green hair algae

had a major outbreak in one of my tanks. nitrates and phosphates are now at zero. i vacuum off the rocks when i do my biweekly water change. how long does it take for this stuff to die off with levels at zero ? thanks for any input.

 

what is your lighting? how long do you have them on? do you have a refugium ?

how old is the aquarium? what type of fish?

 

the light fixture is a 82w aquavim led that runs for 8 hours a day. i do have a fug that only has a 7" deep sand bed. i only have the normal peacful reef fish in this tank along with a couple soft corals. i run the aquaripure nitrate filter and a phosphate reactor. thanks for the input.

 

With gha in the tank phosphate tests will show 0 as the algae is using it all up. Do you use RODI water?

 

i use the 3 stage coralife. i did order a 4 stage coralife unit the other day.

 

Is your tank FOWLR at this time? I had such and just shut down my tank (no lights) and continued on for six months. Yup, pain in the arse but algae problem history. Rock at time 2 years old. Not sure how old your setup is but I still have my 3 fish! Water changes with at least RO water. Now going to introduce a DIY Bio-Pellet reactor. Doing it slowly though. Hopefully be able to start introducing softies in three months. Read somewhere that a leather took 7 years to move 14 inches. Now that is patience. Both leather and tank owner. LOL.

 

Maybe that long to grow? I don't think any coral moves. Only anemones will attach and detach themselves to find a spot.

 

I had a major out break and it was my sand that was the culprit so now I run Bob

 

I had GHA on my sand bed for the longest time, never moved to my rocks though. I tried shortening the light period and stepping up my water changes, which seem to have no effect on it. Even when I vaccumed it off the sand it would grown back in due time. Then I started running Kent Phosphate Sponge and it was amazing. You have to change the media every 24hrs or it can leach back into the tank. I changed my first batch after 12hrs and the GHA started to turn white at the roots. Another 24hrs later it was ALL white and dying. After about a week of doing this it was completely gone. Now I do weekly 15g water changes on my 42g system and it stays clean. This is going on 3-4 months ago now.

Even go on MarineDepots website and check the reviews out on this stuff. People have had great results with it.