cah-RAZY green algae in the tank

[Jaybird]

This stuff grows back during the day.

I've kept cutting the lights back, but it keeps appearing. I've got about 10 nassarius snails, about 20 astrea, about 8 nerites, two serpent stars, and about 20 small blue hermits as CUC. When I get home I use my magfloat to scrub almost all the green algae off the glass (it comes right off, very easily) and by morning the CUC has cleaned off most of the rest off the rocks and sand.

But by evening we start all over again!

My water is: Ph 8.2, Amm 0, Nites 0, Nates 0, PHos 0
Tank is 90G and been running for about a month.

Algae has always been there but has gone from lightspeed to plaid in the last week.

Inhabitants other than the CUC: yellow watchman + tiger pistol (saved from a friend's tank who was going overseas), and two true percs (one is normal and the other seems like it should be taking the "short bus" to school....complete with padded helmet

I keep needing to clean out my skimmer every two days as after I scrub the algae from the glass it clouds the water and ends up down the overflow. It's even taken a light film to my sump and fuge. The skimmate is green and chunky...ewww!

Any hints/ideas that I can do to deal with this? Any smacks upside the head for things done wrong?

 

[melosu58]

Are you using tap water? Your water parameters could be 0 because the algea is using everything up. I would make a batch of SW and then before you add it I would test that water to make sure you are not adding the nitrates and phosphates yourself. Are you feeding every other day? Read this and let us know if any of these suggestions could be the problem.

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

 

[Jaybird]

Duhhh!! Sorry, I should have mentioned that I am using RO/DI water. My salt mix is Instant Ocean Reef Crystals.

I should have added that in the original post.

I've got about 25G of RO/DI water that I ran into a garbage pail last night. I'll add the salt, pump, and heater when I get home and hopefully tomorrow get a big water change done.

 

[melosu58]

Good and as I said test the water before you add it to the tank esp. for nitrates and phosphates. Also read that link to see if any of those apply.

 

[thincat]

Your tank is very young and this is fairly normal. I would pickup more nerites, and see if that helps too.

 

[Jaybird]

I've bought all the nerites from most of the LFS here. I think that I will be personally responsible for the sudded spike in their price

That being said.....I still don't have too many. It's not a snail they keep often. Now, selling astrea or trochus as turbos....yeah, they do a lot of that.

I'm going to try to pick up some more nass snails, maybe some ceriths...and some nerites...if they have them. To be honest, the astrea snails are what I can see motoring along the glass and rocks. You can see a swath of clean rock in the green after they pass. The nerites don't seem to move too much.

[EDIT] molosu58: I checked my water before using the RO/DI unit and it tests 0 for nitrate and phos. I asked about this thinking that if nitrate and phos were zero from the tap that I wouldn't need an RO/DI unit but someone else mentioned things about copper and other metals.....so I bought the RO/DI

 

[melosu58]

molosu58: I checked my water before using the RO/DI unit and it tests 0 for nitrate and phos. I asked about this thinking that if nitrate and phos were zero from the tap that I wouldn't need an RO/DI unit but someone else mentioned things about copper and other metals.....so I bought the RO/DI

I think that was a wise choice.

 

[Jaybird]

I think so to. It's more of an insurance policy.

Now, if I could only master mixing my salt. I always tend to put too much in and have to add extra water. Right now I'm about 1.30 and the garbage pail is nearly full of water. I want it at 1.25. I may have to toss some water and keep adding RO/DI water to dilute.

 

[thincat]

Get an additional 5 gal pail and fine tune it there. Normally about 2 1/2 cups of salt to 5 gals of R/O water will get you ~1.024 - 1.025 ppm's at 82 degrees room temp.

 

[Jaybird]

That's exactly what my salt calls for (1/2 cup per gallon)......now, in the big garbage can there are no markers for volume. I have to eyeball it based on the manufacturer's statement that it holds 33G. I estimated that I had about 25G in the tub and added that amount of salt.....guess it was not exactly 25G. I'll keep topping up the tub until I get 1.025.....I think I'm about at 1.028 right now.