Too much green algae! Help!

[Laybackk]

Got some green algae coming, any pointers to stop it? thanks!

[Benny314]

What's your bio load, lighting period, feeding routine, water change/maintenance routine and filter/sump setup?

 

Reducing feeding and lighting will help, more regular water changes or other form of nutrient export (media like bio pearls and GFO, skimming and algaes like cheato) will also help control the situation but you must first find and understand the cause to effectively control what's going on.

[Laybackk]

6 gallon edge with 18 watts of lighting running at about half intensity at this point. I've reduced lighting to about 6 hours a day with mostly blues. Just some xenia and GSP, with some zoas. One cleaner shrimp and about 6 snails and 4 hermits. I feed reef roids maybe once a week. I DO need to get some carbon I think and the tank is maybe a month and a half old. I change water maybe every 2 weeks. This tank is also about 7 feet from a window that has constant light throughout the day and I'm assuming that is not making the situation better....

[Benny314]

Direct sunlight may become the bane of your life, but the tank is young, what rock did you use to start it with.

It could just be going through it's ugly phase.

[Laybackk]

I started with live rock and live sand. Hopefully it's the ugly phase mixed with the sunlight. In about 10 days the tank is moving with me to a new place and won't be kept near a window, so I'll give it some time.

[Benny314]

It'll need to resettle after the move but I'm sure it will get there.

With such a small water volume you will find nitrate and phosphate will quickly climb and cause algae issues if your not on your maintenance.

[Laybackk]

Thanks for the help man. I remember green algae being something that comes strictly from too much light, so I'm gonna cut back on light to the tank and change the water more often.

[pewpewkittah]

Sunlight can cause some real algae issues in both fresh and saltwater tanks. For example, I had a tiny bit of sunlight peaking from part of the shades hit my tank in the afternoon for an hour a day. Over a month this started to grow a patch of algae in that spot that quickly spread to the rest of the tank. I had to rip everything out, scrub the rocks several times and perform religious water changes. I had a high-tech planted freshwater tank as well, with a beautiful carpet of dwarf hairgrass 'belem'. Same scenario with a little bit of excess light hitting the tank for an hour or two a day... it came down with cladophora algae. With months of work I never did get rid of it and I was forced to break the tank down. One of my biggest disappointments in the hobby to this day. AVOID putting aquariums near windows!

 

Also, unless you're running a skimmer, I would do weekly water changes, like 10-20%. As Benny said, the nitrates and phosphates climb, which makes a bigger difference on a tank with such little water volume..

[ml86743]

Maybe up your WC routine too. Once a week possibly? That could help with excess nutrients in your water, and assist with starving out the alga.

[Laybackk]

Thanks all, gonna work on the water changes and drop the blinds.

[Cencalfishguy56]

Thanks all, gonna work on the water changes and drop the blinds.

this reason exactly is why I started with dry RC Rock and dry sand, keeping pest algae to a minimum, I did what you did on my last tank and had tons of algae problem from live rock haha

[ml86743]

Sounds like a good plan! Remember though, algae comes and goes. It's a natural part of reef keeping.

[Imaexpat2]

Good advice from Benny314, take it for what it is. I would say looking at the info available that the sun light coming through the window and hitting the tank is the primary issue working against you. Id bump those water changes up to weekly at least. I have had much better results from frequent small water changes than a bigger one less often. While the manufacture claims the Reef Roids wont degrade your water...I aint buying it. I would at least cut back on it a bit. That tank is pretty new as well and issues like this are quite common in new tanks that have not matured and stabilized a bit. Keeping a SW tank is a journey not a race, throttle back and take your time getting there. Just some food for thought...

[Benny314]

this reason exactly is why I started with dry RC Rock and dry sand, keeping pest algae to a minimum, I did what you did on my last tank and had tons of algae problem from live rock haha

 

To be honest there's as much risk if not more so of algae issues with starting dry.

Dry rock can leach phosphates something chronic and with no variety of micro fauna and established bacteria your tank can take longer to fully mature and stabilize.

 

Small tanks like the edge can be a nightmare to get stable, simplicity is often key though. People I know keeping successful edge's are running chempure, carbon and some filter floss in the HOB, changing the filter floss every few days, the chempure when the sachet is exhausted (not sure what the packet recommends) and the same with the carbon (4 weekly ish) as well as doing at least weekly if not biweekly water changes.

[Cencalfishguy56]

 

To be honest there's as much risk if not more so of algae issues with starting dry.

Dry rock can leach phosphates something chronic and with no variety of micro fauna and established bacteria your tank can take longer to fully mature and stabilize.

 

Small tanks like the edge can be a nightmare to get stable, simplicity is often key though. People I know keeping successful edge's are running chempure, carbon and some filter floss in the HOB, changing the filter floss every few days, the chempure when the sachet is exhausted (not sure what the packet recommends) and the same with the carbon (4 weekly ish) as well as doing at least weekly if not biweekly water changes.

While I would agree with you normally on starting dry I have planned accordingly, RC rock is the cleanest dry rock you can get and no one to my knowledge has had algae issues, I'd rather have my tank take longer to mature than to battle nuisance algae more often than not but just my two cents haha

[moy71]

i had a similar troubles about 6 months ago with green hair algae.

 

In my case, i noticed that the algae is pretty heavy 1-2 days after i feed reef-roids. I suspect being a small tank (20g), it was easily making nutrient levels very high.

 

in the end, i stopped using reefroids, cut feeding by about half and sometimes every other day, and lastly bought a couple of turbo snails.

 

marked improvement and obvious decline of algae.

[Laybackk]

Great to hear guys! Next tank will be much larger and will have much better filtration.

[Rural]

I change water maybe every 2 weeks. has constant light throughout the day...

 

increase water changes. when my tank gets rough i do 10% a day.

 

extra light aint helping.

[Six]

Are reef roids known to add phosphate at all? I also feed it but don't know if I should be (and have hair algae and cyano in my 1.5 mo old tank w/no fish)

[Clown79]

I have a tank near a window, I had to cover the vertical blinds with a curtain to block the light because of the algae. My other tank with the exact maintenance, water, feeding etc has no algae. I attribute it to the extra light.

 

Try covering the window, do smaller weekly water changes.

[Matteo]

Direct sunlight may become the bane of your life, but the tank is young, what rock did you use to start it with.

It could just be going through it's ugly phase.

+10000000000

[AUSSIE NANO]

6 gallon edge with 18 watts of lighting running at about half intensity at this point. I've reduced lighting to about 6 hours a day with mostly blues. Just some xenia and GSP, with some zoas. One cleaner shrimp and about 6 snails and 4 hermits. I feed reef roids maybe once a week. I DO need to get some carbon I think and the tank is maybe a month and a half old. I change water maybe every 2 weeks. This tank is also about 7 feet from a window that has constant light throughout the day and I'm assuming that is not making the situation better....

You claim....... "I change water maybe every 2 weeks." WTF!!?? Dude. Daily. Daily!! And min of 25% at that. I have a 5 gallon nano that is 50% per day change. No unsightly algae. NONE! And I'm running an AI Prime 40 watt at 100% 10 hours a day. Cheers. Always. Rule #1 LOTS of water changes.

[moy71]

Are reef roids known to add phosphate at all? I also feed it but don't know if I should be (and have hair algae and cyano in my 1.5 mo old tank w/no fish)

i doubt very much it has phosphates. however, it does make my water nutrient rich, hence the algae. just my 2c.

[Laybackk]

You claim....... "I change water maybe every 2 weeks." WTF!!?? Dude. Daily. Daily!! And min of 25% at that. I have a 5 gallon nano that is 50% per day change. No unsightly algae. NONE! And I'm running an AI Prime 40 watt at 100% 10 hours a day. Cheers. Always. Rule #1 LOTS of water changes.

 

This was a problem for 2 weeks due to the tank cycling. It has since gone away and is no longer an issue. I just increased the COC and found amazing results.

[ReeferBrian]

Sunlight can cause some real algae issues in both fresh and saltwater tanks. For example, I had a tiny bit of sunlight peaking from part of the shades hit my tank in the afternoon for an hour a day. Over a month this started to grow a patch of algae in that spot that quickly spread to the rest of the tank. I had to rip everything out, scrub the rocks several times and perform religious water changes. I had a high-tech planted freshwater tank as well, with a beautiful carpet of dwarf hairgrass 'belem'. Same scenario with a little bit of excess light hitting the tank for an hour or two a day... it came down with cladophora algae. With months of work I never did get rid of it and I was forced to break the tank down. One of my biggest disappointments in the hobby to this day. AVOID putting aquariums near windows!

 

Also, unless you're running a skimmer, I would do weekly water changes, like 10-20%. As Benny said, the nitrates and phosphates climb, which makes a bigger difference on a tank with such little water volume..

 

having a tank in direct sunlight can definitely be cause algae issues