Finished my cycle, lots of algae...

How long does it take to normally calm down after you finish your cycle? I have heaps of the green hair algae, and I have pulled heaps of it out but it keeps growing back. Just wondering if i should start taking some action against it...?

Thanks,
John

 

yes it is the perfect time to do it before theres any corals or fish in it

 

Honestly, part of your solution is patience. Algae cycles are normal and you will go through plenty of them. Hair algae, cyano, diatoms, maybe bryopsis........nobody wants to say it, but its in your future, its part of the cycle. The big thing you need to look as is keeping your nitrates and phosphates in check, silicates for diatoms. Bump up your flow if and when you get cyano. The only things you can do for now are manually pulling it out, your routine water changes, get yourself a cleanup crew, cut back on your feeding unless you think otherwise, and bump up the flow a little. FWIW, My tank is about 9 months old (technically) and I think I am over the algae battles now.

 

my tank has been running for 3 years it started out fish only then became reef after a couple of months i still have alge problems here and there.

 

Algae is potentially caused by "redder" lights. What is your light solution. Also they need nutrients from food. Are you possibly overfeeding? If the tank's empty except LR/LS are you feeding?

 

John this is something you will battle for some time. Patience and don't get discourged. I would recomend these steps/ 1 lights I run my actinics 11 hours metal halids 5 hours.It is hard to only do this as a black box of water is not all that much fun. 2. feed your fish if you have them only what they can eat in two min. once a day unless they have special needs.3 a refugium once it take hold it will use all nutrents and not let algae grow in display tank. 4. a phosban reactor will also help with this. 5.a good cleaning crew.6. patience It took all of these steps and 5 or 6 months to rid the display tank of the worst bryopsis out break. I was told to nuke the tank by some as I would never get rid of bryopsis. Wrong It now is only in my refugium. At some point I may gut the refugium and replace all the chato that is over grown with bryopsis. On the other hand I just wanted it out of display tank and that is accomplished.