Algae outbreak

[rncarter]

I recently bought a new lighting fixture 3 weeks ago. I was not able to do my regular 2 weeks water change. So after 3 weeks I notice I had an algae outbreak of green hairy algae. I did a water change this weekend after 3 weeks. The only odd ball observation is my sand looks slightly brown in some spots. Not sure if the algae oubreak was caused by the new lighting schedule or the delayed PWC.
My light schedule is
White: 9am - 5pm (8 hours)
Blue: 7am - 6pm (11 hours)
LEDs: 6pm - 1am (7 hours)

 

[Krypt]

The algae outbreak is tied in to your new lighting. Doing water changes to eliminate excess nutrients is a good first step. What is your current feeding schedule? You can also try cutting the light times down to 6 hours white, 8 hours blue, and black out the LED's for a few weeks to starve the algae. If you have no corals you can also do a total blackout for a few days to really pound the algae out.

 

[rncarter]

I have xenia and a 2" long rock with about 8 small zoas.

 

[Fishbone13]

Do you use tap water or RO/DI water when you do you're PWC's?

 

[melosu58]

FantasyReef Databases-Viewing item "10 Step Plan for Nuisance Algae Control"

A good battle plan for algea.

 

[Gti_Leo]

The algae outbreak is tied in to your new lighting. Doing water changes to eliminate excess nutrients is a good first step. What is your current feeding schedule? You can also try cutting the light times down to 6 hours white, 8 hours blue, and black out the LED's for a few weeks to starve the algae. If you have no corals you can also do a total blackout for a few days to really pound the algae out.

i beg to differ that algae outbreaks are tied to lighting, sure less lighting can help with less algae but its not the root cause of it.

my lights are on 16 hours out of the day and i have nothign buyt coraline algae growth.

keep your nutrients down and water columb good and algae stays away. when you neglect your PWC and your nutrient levels is when you get issues

 

[Krypt]

i beg to differ that algae outbreaks are tied to lighting, sure less lighting can help with less algae but its not the root cause of it.

my lights are on 16 hours out of the day and i have nothign buyt coraline algae growth.

keep your nutrients down and water columb good and algae stays away. when you neglect your PWC and your nutrient levels is when you get issues

Re-read his OP, he stated he replaced his lights and then the algae showed up. When you replace lights, it can trigger an algae outbreak if your water is less then clean. The new lighting will provide more food for photosynthetic organisms, algae being one of them. By limiting his light cycle, he can catch up on pwc's, export the nutrients, and get it under control.

 

[Gti_Leo]

oops i feel dumb now. i didn't really read his post just skimmed it

 

[rncarter]

I turn off all my ligths since last night. When i go home today I am going to reduce the schedule to:

Blue: 10am - 6pm (8 hours)
White: 11am - 5pm (6 hours)
LEDs: 6pm - 10pm (4 hours)

I have a 90 gallon tank and i changed only 30 gallons this past weekend. I will wait about 10 more days and change another 30 gallons.

 

[rncarter]

I have like 5 stalks of zoas Can they survive if I keep all my lights off for 1 week?

 

[Krypt]

I wouldn't black out for an entire week, the most I would go would be 3 days. What you can do as a tactical strategy to help get ahead of the algae is physically remove as much as you can (scrub the rocks in a bucket of tank water outside the tank), then immediately do a 50% change, then black out for the 3 days. That should be aggresive enough to get you back on the right track.

If the algae dies in your tank, then the nutrients they have stored up will be released back into the water and start the whole cycle over again. That's the logic behind scrubbing them down outside the tank to get rid of the stored nutrients.

 

[Fishbone13]

I wouldn't black out for an entire week, the most I would go would be 3 days. What you can do as a tactical strategy to help get ahead of the algae is physically remove as much as you can (scrub the rocks in a bucket of tank water outside the tank), then immediately do a 50% change, then black out for the 3 days. That should be aggresive enough to get you back on the right track.

If the algae dies in your tank, then the nutrients they have stored up will be released back into the water and start the whole cycle over again. That's the logic behind scrubbing them down outside the tank to get rid of the stored nutrients.

Great advice.

 

[Krypt]

Great advice.

Thank you sir!

 

[rncarter]

I think I will try that

 

[rncarter]

I did a Pwc but I still see signs of New algae growth.

 

[Henry405]

it'll take a couple of PWC to see a difference. When doing a PWC, you only take out a small percentage of the nutrients needed by the algae to grow, but over time, it'll add up