need help dark red hair algae

[mkeyb]

this stuff is nasty! it appears in patchs and it is real tough to pull off rock. actuly you can't just pull it off you need to scrap it off. i have had lights out for 4 days now. the little bit of green hair algae i had has almost all dyed but this red mat like stuff is going no where. it stays very short and like i said it's tough it don't move nothin i have seems to want to touch it inc. emerald crabs ,turbo snails, mexican hermits, scarlet hermits, blue leg hermits, or sea hare any idea's???

 

[mkeyb]

no one can help me here lol

 

[pillowfish]

Not sure exactly what type of algae it is. But the best way to combat an algae issue is by reducing excess nutrients in the tank. Check your water parameters to see where you are at.(You may get a false reading of lower than your actual due to the algae growth). Just leaving the lights off for a few days is only a temporary fix, as soon as you resume your regular light cycle if the excess nutrients are still present the algae will only bloom again.

Are you using RO/DI for making up SW and topping off? You could start by running some GFO and/or Fresh carbon. But to really combat it you need to figure out where the excessive nutrients(heavy bio-load, over feeding, not skimming enough, mini-cycle, etc..) are coming from and resolve the issue. Most anything else will only help remedy the problem in the interim.HTH

 

[mkeyb]

well tank has been running in my new place for almost a year now. parameters all check out. i only feed one cube every 3 days the bio load is small i would think there is 2 gold bar marron clowns a six line wrasse, bi color blenny, blue damsal and another damsal that i allways get told its a diffrent type lol plus hermit's and snail's and a sea hare. i switch out carbon once a month with 20% water change and i have a phos reactor that i switch out at the same time every thing has always looked great until a couple weeks ago when this stuff just started to apear. the only thing i have done diffrent is i added a di to my ro so now its a 4 stage but thats been there for about 3 months now tds meter reads 0ppm still plus it's a color change di. i would think that would help not make it worse. i haven't add anything new to the tank since i set it back up in the new place i have just mantianed it. and when i set it up in the new place i used all the water from the old place so it barlly even did a mini cycle skimmer seems to be pulling out the same amount it allways has which is about a cup full every three days i think im gonna try to clean out sump good while doing a water change and maybe change the bulbs. think this might work??