Hi,

I'm having a real bad time with hair algae right now, long strands of it that keep spreading. I manually remove as much as possible 1-2 times a week. I've tried a whole bunch of things to help it like

switching from frozen to pellet food
cutting lights to only 3-4 hrs per day
feeding every 3-4 days
added chaeto to fuge


I've been battling it for 3-4 months now and it doesn't seem to be getting better. The tank is a 30gal Finnex with ~30lbs live rock, a clownfish, a pajama cardinalfish, 2 peppermint shrimp, 5 nerite snails (tend to like the glass most), 5 nassarius snails, ~30 dwarf cerith snails, 1 black turbo snail, 5 misc hermits (blue leg, red leg, 2 cortex, long legged) and an emerald crab. For flow I have the stock return along with an MJ900 and a Koralia 1. I run the stock protein skimmer constantly also. I do a 3 gal water change weekly. The tank was bought in May'09, so my T5 lights are practically new.

My tank parameters are:
Sp. grav = 1.024
Temp= 76F
pH = 7.9
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 5-10ppm
Phosphate = undetectable (NOT a low scale test)
Alkalinity - 7-8 dKh

I'm trying to bring the alk up slowly with a 8.2 buffer, but it doesn't seem to want to go up too much. The hair algae is not growing among the chaeto in the fuge. I didn't think I would have a problem with my source water because I work at a pharmaceutical company and we have a real good water supply. I finally decided to test it since everyone says to check that and found 0.25ppm phosphate in it. I use this water for top-off and making my salt for water changes. I'm trying to find a way to treat my water in order to eliminate this as a potential cause.

Any thoughts on what I should try next? Do you think 0.25 phosphate would be enough to cause my hair algae problems?

Thanks

i think the .25 phos in the water is helping feed the algea. when trying to raise ur ph be careful as ur also raising alk. u should also test for calcium and mag if ur going to try and raise levels. its hard to raise levels if u mag is low.

i had a real bad algea problem in my tank so i added a phosban reactor, raised mag to 1500 and started using api marine algea fix. im pretty sure the algea fix is what ended up kicking the algeas ass. u may also want to find a new water source.

Try getting a lettuce sea slug or two...
mine is doing a great job

change your water source. buying a ro/di filter has saved me time and money. your phos reading is 0 cuz the algae is using it up. imo your alk is fine. what are your cal and mag readings? a tuxedo urchin will eat it all. get a small one they tend to be bulldozers.

Did you buy your rocks new or used. If they were from an old tank, they may be loaded with phosphates.

you can run a phosphate reactor, which will clear the water and cause the phosphate to leech back out of the rock into the water, where it will absorbed by the media. This process can take a very long time to clean your rock, though. For a nano it would be easier to just buy some new, fresh rock.