new bulbs= algae bloom..?

i recently switched my 50 gallon reef into an 80 gallon. It's been set up since the beginning of july. for lighting i have two 250 watt 10,000K metal halide bulbs, 4 actinic PC lights, and 6 moonlight LEDs (all in the same fixture). about a week ago i started seeing this green* film algae growing on the sand. in just over that time period its taken over the entire sand bed (which is only aragonite) and on all of the glass. i also have a bit of red slime. so today i scrubbed the entire tank clean of the algae and rearranged the rock. Well, in less than a couple hours the green algae is pretty much back to what it was, at least on the sand. I started searching online and saw that the new halide bulbs could be the problem? maybe the new tank hasnt fully matured yet? any ideas?
btw the water quality is fine...

 

I'm not totally sure on the halides aspect so I will be curious to hear more on that, however to have such a large scale out break I would think you would have to have some kind of nutrient issue going on as well. Do test for phosphate? What are the frequency of water changes? Also, what is your flow like?

 

Sounds like you have a Cyano outbreak... I know it's rare to see green green but the latin translated into english litterally means Blue-Green Algea. Typically cyano is what will slime up all of you sand. Use a turkey baster and suck it out this will help eliminate any phosphates that might be in your system. reduce the amount of food you are feeding and for a few days stop hand feeding the corals if you are. a reduction in the amount of food waste will help correct this problem. I agree with Thor, do a phosphate test. If you have any get a remover of some sort, cyano love phosphates. Give it time too, it took me almost a month to eliminate cyano my fist out break, it will take constant work. Syphon out as much of it as you can, as this will help eliminate the nutrients it uses to grow. Also remember cyano is not an algea but the evolutionary jump between bacteria and algea. So, it acts like both and reacts the same ways to a lot of the general medics that can temporarly solve the problem but, it has to be treated as its own problem. And, it needs to be delt with this way to find out what is creating it and to completly eliminate it.

 

If you dont have corals you can do a full week blackout also to aid in killing the bacteria also.

 

I've seen more than a few threads on old bulbs and algae breakouts...
the concenus being: blame the nutrients not the bulbs....

 

I am not saying blame only the nutrients, I just believe they are the main reeason.

This is the reason I say check the levels of the tank... These lights all though are good and great for the size system you are running, if there is too much floating in the water then these nutrients and the light are comtributing. I agree with ReefBruh as it seems you just started this tank up and if now corals are present yet leave the lights off for a while and then get rid of the problem. Once the problem is eliminated then you should have no problems with the lights.

 

Ah, thanks for the responses. i do have a lot of coral- frogspawn, hammer, xenia, kenyan tree, ricordea and shrooms, gorgonians, starlet, palythoas, star polyps and zoanthids so i dont think a complete blackout is the best idea. plus an anemone. would a 2-3 day blackout work? or just set the timer to like 6 hours per day?
as for phosphates, the readings are 0.5 ppm
and nitrates are approx 10 ppm

 

+1 I agree with ReefBruh it will work everytime and is reef safe.....LOL

But even a few days will work wonders !

E

 

well i decided to start the blackout today. i scrubbed the entire tank clean of the nasty algae and it looks so much better that its spotless so i think its the right timing to have the light off for a while.