green algae on glass

[mncspradlin]

OK guys, I am daily having to clean my glass from green algae. My lights are only on from 10am until 8pm. My Nitrate is 10mg/l, Nitrite 0, ammonia 0, phos less than 0.1. Calcium is high, Alk is 7DKH and pH is 8.2. Have had a problem with red slime algae but now have a little red slime and a lot of green. My skimmer is working as usual and have had no major changes in water quality or tank maintenance. Have recently changed food from a flake/granule mix to formula1 and formula2 granules, I also add zooplankton every other day.
Any ideas??

[quarryshark]

May want to add some more snails. Also may be feeding a little on the heavy side, try cutting back a bit and see if that helps.
How much is you skimmer producing daily?
Keep scaping it. I scape my glass once or twice a week, some algae growth is normal.
Also consider a lawnmower blenny, it will eat the green stuff.

[mncspradlin]

OK Thanks,
Is a lawnmower blenny different than a scooter blenny?
My skimmer produces about 1 tablespoon full of dark green liquid a day.
Have about 15 snails, most are turbo snails with 2 redfoot snails.
I have quite a bit of new red, green and brown algae on the sand bed also and I just vaccumed it about 2 weeks ago. With my nitrites, ammonia and phos at zero I should not be growing all this should I?

[quarryshark]

Is a lawnmower blenny different than a scooter blenny?

Much different. A scotter is not a blenny, its actually a dragonet. Will not touch algae, difficult fish to keep. Need a god pod population to survive. Many LFS's advertise them incorrectly as blennies.
A lawnmover is a much different fish. Easy to keep, just make sure you see at eat at the LFS before you bring him home.
Nassarius Snails will help with your sand, may want to get a bunch of them too.
May want to consider a skimmer upgrade. A spoon a day is not very much production. I get about a 1/3 cup a day of skimmage.

[MattP725]

10hrs of good lighting is a lot. That may definately contribute to your problem. You have the same lighting and tank size as I do and before I started cutting light and feeding I had a bad algae prob. I ended up using a razorblade to get it off. Growth is slow with 6hrs of light or so and less feeding.

[BillyZ]

how long has the tank been set up? are we talking about the 55 in your sig? theres a lot of stuff in there. With that much stuff and your skimmer only pulling out a little, I'll second Kurts comment. Except may try fine tuning your skimmer a little before buying a new one. It might not be running at full effiecency. (how long has the skimmer been running? They have a burn in period too)

[randalp]

You also may want to consider adding a refugium, with some macro algae. Done alot to improve the overall quality of my aquarium.

[mncspradlin]

OK, so many questions. Thanks a lot for all of your help. I'll try to answer all.

Aquarium running for about 1 year now, skimmer is about 8mos old. I used to get a lot more junk in it but lately my cup fills with bubbles and stops draining. I have to empty the bubbles out and start over daily.

Yes it is the tank in my sig. I know there is a lot in there but the water qual is great with no parameters out of whack except very high calcium.

Does anyone add anything like strontium, molybdnium, Iron or Iodine on a regular basis. Have heard a lot in both the pro and con area? I have also heard that "stresszyme" is good to add on occasion.????

How should I fine tune my skimmer? It has an air hose that allows lots of bubbles or little bubbles. I try to adjust it so no bubbles are being released back into the tank.

I haven't changed anything lately but this algae problem just started over the last month or so and on the glass only in the last 2 weeks. I have had some red cyano sporatically but this is a first with the brown/green.

I appreciate all the help.

[BillyZ]

couple things are sticking out to me. Your refering to this as algae, but where you say, "I have had some red cyano sporatically but this is a first with the brown/green. " are you saying this is green cyano? Or is this just green algae and I'm miss-reading that sentence? If it's cyano bacteria, they proliferate on high nitrates. (right... i get the feeling i'm remembering that wrong.. .)

Also, you said the algae prob started recently, and in your first post you also stated you recently changed foods. Think back to when you changed foods, did the algaes start shortly afterwards? If you switched foods, the newer foods may have higher nutrients and therefore the same amount of food as you were feeding before, may be leaving extra nutrients in the water. If you think this might make sense then you can try cutting back on the food just a little for a week or so and see if that lessens the amount of algae you're getting.

[mncspradlin]

No green cyano, this is just green algae and some brown algae in the sand. The cyano proliferate with high phos of which mine is zero.

Thanks for the advice on the feeding. Yes I did realize that I changed the food about the same time and have already cut the feedings. Just waiting for a change with the algae now.

Does anyone out there know of a fish tank timer/feeder that only feeds one time per day. Mine is set for the smallest amount but it feeds every 12 hours. As I work 12 hour shifts and frequently go away for 3-4 days at a time I really need a timed feeder. They get frozen brine shrimp on the weekends as a treat.

thanks again