RO/DI water switch

so the past 2 years i have been using tap water for my water changes because i didn't know it could help grow algae and whatnot. i purchased a RO/DI system and need to know if i should just start my tank all over by draining all the water and having my fish in a bucket for a while? or can i just do it over the course of a month or 2 with water changes?

 

I would chose option 2

even if you have a major algae issue at present, there are things you can do to control/ erradicate those issues

changing to much water at any given time is not always a good thing and you introduce a lot of new unknown factors into the equation and may end up making an issue worse rather than improving it

gradually improving your water quality by controlling the source water, is a much less risky manner to proceed IME

Steve

 

so will my algae problems just slowly work themselves out and eventually there wont be algae all over my tank?

 

that can happen stevie
but IME nature needs a helping hand occasionally

what algae types are we dealing with?

in general, reducing nutrients, ensuring your lamps are not to old and of the wrong colour temperature etc will help

manual removal is also certainly going to help, get as much as you can by hand and during water changes particularly as you can syphon of any loose stuff

in addition running chemical media such as GFO , granular ferric oxide, which binds phosphates, and thus strips the algae of part of its food source

introduction of a fuge with macro algaes that can also compete with the nuisance stuff for nutrients

there are other means of dealing with particular algae types
so let us know, or better still show us the specific issue you are dealing with, in the Algae forum would be ideal

and then I am sure you will get plenty of advise from any number of reefers on here, including myself, that have experienced many forms of algae between us