algae problem

[seacat]

i have a brown algae that grows during the day its brown and it grows like crazy...when i have my lights on during the day 65wattx2 it causes it to grow like crazy...but then at night my cleaning team will eat almost all of it. then i have to go throw the same thing each day...any ideas how to stop it from coming back. tank has been runing about a month and a half.
everything is zero exept nitrates i think are at 5- 10 somewhere in there. i have done a water change about a week ago. do you think a few more little water changes will stop it from coming back

[boardsurfer]

I think you get an algae bloom after the first cycle for about a month or two, then the algae bloom will subside. I think it's normal. Also, what kind of water are you doing water changes with? If you use tapwater, the algae will always seem to stick around...

HTH

[seacat]

im using half tapwater and the other half dissteled water from the store. since my tank is only 20 gallons its easy to do a 25% water change with store bought water.

[quarryshark]

Ya, stop using the tapwater, that may be part of the problem. Tap water usually contains a good amount of PO2. This tend to feed a algae bloom. May want to get a PO4 test kit and check the level.

[i have crabs]

get a sillicate sponge its probably diatoms and they feed on sillicate in tap water

[seacat]

okay where can i get a sillicate sponge at? is it just a regular sponge? okay i retested my water and nitrates 0 nitrites 0. so it must not be my water paras. its prolly just my tapwater. i got a ro/di unit but they forget to send the adapted so they recent that so it will be here sometime this week. then i will do a water change with that water and see if that helps any