Maintinance question about Phosphate, hair algea

[Capslock]

Hello,

I have a TON of hair algae on the walls of my tank. The phosphate levels are also at 1.0 PPM last week.

I let the snails do their work on the front of their tank but i guess the decided to give up on a certain patch in the center so i removed as much as I could, there are still blotches of it on the front of the tank as well as on the back, side, and on the front of the overflow (not causing restrictions on flow yet)

Is it OK to scrub the remaining hair off of the tank walls?

Also, in terms of removing the phosphate, I am going to plan a water change for probably tomorrow but I noticed at the LFS a sheet of filter that claimed to be a phosphate remover. Is something like this legit? I imagine if it is i would use it for say a week or 2 then remove it once the filter has alot of gunk in it?

I also intended that filter sheet to remove large particles as of now my tank as a bit of things floating around; not unhealthy for the inhabitents ust unsightly.

Thoughts on the filter? My protein skimmer is coming in on Tuesday so I am excited to see what results will come of that.

 

[metalac]

your tank is new, right? Main thing you want to do is skim. This will remove nutrients that algae feeds on. You should also pickup the algae with your hand, don't scrub it, it will just go everywhere and give more nutrients for the new algae to grow, so pickup and dump in the garbage. Don't worry, be patient it should go a way in few weeks.

 

[mr_X]

i used one of those brown phosphate sheets a couple years ago, and i think it helped.