algae in my tank over riding everthing. What to do???????

[don r]

Hello, I have a 120 gal saltwater fish tank. and I have an algae problem so bad its over riding my whole tank. what can I get to help. I went out and bought a Phosban Reactor 150. It seemed to help for a min. But its still not gone. And I want it gone out of my tank. It look so much better when there was none in there.my corals look sick even:cry:

 

[Onedesign1]

lots of people here will help but need some basic info on the tank:

Do you test water parameters? If so what are they?

Do you use RO/DI water?

What kind and how old are the lights?

how old is the tank setup?

 

[don r]

Well I think so, my salt, ph, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates all seem to be on. Yes I use ro/di, My lights! I have 250 mh and 4t5 12led luner lights. Main lights running like 8 to 9 hours a day 35gal sump octpus skimmer. I did hear someone say something like fosfates or something like that?????? But I don't know..... or how to test for them.

 

[boehm742]

Sounds like my Cube :-x

 

[VegasRick]

If your phosphates are high it may deplete the gfo in one or two days. For a fish tank cut the lighting down to when you are actually home to view it. Don't over feed. Change gfo often regularly and eventually you will get it down.

 

[Alpha Aquaculture]

I would add some snails and crabs to start eating the algae. Try removing as much as possible yourself. Add macroalgae like chaeto or an Algal Turf Scrubber (ATS), basically u decide where the algae grows and what algae is growing. The main concept is import and export of nutrients. The algae is growing because you have too many nutrients in your tank. It will take you a few months to work it down to a reasonable level if it is too high. You could have a lot of organics trapped in your live rock. Wave your hand or use a pump to clean off your rocks. Make sure the detritus you stir up is removed from your tank. Clean your protein skimmer daily and do at least one water change per week. Look for and remove any algae or detritus. No need to be a perfectionist about it. Its gonna come back. The thing is its good that the algae is growing and soaking up those nutrients. I like to leave a lil to soak up more nutrients. So next week when you clean you'll have a good amount of algae to export. If your tank is really in bad shape you may want to do a more major cleaning. Take out your rocks and shake them under water you will be discarding (or filter this dirty water through a filter sock). Siphon out from under the rocks and do a big water change. I would give it a few months to get better before its not an issue. Also, feeding less (importing less nutrients) will help speed your recovery. In the future, keep an eye on the balance of importing and exporting nutrients. If you see algae start to creep back get aggressive with your nutrient export.

 

[nano junky]

add gfo and phosban to your reactor and never run your lights more then 8 hours a day total keep the whites down to 5 or so hours and change your phosban once a week for the first month or two