HELP HAIR ALGAE OUTBREAK HELP

[tampavii]

Great site guys.
A lot of helpful info. I did read up on this problem and see a lot of other have this problem too.
My tank is 225 running for about 2 months. Everything was good until I went on vacation for 10 days. When I came home late last night 1/2 my rocks are covered with this slimy smelling green to brown looking hair algae. My friend was taking care of the tank and I left him few doses of REEF VITAL DNA along with some frozen food and dry food. He was feeding them every other day. My light where on timers VHO running about 12 HR. MH running 10hrs.
225 lbs live rock
30 sump with dual overflow -Ampmaster 3000 pump.
I am also running a 40 watt UV light & Aerofoamer 624 skimmer. The skimmer is making some very dark green to black stuff plus smells like ocean algae near the jetties at low tide.
I have few tangs ,few clowns ,few glomas,125 different kind of snails, bristle and sand star fish, few leather ,few clear shrimp,50 small hermits few polys,mushrooms. .
My tank 7ft x 2ft x 2ft with DSB using Southdown sand
78 to 81 temps.
160 watt Actinic VHO
3 250 10k MH in hood with fans.
My water info is
1026 salinity
PH 8.0 to 8.1 in afternoon
Nitrate .5
Nitrite 0
Ammo 0
Cal 475
Alk 14.4 dkh
Mag 1375
I don have test kits for phosphate .Do I need one NOW .
OK today I went to my LFS and I was told to us Seachem phosguard in a 404 fluval I have laying around plus added poly filter pad to my wet dry. I also was told to stop running MH and just run VHO few hrs each day and do water change.
So when I came home I cleaned out the pad in the wet dry( yes it was very dirty) .I then took small tooth brush and cleaned rocks where the hair algae was hurting my few mushroom polys and leather. As I brushed the rocks I was sucking the stuff up with the 404 fluval. After I cleaned off these rocks, I then cleaned the 404 out them filled trays up with the Seachem and coral Life Silicate remover. At present time tanks is alittle cloudy but not to bad.The lights are off for few hrs will put VHO on for 3 hrs later tonight .Unless you tell me different.
Do you have any suggestions. Did I do anything wrong?
Should I finish cleaning the rest of the rocks or just let the 404 do its job? I was in shock when I cam home and saw my tank like this. What I surprise.
Thanks for your time
Capt Gene

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Sorry you are having this problem, people often do, especially in the early stages of a tank. I would check into the phosphate level of the water you are putting into the tank.

I would also stop the Reef Vital, as I think it does nothing helpful, and just puts extra nutrients into the tank. I would also reduce your photoperiod to 6 to 8 hours a day. If you have few corals or just softies, you might want to just run VHO for a while until the icky stuff dies away, or you keeps removing it by hand.

The only other thing I can think of is add some macros to your sump or refugium. The will compete with the icky stuff for nutrients.

Keep us posted!

RR

 

[danmhippo]

Also, reduce feeding to 1/2 whatever you are feeding now. You have herbivores. Whatever type they are, if you keep feeding them easily obtained food (flake, frozen), they will not touch macro algae presently in the tank.

I agree on reduced photo period. Don't know how good your local water is, but most of city water in US are not suitable for reef tanks. I would suggest you invest into a RO + DI, if you haven't yet. It is very likely you won't detect much NO3 and PO4 as GHA is taken up as soon as they were present.

What you should do now is reduce available nutrients for GHA, through food, source water, lighting schedule, and lastly, manual removal. I would take some of the badly overgrown rocks and stiff-scrub them clean every couple of days. Plus, I would also rinse your sponge, if there are any used.