Battling green (hair?) algae, tried many things but still no solution..

I have tried raising magnesium up to 1400-1500, still really no effect. It doesn't look like Bryopsis to me, as up close it's very stringy and almost mossy, doesn't have the texture of bryopsis.

 

I'm dealing with the same problem, I have a NUVO 8 that's been running for just over a year. The algae started a few months ago and I can't get rid of it. All I have in the tank is a Black Oscellaris and GSP frag. I hate the idea of no lights, so I'm looking for an alternative. I would also like to eventually have a fire shrimp and a hermit or two, so I don't want to use something that will prevent me from having them in the future. I have replaced the stock media (mechanical sponge/activated carbon sponge/phosphate sponge) as well as an extra media bag of activated carbon. Two weeks ago it was completely out of control to the point that it looked like a healthy fuge. At that point, I took the clown and coral frag out, placed them in a bucket with a heater/PH and all the tank water. I then removed all the rock and scrubbed it. I only put half the rock back in, the other half I have in a closet in an attempt to cure it. I didn't want to stir up the sand, so I just tried to remove as much as I could by hand from it. I then put some of the rock back in, did a 20% water change, and put the frag/fish/water back in. The tank looked great! Now the algae is coming back, and it's going to be in full force soon again. I would like to put new rock/sand in, but I'm afraid that will trigger new tank syndrome or something. Is it safe to use all new rock/sand and then use a scoop of the old sand (some that has no visible algae)? If I keep the existing water, and do not do anything to the water column, will my fish/coral survive?

Or should I just get Kent Tech and not even mess with overhauling my tank? Suggestions from experience are appreciated!

 

Was that rock "live" or "dead" when you started the tank? What type of water flow?

The weird thing is that you have a refugium with algae growing in it yet you still have enough nutrients for the HA to use. I'm guessing that something is leaching from the rock but who knows.

The first thing i would do is get as many Large Turbo snails as you can afford.

If phosphate is testing 0 it means that the algae is consuming the phosphate/phosphorus as soon as it can. So i'm not sure how well running a reactor of GFO may not help.

U can always try the Lanthium chloride method.

 

I used dead rock that I cured in a bucket (covered) for 2 years. It was rock I had in my 90g. tank before I had to tear it down. The flow is coming from a Maxi-Jet 600. I also placed the stock NUVO pump (small 8w 13-92gph) in the display portion of the tank for flow in dead spots.

I do not have a refugium, I was saying the algae in my tank was so bad it looked like a healthy fuge...

I only have the one fish and I do water changes at least every 2 weeks. I have never had issues with the algae for 10 months and all of a sudden it just started out of nowhere. I also haven't added ANY livestock/coral/anything since my first additions a month after the cycle completed. My readings are also 0.

Is the Lanthium chloride a dosing method? I would like to get something that I can just add to the ATO water. I have an apex so the dosing wouldn't be too difficult to setup.

 

I'm having the same exact issue for the past 3 months or so on my 125. But I'm happy to say, I think I've turned the corner on it.

The issues started with bubble algae
controlled this with some Emerald crabs .

Next, I went through a Cyano outbreak
I tried number of things to control this, including Less food, GFO, near daily manual removal, raising Alk. 3-days lights out. The lights out worked, but then a week or so later the cyano came back 10-fold and I had some adverse effects on many of my coral.

I finally wen with Chemi-Clean which nocked it out for good.

Then came the GHA
a week or two after the Chemi-Clean, I noticed a small spot of GHA. Within a few weeks, I had a full-blown outbreak despite manual removal every few days.

A month or two later, I think I'm winning the battle - I'm not sure what fixed it, but these are all the things I have tried and done.

• Even less food - I feed a variety of frozen foods. I started weighting the amount I feed to keep it as low as possible. I basically cut back to a total of 4-5 grams (pre-thaw) of Mysis & cyclozees. I also rinsed the food with either tank water or RO (depending on what I had on hand).Ran Carbon for a while
• Ran more GFO for a while
• Cut light cycle (2 x 160W Maxpect Razors ) back to no more than 9.5 hours per day
• Raised the lights
• Reduced lighting intensity to max of 65% W 7%5 Blue at peak
• Raised the MAG to 1500. Maintain that for about 3 weeks.
• Water changes - Lots of Water changes. (about 68 gallons in May). On average, about 15% every week.
• Installed a BioPellet Reactor
• Added a Sea Hare
• Added a Tuxedo Urchin

After all that, the GHA is almost gone. It's still in a few spots, but it's no longer dark green, but rather a greyish in color. Some areas are complete clean.

 

I don't think this has been asked.

What is your water source? RODI? TDS read good?

 

Thanks for the input! I think I'm going to research chemicals as a fix... I hate putting stuff in the tank, but that's the reason I kept my livestock to a clown/hardy coral.

 

RO/DI, TDS is good but not 0.. but I do think I'm due for a replacement membrane/media.

 

You can get bryopsis with a frag plug.
This is how I got it and I have a sea slug to take care of it. Amazing creature, sea slug, ate it all and whatever is growing back.

 

I have an RODI unit in the garage, water still comes out 0 TDS. When I moved to the 90g, I moved about 50lb of live rock from my old system and added 50lb of dry base rock. My guess is that this base rock is leeching some phosphates, as it's primarily growing on that. Not all, but most.

I have the lights out as of today and will leave them out through the weekend and see what it will do. Should I still get some turbos to help this weekend while the lights are out?