Huge algae problem! need some Advice!

So, I have diatoms and green hair algae that is just over taking my tank. I brought a water sample into my local reef store and they tested the nitrates and phosphates. The nitrates were around 5ppm and the phosphates were just able to show up, so they were extremely low, but they were there. The algae started when I upgrated my lighting from a single T8 bulb to 2 T5 bulb fixture. The guy at the store said the algae is from the sudden huge increase in lighting and it shocked my system. He said that the algae will kill itself out once the system catches up with what is going on. Is that true? It's beeen about a month since I upgrated the lighting and it just seems to me like it's getting worse! I have to crape the algae off the glass twice a friggin day! My lights are on a timer. They turn on at 8am and off at 6pm. I use to have the lights on for 12 hours so I cut back a couple hours. Is the guy at the store right? Will it eventually kill itself out? how long will that take?

 

oh and it was yesterday that I got the water tested. I have my own test kit but just for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.

 

My recommendation.... cut the lighting back to 6 hours a day for a week, then slowly bring it back up, one hour per week, until you're back to 8-10 hours. I had a similar issue when starting my tank I'm on now, and from what I have learned about algae blooms, the more light, the more algae, but in a salt water you want to have certain types of algae as we all know, so if yours is becoming overwhelming, cut the light back temporarily. Can anyone else back that up or am I in the wrong direction. From what I've red about, don't use chemicals.


Good luck

 

New lighting will cause algae but also I just have to ask cause im sure someone else will what kind of water are you using and how old is your tank. Normally diatoms come from phostates as they are feeding off the silicates in the water collum so if you ahve added any new equipment or even if your tank is less then a year old its coming to have diatom and cyano blooms.

You can cut your light back and it might slow the algae growth but its not really addressing the issue, IF there is another reason other then the new lights causeing the algae. I recently upgraded my light as well and went from 192w to 796w and havent had a algae outbreak yeah my light are on for almost 12hrs a day. I hope that helps

 

If she doesn't have corals she can do a total blackout for 7days and then turn the lights on like 55 said. But IMO daylights on more than 6 to 8 hours is more than what corals need. We as hobbyist can only mimic mother nature so far.

I'm strong to the finish cause I eats me spinach. I'm ReefBruh the reefing man. Toot Toot.

 

I am using tap water but my tap water has little to no phosphates and no nitrates at all. And the tank is only about 5 months old. maybe 6 months.

 

That would be what is causing your diatom issues. With better lights the microbacteria have more to feed off thus them showing up as diatoms. IMO i would grab a RO/DI unit when you can and do some water changes. I had the same issue when i started my first reef tank used tap water it made the first few months painful. The diatoms where so bad it looked like a brown blanket on the sand.

 

Aye.....I did the same thing.

 

You can try and siphon out what you can to remove the algae in the short term and adding more flow via powerheads as suggested should help too. Cyano problems are usually caused by aquarium water with excess nutrients like phosphate, nitrates etc. In the long term you may have to examine how you care for your tank. There are some commercial dry foods also contain excess nutrients and other undesirable things like nitrates, phosphates etc so I strain/rinse my fresh/frozen foods before feeding my tank. You may want to consider feeding your fish less often. Also using RO/DI water and a high quality salt with little if any NO3, phosphates etc like Tropic Marin will really help too. Adding a phosphate remover, increasing flow in your tank, adjusting your tank's photo period or replacing old bulbs may help too.

 

Thats for all your help but I was able to get the algae to an almost a complete stop. I limited my feeding to once a day, no frozen foods, only flakes. Cutting the hours of lighting to 8 hours a day instead of 10. Putting a phosphate and nitrate remover in the filter. and did 2 30% water changes since my last post and added 8 margarita snails and it has been a week and I have little to no algae or diatom growth.Thaks everyone for your input.