Green algae taking over

Is there a pic???

It sounds like hair algae.

Cut back on feeding/change to more nutritious food and rinse food if you don't already do so, cut back lighting a little, manually remove as much as you can, bump up water changes and maybe start running some phosphate remover.

If its really bad, get an emerald Crab or two, they will also keep and bubble algae that might pop up away.

No, I'm referring to actually rinsing the food after it's defrosted. Defrosted food leaches a lot of phosphates into the water so many people defrost their food, strain it through a fish need and then put it in new water. Some rinse it in RO or tap water as well when they strain it. I will be honest, I rarely rinse my food, but I have an insane amount of phosphate remover and cleaners in my tank and I feed slowly to observe how much is eaten. ALL fish food contains phosphates, by the way. The one food that I do try to rinse all the time is PE Mysis, that stuff is LOADED with phosphate.

I have a 180 with a 35 fuge and a 30g sump attached and it gets a 25-30g water change weekly, so you're about right at 20g. IMO, weekly water changes of less are better than biweekly of more, at least that has been my experience.

Are your tangs even picking at the algae? Mine won't touch green hair, nor will my 2 algae blennies. I don't keep crabs in my tank, but I have noticed that trochus and astrea snails can make a good dent in hair algae.

As mentioned above, a few emerald crabs might help. 3 in a 180 won't harm much, but could help keep it under control. The most important thingto fo is to figureout what's causing it.

I have a refugium with different species of caulerpa, chaeto in my sump, two phosban reactors, one running phosban and the other running chemi pure elite which has a little bit of phosphate remover in it, 2 purigen pads and a media bag filled with phoslock.

I had this same problem and a friend told me to check my high range PH and it was low add Carbonate Alkalinity booster and in two days was gone. it blooms when PH drops below 8.0

I put small UV back in mini reef, it kills ick and micro algae, does not impact coralline growth.  Petsmart has 9 watt “Green Algae killing machine” buy an extra UV bulb, they run 3-6 months.  9 watt is up to 40 gallon, its low flow application.  Fresh or salt water, you still have to maintain water quality.

UV also kills the good bugs that come out at night. (those critters are why you pay so much for live rock) Do you run it only during the day?
 

 

It runs 24/7, I wanted to make sure the red and green algae is really Coralline, it sure is, I have antennas coming out of the live rock at night, you may have small plankton or something like brine shrimp.   Here’s the reality, green algae, everywhere is bad, means phosphates, nitrates, and silicate exists at levels that are too high.  It will smother the live rock, and make it into dead rock.  I don't think you should have any worries, its for the greater good and its sure sounds like you need it.  That and a good quality skimmer I just use a Prizm, the quality of the water will improve "if" you only use RO or distilled for evaporation and water changes.  Its just the basic facts on reef keeping, even for just fish tanks.  The same principles are also for fresh water.

 

The natural way is to have a refugium in a sump (low flow 24/7 light) and you grow macro algae like fresh water plants that remove phosphates and nitrates.  In both instances then just a couple turbo snails can clean a tank "nice".  I think what you described must be the size of a pin dot.  I had prawn breeding on the glass once; it was like watching cells under a micro scope.    Yes, you need basic maintenance and preventive measures, they call it husbandry.

Edited by prh123 - 8/6/11 at 8:04am