hair algae/silicates?

[wetone]

OK....I have some hair algae growing on my LR. I just added a Precision Marine Bullet 2 skimmer on Friday to replace my old counter current, so I know it will take a little time to effect anything with that (although its kicking out gunk already) I have 0 nitrates and phosphates in the tank, I only have 4 fish and hardly feed them,I have 2 250w MH on for 5 hrs a day and 2 110w VHO actinics on for 6 hrs a day. The tank is a 75g with 100 lbs of LR and a 40 gal sump with another30-50 lbs of LR and a 5" DSB in the sump. I cant figure out why this algae is growing,what nutrients could be there if the phos and NO3 are at 0?
I have heard about silicates from LFS, I have not tested, any thoughts or ideas???

Thanks

 

[Marcosreef]

what nutrients could be there if the phos and NO3 are at 0?

The phosphate is there, but the algae use it up as fast as it's introduced into the reef. This makes it very difficult to test for it accurately.

How new is the tank? Also what type of top-off is being used? I am currently in the same situation. How's the pH? Do you dose limewater (kalkwasser)?

Read This: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/ ... 2/chem.htm

Marco

 

[randy holmes-farley]

If the algae is green, then silica or silicate won't have any impact. Of things that would be described as algae, only diatoms use silica, and they are typically brown.

 

[wetone]

This tank is about 2 years old, my PH is stable at 8.2 and I do dose kalk on a float switch as evaporation top off (calc level at 395 and trying to raise)

I just bought a new Spectrapure 60gpd 4 stage RO/DI yesterday and will be doing some water changes to try and eliminate the nutrients for this algae. I think my old RO unit was not doing the job....we'll see[/quote]

 

[Anonymous]

I would just place something in there that will eat the algae.