New Skimmer Installed Diatoms gone, when will GHA Go away?

After some major modifications to my sump in order to get my new protein skimmer to fit (AquaC EV120) I finally have a protein skimmer installed! After a few days of break in and endless tweaking, I finally have it set to skim the way I like it, nice and dry. Since this has been in use, the diatoms that used to drive me crazy, and make me clean daily with a mag float, have pretty much dissapeared. Unfortunately the GHA still exists, I am running a carbon reactor and a Phos Ban reactor and yet it still remains. Will my skimmer eventually starve it out and cause it to go away? I have per my LFS instructions reduced the amount I feed my fish and it seems to be helping. I have a good size clean up crew and even added a lawnmower blenny recently and i have not seen him eat the GHA. Any suggestions would be helpful.

 

I had purchaced a sea hare when my tank was maturing and it ceaned up the hair algea great bonus it is really cool looking to watch it go to town. if you are still having algea problems check your light bulbs it may be time to change them out.

 

Lighting fixture is new, less than 3 months old 6 bulb HO T5 fixture

 

I was also going to ask about the lighting. what are you using for daylight bulbs and how old? Also water changes, what amount and how often?

I had issues with GHA last year and recently with cyano. and after making sure my phosphates where at zero, I increased my water changes to 25% from 10% and decreased my daylight cycle down to 5 hours a day until it was gone.

 

well its a less than 3 month current USA nova extreme 6 bulb t5 ho system. dont know bout the bulbs, using the ones that came with it. I do a 5 gallon water change weekely with RODI water. I just ordered AlgaeFix Marine from doctor foster smith aquatics. Ive read good things about this product and its worth a try.

 

Can you find out the brand bulbs and the color temp? lower the kelvin the more algae will grow.

When your battling GHA its a a combo process. Another words all out war for a certain time until its gone. for example running phosban alone wont get rid of it because its established. but if you set a time frame and in that time frame, run your reactor with GFO, cut your daylights down by 30-40% a day. increase your water changes. turn your temp down cut down on feeding manual removal etc, you will eventually win the war and can change back to normal routine.
As far as the skimmer, its not really designed to remove algae. Its designed to take burden off of the cycle of your tank by removing organic waste. Now some foods do contain phosphates so you may want to rinse it first if your using frozen. The reactors funtion is to starve out the algae.

 

My Light fixture has 3 39 watt 10 K bulbs and 3 39 watt 460 NM bulbs. These are the bulbs that came with the fixture. If i upgrade bulbs what should i get?

 

s mentioned above it's a three pronged approach: lighting, nutrient export and patience. But most improtantly you need to find the source or it will continue to come back. BTW lawnmower blennies don't eat the GHA just the micro fauna living on it.

 

If you have the factory bulbs they are probably SlimPaq (which are fine) but IME Giesemann, ICECAP, and ATI are a little better.
If your looking to add some pop to your corals look into KZ Korallen (super blue & fiji purple bulbs that would replace 1x actinic bulb). and for daylight bulbs I liked 1x 10k, 1x 12k, 1x 14k. This will take away that yellowish tint that you get with 3x 10k bulbs, but really any combo will do. for actinic: 1x fiji purp, and maybe 1x blue plus, and 1x standard actinic.
I had a Nova Ex on a prior tank and liked it but I dont think all the bulbs are ran at full power, meaning your nor getting 39 watts at each bulbs (I could be mistaken on this).