Hair algea in GSP

[cdemeritt]

Hello,
I tried posting this in the general reef discussion, got a few tips, but still having the problem, maybe a soultion can be found here.

I've had a GSP colony for about 3 years now. It has been plaqued contsantly by hair algea, suprised it's still alive. Over the last 4 months I've been able to keep the tank at:

Nitrates : undetectable
Phosphates : undetectable
PH (avg) : 8.3
S.G. : 1.024
Ca. : 320-400ppm
Dkh : 9
temp : 78-80'f
flow : 750GPH though, 500-700gph internal
total water volume: 75g
display tank size : 35g
Photoperiod : 8hrs 80w florecents, 5 hrs 175w MH
tank bottom : Bare Bottom


The tank has been looking great lately, with only slight hair algea in some spots. However, the GSP keeps getting this thick mat of hair on it. I've had to scrape it off the colony 3 time over the last three months. I've moved it so that a PH is only about 6 inches from the colony, and blows across the top of it. It doesn't seem to be helping. last night I had to do another HA removal, and I know this isn't good for the colony, I've seen some tissue decay, and the colony is shrinking.

Any Ideas on how to turn this around?

Chris

[Loverotties]

The low nitrate and Phospate is being eaten up by the hair algea.What is your TDS of your water?

[cdemeritt]

Originally Posted by Loverotties

The low nitrate and Phospate is being eaten up by the hair algea.What is your TDS of your water?

Sorry, I do not have a way to measure TDS at the moment. DOC should be very low. I forgot to add in the original post that I have a 2ft air driven skimmer (home made) that all water passes through before entering the sump, and I skim med/wet. also 10% weekly water changes with the occasional 20-30% WC. ditrius is vacuumed about every 3 days, and floss filter is changed weekly. I'm attaching a picture of the area. note that the heaviest green is on the rock, and most of the surrounding rock is almost bare.That is the part that is confounding me. why just the GSP.

[dobejazz]

It seems like the rock the frag came on is loaded with phosphates I'm not sure but you may need to frag the GSP off and either "cook " or toss that rock. Is it possible the GSP came from a tank that had major HA issues?

[cdemeritt]

Originally Posted by dobejazz

It seems like the rock the frag came on is loaded with phosphates I'm not sure but you may need to frag the GSP off and either "cook " or toss that rock. Is it possible the GSP came from a tank that had major HA issues?

I was wondering if it could be the rock. Seems strange though, as it has been in my tank for 3 years now. but stranger things have been observed in my tank. I had thought about fragging a peice of it just to see if things change for the frag. such fun this hobby is, just when you think you have a handle on something, something else comes along and throws you for a loop.

[dobejazz]

Originally Posted by cdemeritt

such fun this hobby is, just when you think you have a handle on something, something else comes along and throws you for a loop.

Isn't that the truth !!!

I had a rock like that in my nano no matter what I did it was just covered in Algae and the rest of the tank was fine. I just pulled the rock out and the HA problem was gone

[cdemeritt]

but you may need to frag the GSP off

Well it is done. I took two pieces off the colony from the more affected areas. I left most of the colony alone tho, until I see how they do. one of the new frags went back into the main display, the other into the frag tank (part of the system, but lower flow rate to let them get settled) to see if the HA is more due to the rock than anything else. Now if they all die I'm going to blame you! just kidding, I had been thinking of trying this before. I was a little surpirsed that it was that easy to remove the mat from the rock. I'm sure it feels like it just went 20 rounds with Holyfield right now, but I'm confident that it'll be ok.