Cycle Is Complete, Have Some Algea Going On

Sea Turtle

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I have a 75 gallon tank with 80 lbs of live rock and 4 inches of sand. My tank finished its cycle last week. It is now about 3 weeks old. I put a clean up crew in last saturday (12 snails, 12 hermit crabs). There seems to be a lot of algea growing now on the rocks, sand, glass, etc. I have a literMeter III and I am dosing alk and calcium. Here are my curent water conditions:

KA: 11
CA: 380
PH: 8.6
PO4: near 0
Salinity: 1.026
temp: 80F

What do I need to do to stop the algea? Is this part of the cycle to maturity? Also, I keep my light on about 9.5 hours per day. I am dosing calcium and alkalinity at 50ml/day and 4.93liters or RO/DI water per day for my top off. Does this sound ok. I know my calcium should be a little higher and my KA a little lower and I am working on this. Is there anything that I should be doing to help control this algea? The snails do a prety good job at cleaning it up but it seems to be getting the best of them. I have to clean my glass every night. The water also looks a little green...

Advise would be much apreciated.

Thanks guys.
 
your PH could come down a bit but just let it go down by itself. 8.4-8.5 is about maximum.
if you plan on keeping hard corals (corals with a skeleton) then you will need to increase your calcium to about 450ppm.
if you don't have corals in the tank then turn off the lights and this will probably get rid of the algae. Algae grow wherever there is light and water. The more light you have the more algae you get. If there are plants or corals in the tank, they will use the light and limit the algae.
it also depends on the type of algae, if you could post a pic of it or describe it, then it would be easier to identify. But if it's just green algae on the glass then turn the lights off until you get corals or plants in there.
 
Ok here are some pics. The one picture of the glass is not that great, but you can see what I mean. It is growing in thick ramdom clumps on the glass. Also the rocks are just getting covered. Hope this paints a picture.

algea_1.jpg

algea_2.jpg
 
if you can suck the algae of the rock and glass really easily then it could be blue green algae. If it's blue green algae then it should settle down in a few months. It is pretty common in newly set up tanks. Howver, it is a good idea to keep it under control during this phase otherwise it can get out of hand and cause all sorts of problems.
Blue green algae can literally grow overnight. You can suck it all out and a day later it is back.
 
Yes. That's prety much it. I clean it all of everynight and the next night when I come home from work.... There it is again.

Thanks for your advise. I will try to keep it under control and keep my fingers crossed it goes away.
 

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