green slime algae

[something_fishy]

I just checked the nitrite, nitrate and ammonia levels in my brackish tank and they all check out good, but the green slime algae seems to be flourishing in my tank?

what is it feeding off, I know they feed off of light, would putting the light on for only a few hours a day help, or completely turning it off for a few days, will this harm my puffers?? I have no plants in the tank either.

[Devilishturtles]

It feeds off of light, yes.

Just a thought, but have you checked your phosphate levels? Algae in a saltwater environment thrives off of phosphates, and they usually come from a tap water source. I'm not positive how this effects brackish tanks though, but I assume phosphates would play just a bit of a role here.

So, check phosphates, and what were your nitrate readings?

[acronym:a6671bd1e2="Hope this helps (or) Happy to help"]HTH[/acronym:a6671bd1e2].

[something_fishy]

nitrates were slightly less than 5.0, nitrites were roughly around 0.10 and ammonia was non existent. I use the same tap water on my reef tank and don't have any problems like this, so I can't see there being any phosphate problems. I'm thinking of converting this brackish tank to freshwater (I'm finding that brackish is really a pain in the ...), apparently the 2 figure eight puffers that are in this tank prefer freshwater... I keep getting mixed responses and different opinions on this one, so, maybe if I try it I'll see for myself. I have kept the lights off now for 1 day and put a half dose of EM tablets along with a double dose of melafix antibacterial. I'll do this for 2 or 3 days. This should kill the cyno and the bacterial infection on one of the puffers (see other post), although it might spike the ammonia, it shouldn't kill my biological filter due to the low dose of EM but I'll have to keep an eye on it...

Any feedback on this one..??

[RoK]

Water changes, feed a little less, less light.. How long has this tank been running with fish? If there's nitrite present that means the tank is still cycling.

[something_fishy]

It's been running for 2 years, this is the first outbreak of cyno, got it under control now, was just looking for anyone who might have found a better product that didn't effect everything else in the tank. Things are so much more simple with my marine tank, so much less to worry about, although that has been up for 6 years now, it takes care of itself.
Nitrites will always be present in a puffer tank, they are messy copius eaters, and their food is not flakes, its live snails, meaty foods like shrimp and such... You would have to clean the tank daily to keep it at 0 nitrites. A reading of 0.10ppm is next to nothing anyway, hardly registerable on a scale, so I could easily say no nitrites, but I like to be accurate.

I have to move the location of the tank, during the day it seems to be getting sun directly on half the tank, the half with the cyno growth. It wasn't always like this, but due to the changing seasons, the sun has moved. We just moved here before Christmas, so we didn't know the sun pattern...DOH!!

Pretty sure that the sun factor was the key to the growth. I stayed home the other day and noticed that it was getting direct sunlight for about 3 hours a day, pretty obvious now what the problem was.

[mitche8359]

I just tried a five day black out and I mean [acronym:b7e431d019="Normal Output Fluorescents"]NO[/acronym:b7e431d019] LIGHT. The tank looked great for a day. A day later I noticed a spot of it. Not sure if I missed seeing it the day before or if it came back that quickly.

I'm going to have to try another cure.