Algee Problem

[jeasko]

I have a problem with algee at the moment, no matter what I do it seems to love it. i,ve reduced the lighting time so whites t5's are on for only 8 hours doesnt seem to have made much difference, done water changes, closely checked the water quality all ok how do you get rid of it?
I have a clean up crew turbo snails sand sifting star fish shrimps hermit crabs and a normal crab but still this stuff grows! what else can i try

 

[bitfishy]

I'm a newbie too, so take anything i say with caution... but I followed advice on another thread with suggested switching the lights off for 48hours. It made a HUGE difference - the hair algae practically disappeared (I had a lot) and the red stuff on the sand went too. There's still a few patches, but the CUC keep it well within manageable proportions. You could add an additive called RowaPhos in the protein skimmer I believe, I bought it but never used it because the light thing worked so well (£13). I did it weeks ago and its still exactly the same. BTW it didn't affect my corals or CUC in any way, it was just a bit dull for a few days!

 

[sahmof2]

I was having algae problems until I tested and found phosphates at 1.0, should be 0.1. I added phos-buster by Caribsea and 4 days later, green algae mostly gone with coralline starting to spread. Also keeping calcium above 400 seems to help keep hair algae under control with phosphates low. My actinic lights (110W) are on 12 hours with my 10K lights (110W) on 10 hours.

 

[Die_Grinder]

algae is simple to cure, raise the cleaning standards of your tank.

1. improve skimming.
2. reduce phosphates
3. reduce nitrates
4. make sure you have at least 25x turnover in your tank (i have had about 8 people come into see me with less than half this flow)
|| more flow gets more nitrite into the rock to the anerobic bacteria so they can use the O2 from the NO2 leaving the N (nitrogen gas) to bubble up and out of the tank. ||
5. make sure you are not over feeding.

corals love light, so you are best off trying to reduce algae by other means. keep your rock clean and detritus and mulme to a minimum and you will be fine.
hermits pick off small bit of algae off your rock, but if it gets too bug they leave it.
also try algae blennies, turbo snails, cerith snails and nasurus snails, mithrax crabs and some shrimps will eat algae.

if its like a purple slime its a type of bacteria that festers in low flow and high phosphates. some angel fish will eat this.

i have set up a tank with a 50,000k tmc halide 250w about it and there is no algae at all (well just a lil but the CC deal with that ).

hope it helps.

DG