Overrun by Brown/Green algae!

I moved recently into a new appartment and when I did I started to notice a lot of brow algae, probably diatoms because they are also growing on the sand, green hair algae AND red slime algae out of nowhere! At my old apartment I had NO algae problems so I think that the tap water has too much phosphates in it because there is 0 nitrate in the tap water and the nitrates in my tank rarely goes over 5-10ppm. So I picked up some stuff for my fluval 205 canister that removes phosphates and nitrates. Do you think this will work well? Anyone have experience with trying to solve the problem like this? I have 5 hermits that munch away on teh algae but it grows back way too fast! I upgraded my lighting from a single T8 bulb to 2 HO T5 bulb fixture around the same time we moved so it might be the combination of both. What do u think?

 

hey man, i had no problem with my fish tank, moved and BOOM same thing happend, everything i did didnt even make a dent in the algae.... and to tell you the truth... it scared me and i had no time to fix it... but when i moved into my next place, i tore down the tank, scrubbed the live rock in fresh ro water with a soft tooth brush, rinsed the sand out and replaced all my plumbing. now i have no problems! *knocks on wood*
my suggestion, do what i did man.... a little pain in the rear, but it worked for me.
good luck!
David

 

sorry! *ma'am not man
and i forgot to tell you, i did a 50% water change and 10% water changes every week for a month.

 

First of all, if you can stop using tap water! Secondly, I would say that are getting somewhat of an algae bloom due to the upgraded lighting. If the stuff you bought for the fluval is Fluval® Clearmax Phosphate Remover, then I have personally had no luck with it myself. I have a problem with cyano as well that I'm trying figure out. My phosphates are at about 5 ppm right now and were around 10 ppm about 1.5 weeks ago. Here is a link http://www.3reef.com/forums/algae/can-someone-id-112538-3.html to my thread with the same problem. Maybe that can answer some of your questions.

Here is a cool thread to follow:

http://www.3reef.com/forums/water-chemistry/carbon-dosing-method-testing-started-107232.html

This thread is really awesome, the bottom line is that the NP Pellets came to be the best to use in this experiment.

 

How long are you keeping your lighting on in your new place....I've seen diatom blooms calmed down simply by backing your light time down a few hours for a few days. If you just moved the tank and stirred everything up, then there's the cause of it all, you're going to have to let everything settle and regain stability again. I just had a huge nitrate spike cause I moved a bunch of stuff around and stirred up my sediment.

With all that algae in a ten gallon, I'd say it's masking your nitrate, showing you a low read on the test, but in actuality, it's probably high. Keep good flow in the tank and give it time.

Sticksmith is absolutely right also, use RO/DI water for your changes, I started off using tap water, would mix it with dechlorinater, and all my water would go straight up the skimmer. I started using RO water and I mix salt myself, and have never had an issue since. Soon my phosphate problem went away and all was good.

 

Sorry, I just realized you didn't say "10 gallon", I must have been reading that on another page....lol

 

Well, I'll give the phosphate remover a shot and see what happens. Tap water is all I have and can afford right now.

 

Just in case you do not have a RO/DI unit, you can buy RO/DI at walmart for about 89 cents a gallon or you can try a water machine for 25 cents a gallon out side of circleK, safeway ( but they may just be as bad as tap).

No intervention other than changing the water source will make much of a difference. Algae needs 2 things, nutrients ( phosphates) and light.

Phosban maybe able to take up some of the phosphates, but you risk exposing your live rock to high phosphates, which will leech out over time from the live rock.

First thing I would do is test your tab for phosphates and nitrates and proceed from there.

Good Luck.