How long can you fast? I'm on a mission

[labnjab]

Were on a mission, to eradicate our hair algae. Were going to remove all of it tonight (already got most of it, but now the waters cloudy and we can't see how much more there is until it clears up). After were done removing it, we would like to fast for a few days to keep excess nutrients down until we could locate some Ocean Nutrition frozen food, as we recently found out the San Francisco Bay brand we are using contains a lot of junk and phosphate.

What would be a good time frame to fast the fish? After the fast were going to reduce feeding to every other day for several weeks. I'm also going to cease feeding any coral until this gets under control and will only feed the nem once a week. I'm also putting in a fresh pura pad

I've found through research and what I see in our tank that once the coraline takes hold on the rocks, the hair algae doesn't come back (the half of the tank with tons of coraline is HA free). So if I can keep nutrients down until then I can beat this stuff.


I know this may not be the best way to do things, but I'm outta money so buying a gfo or making an algae scrubber is out, but I'm at my wits end with this crap and have tried everything else I can think of and everything people have suggested. Thank you for any suggestions and sorry to rant

[Cameron]

theres probably something wrong with your water or something(not trying to say its your fault), theres either an excess of nutrients, or a stage in your cycle, even though it should be done.

[labnjab]

I'm suspecting phosphate, but I don't know for sure. I'm using home made RO water with 0 tds. I haven't completely removed the algae in a few months ("tried letting it run its coarse") So hopefully after I remove it all It won't come back "knock on wood"

[Cameron]

I'm suspecting phosphate, but I don't know for sure. I'm using home made RO water with 0 tds. I haven't completely removed the algae in a few months ("tried letting it run its coarse") So hopefully after I remove it all It won't come back "knock on wood"

Could you use a Phos-X remover bag thing?

[unleashed]

how long has the tank been set up?

If it less than a year old then this algae cycle is normal. Just keep up water changes or increase them, cut your feedings (don't stop them) and cut back your light cycle

Do you have a protein skimmer? This will help to remove nutrients and organics from your system

[labnjab]

Tanks 7 months old. I know they go through algae stages, but I've had this hair algae problem since before Christmas and no matter what I do it doesn't go away. I've had patience but its running out. I see young tanks locally and even on here that go through small, quick hair algae stages, and then their gone. I don't know what were doing wrong. We've reduced feeding, use phosphate remover, We've had a skimmer since day 1 and it runs 24/7 and pulls good skimmate and is rated for twice the tank size.

I added a sump around xmas time with a fuge and lots of chaeto and other macro as well as a mangrove which is growing great and run it on a reverse lighting schedule and nothing helps. We do weekly water changes of around 5 gallons and today we manually removed a good 95+% of the hair algae and a water change, which we've done several times in the past and it keeps coming back. We've always used RO water and have been making our own ro for a month and a half.

We've bought mexican turbos that are suppose eat hair algae to try and contol it, and they never touched it The only thing that will eat it isr our recent addition of a emerald crab who loves it but he's to small to make any differance

[Lady Hobbs]

Why not get a phosphate sponge rather than withholding food from the fish?

[labnjab]

We have a pura pad, which absorbs phosphate

[cocoa_pleco]

IMO just wait it out. my 55g was like that and i had a huge burst of hair algae with 2 foot strands of it and one day overnight it just went away

[labnjab]

IMO just wait it out. my 55g was like that and i had a huge burst of hair algae with 2 foot strands of it and one day overnight it just went away


I guess that's what I gotta do now. I've tried everything else short of getting a gfo or making a scrubber.The first HA stage came and went so quick, and I didn't really do anything except remove the longer strands, but this one is relentless. I've pulled it out many times.

I guess I won't fast, just cut back to 1 feeding a day again and stop feeding lps. Maybe one day it will disappear or maybe I'll get lucky and it wont come back at all now

[gabbyguppy]

<How long can you fast? I'm on a mission>

When I read the subject line, I thought you were referring to people.

Fasting, for me, would never last more than a few hours. :hmm3grin2orange:

Karen

[travie]

You should already know this... Patience.:14:

[labnjab]

You should already know this... Patience.:14:

lol, I know, I know, I expected a 1-2 month Hair algae stage, but when it wouldn't go away I thought I was doing something wrong. Then after making changes in husbandry and the 4 month mark passed and it still didn't go away it frustrated me. Patience has been running thin but now that I got it mostly removed, I think if I stay on top of it each week it won't bother me so much. I'm just going to let it run its course and hope it stays gone. The tank looks really good now, I just have some touch up to do next water change

edit: my clowns are really pissed now. The female must have bit me half a dozen times yesterday. Luckily she doesn't have sharp enough teeth to do any damage

[kaybee]

Fasting: 3-4 day fasts are easily plausible.

I never had a problem with hair algae in my reef tank during the early stages of my tank. I curtailed the photoperiod until photosynthetic lifeforms were introduced and utilized GFO from nearly the very start. I think I only had green film algae/brown diatom (on the glass) and a maroon cyanobacteria stage for perhaps the first 3-4 months.

GFO usage would be a more aggressive/efficient form of PO4 removal than purapads, particularly if used with a reactor (alternatively it can be used passively in a media bag placed in the sump).

What P04 test kit are you using again? Excluding 0ppm, can it measure below 0.1ppm?

In my reef tank all frozen food gets soaked in RO/DI throughly thoroughly prior to being added to the tank, to minimize PO4 entry into the system via food. A few months ago I did phosphate meter testing on some RO/DI water which contained several mysis shrimp and it proved PO4 is added with each and every feeding session by meter testing of the water.

In addition to PO4 entering the system via food, it can be leached from the rocks. PO4 leaching from LR occurs when PO4 in the system are very low. The leaching will occur until it has released all the PO4 bound in it. Once all/most of the bound up PO4 from the rock is removed and frozen food is throughly rinsed/soaked, algae will be hard-pressed to thrive (more so when macroalgae is utilized since it tends to outcompete nuisance algae.

[labnjab]

Thank you for the info kaybee. I'm going to start soaking frozen foods in RO. I stopped using pellets for the most part because my hawkfish won't touch them, so feeding frozen food and pellets led to overfeeding so I just started feeding all frozen.

So far so good with the algae not coming back. I have to clean a little more next WC and just keep up with it.

The guy I bought the rock from says it was over a year and half old, but he didn't have it in a reef tank so not much coralline. It was hair algae free when I added it to the tank.
As far as the GFO, I always thought you needed a reactor, so I never used it. Does it need to be in high flow, or just in the water? If it needs to be in high flow then I can stuff it in a media bag and in my filter sock below the sumps intake, that way all water that enters the sump comes in contact with it. Also, how often should it be changed? I've got lots of macros in the sump and run the lights on a reverse schedule.

The macros are growing fast and i will be needing to prune the chaeto soon.

[kaybee]

......As far as the GFO, I always thought you needed a reactor, so I never used it. Does it need to be in high flow, or just in the water? If it needs to be in high flow then I can stuff it in a media bag and in my filter sock below the sumps intake, that way all water that enters the sump comes in contact with it. Also, how often should it be changed?.

GFO works best in a reactor ('active mode') but can also be used in a media bag ('passive mode'). An area of good or moderate flow is perhaps better than a high flow area (high flow might pulverize the media and also it to seep out of the media bag).

Change out when PO4 levels approach 0.1ppm (I'm not sure how low your test kit can measure down to). In systems devoid of algae, the appearance of algae is the queue that the media is in need of changing (if an appropriate PO4 test kit/device isn't available). In systems where PO4 is non-dectable due to nuisance algae uptake (rather than non-existence) you may want to change it out every 3-4 weeks.

I use a reactor and I change it out when the water exiting the reactor registers 0.07ppm-0.10ppm as measured with a meter.