Horrible Green Algea Prob PLZ HELP

HELP ME PLZ. I dont know what the heck is going wrong here. I got a major prob. I moved everything i have into this 115g tank was from 55g. I have tested Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, Alk, Ph, Calc, and Salinity. Everything is fine, Nitraite a lil higher then liked but I have been doing water changes sense last testing. My lights are a Corallife setup 4x65watt setup i belive it is. It isnt but maybe a year, I dont know if it could be from the bulbs or what. I did have the lights on for 11hrs but turned it down today to 9hrs. I dont know if that to much or what. Maybe it might be i dont use any removing substnace idk, I was building a sump but it broke so Im only using a 30gallon tank right now to hold water flow from tank and the heater. I removed the skimmer from the sump and put it on the tank to see if this would help but didnt. Any suggestions most appreciated Thanks.

 

a phosphate remover might be a good idea to try, it helped me when i had a similar problem. good luck with it

 

check to make sure that your new tank is not getting any direct sunlight,
are you using ro/di water for top-off?
how much water movement do you have?

 

There isnt direct sunlight, tap water, and I need to upgrade water movement. I believe I know what the prob is however, Id like suggestions other then my assumptions. I only have about 400gph thru it right now, can't afford to jump to something right now. Also there isnt much in the tank. I got three smaller powerheads on the bottom of tank and one rio in middle of the right side pushing water into the middle of tank. Then I got the two outputs from the return.


PS Like the Name hopefull you can get rid of my Waste problem lol

 

Well i think it actually adds a bit of colour to your tank!

You could just get a sea urchin/hare or hermit crabs or better yet an algae blenny to eat it all

 

I am most likly making my next purchase for tank a Pump. Prob going to go with the MagDrive 18 or something. So i can push around 1k gph, id like more but dont know much about pumps. I have about 4-5feet head so I dont know.

 

What kind of substrate have you got on the bottom? When my algae problem became real bad, I started over. I have a 10 gal tank, and moved everything into it (livestock wise). I discarded my crushed coral except for enough for about 4" in the bottom of the 10 g (algae free, from the bottom of the tank), and replaced it with sand. After the sand was added to the "new" tank, I seeded it with the CC from the 10 g.

I worked in a rubbermaid basin with a bath brush, and physically scraped all the algae I could off the LR. I purchased a phos reactor and ran phosban from Kent, and carbon in it full time. I upgraded my protein skimmer. I stopped using my tap water, and started to buy RO/DI water from my LFS until I bought my RO/DI.

Finally, I made a DIY refugium out of that 10 gal tank, and I run a light in it when the main tank lights are off. It has a ball of chaetomorpha spinning in the flow.

For the first time in 20 years I'm algae free. I think the most important factors are the 'fuge and the phos reactor. I'd have to say, though, I've never sat around and watched for the problem to go away. I cleaned house.

Worked for me!

 

I'd consider holding back on the pump and getting a phosphate reactor. They don't cost an arm and a leg. Two Little Fishes makes a decent one for less than $50.

 

Test for phosphate as it is what the algae is feeding on if its high (probably is)
Then you should think of a ro/di unit and a phosphate reactor oh and possibly the extra flow no one said reef keeping was cheap!!!
But as Reefsparky said you could hold off on the extra flow 4x is not huge but still should be ok for the time as you have no corals . you just need to make sure that you are using what you have in there efficiently

 

I put a pouch of Purigen Ultimate Filtration in the sump directly under the water inlet see if this helps remove any. However, Im going to have jump in the tank and manually remove the algea I believe. Let me knwo if anyone else has any ideas or tips. THanks