October 16, 2007 good news phosphate and nirate tested at 0 i guess no more leeching
mling October 17, 2007 October 17, 2007 Over the weekend, I purchased a Sea Hare at BRK. This Sea Hare got busy eating my hair algea just minutes after I put it in the tank. It is doing a much better job than I could with my tooth brush. I only wonder what I would feed it once it has completely wipe out the hair algea. This is my FOWLR tank, I am not sure if I trust it in my Reef, in any case, I don't have much of a hair algea problem in my Reef. Here's a pic of the Sea Hare
st9z October 17, 2007 Author October 17, 2007 very nice i had a sea hare dwarf that didnt touch it. I guess you can sell it to someone else that has HA problems
Krewlor October 17, 2007 October 17, 2007 very nice i had a sea hare dwarf that didnt touch it. I guess you can sell it to someone else that has HA problems I believe there are several different species of sea hares. Some only eat HA. I have one exactly like mling's. When I put him in the tank, before he even rolled off his back, he had started eating the HA off a nearby rock. He almost works 24/7 on the stuff. I believe the species is Aplysia punctata. I know this is not a cure all for HA, I am working on all the other things that must be done to keep it in check. But for someone who has fallen a little behind on tank maintenance, it might be easier then scrubbing rock and moving everything around. My wife who has no real intrest in my tank, suggested to me the other day I should leave the lights on a little longer so a little more HA will grow for "that thing". I even noticed her sitting down next to the tank and watching him a time or two do his thing. I will warn you about the sea hares.....they have faces only a mother would love.
zotzer October 17, 2007 October 17, 2007 I will warn you about the sea hares.....they have faces only a mother would love. I noticed!!!! ROFL Tracy
txaggies07 October 18, 2007 October 18, 2007 I had a huge hair algae problem that just sprouted up one day in both my tanks. In my 72g, I put a yellow tang in there and he eat every last bit of it. In my 24g, nothing worked so I finally shoved all of my live rock in the oven and baked the H-E-double hocky sticks out of it. Then the hair algae just peels right off. There is no more hair algae. I know my rock will take awhile to be re-seeded and all...but having a tank with hair algae sucks so very much. Anyways...good luck. I was using RO/DI water and my nitrates were low...I tried everything to get rid of it. Good luck.
mling October 18, 2007 October 18, 2007 I ..... I finally shoved all of my live rock in the oven and baked the H-E-double hocky sticks out of it. Then the hair algae just peels right off. There is no more hair algae. I know my rock will take awhile to be re-seeded and all... Are you sure you don't do permanent damage to your live rock by baking them ? Don't u kill everything in it that way ? If this works, I would like to bake some of my live rock that is infested with aiptasia.
txaggies07 October 18, 2007 October 18, 2007 Everything in and on the rock is indeed dead. It should now be like base rock. It should be able to be reseeded.
Nitro Junkie October 18, 2007 October 18, 2007 I had a blue and yellow pygmy angel in my old nano that loved to eat gha
st9z October 19, 2007 Author October 19, 2007 Everything in and on the rock is indeed dead. It should now be like base rock. It should be able to be reseeded. Wouldn't that cause the tank to re-cycle?
reefmontalvo November 12, 2007 November 12, 2007 Well after all the reading on here, I figure that by cutting back on some of the feeding decrease the natural lights time, and adding herb fish you can really cut down and control all HA and cyano. The info is very much worth it weight in gold. Thank you all for the great advice.
st9z November 12, 2007 Author November 12, 2007 No problem. Having GHA was very frustrating I am happy to report still no signs of GHA in my tank after using phosphate sponge and nitrate packets religiously. Good Luck to you!
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