Algae Control

[downunder]

I'm new at saltwater setups since the begining of March this year. I have a 46 gal bow front tank, 37.5 lbs lr, 2 304 fluval canister filters, prism skimmer, 1 228 power sweep power head, HO lighting. 1 yellow tail damsel, 1 maroon yellow stripped clown, 1 royal gramma, and 1 arrowhead crab, & 3 snails. Water tests show 0.0 for amonia, nitrites and nitrates, ph is little high at 8.6. My lighting is controled for eight hours on everyday. The room is bright from natural lighting, but nothing direct into the tank.
The algae appears mainly on the panels, and is a powdery green type. I clean the panels almost everyother day to keep it under control. I recently have included Poly material to the canister filters. I was told that maybe there are phosphates in the water and that these Poly pads would help remove it. At this time, doesn't seem to have helped much.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
I have 40 lbs cc for substrate, feed twice a day.

 

[nacl-h2o]

Well first Welcome,
I didn't see anything listed for nitrate control. Whats probably keeping you nitrates down is the bad algae. There are several ways to go, install a plenium, a DSB, or an algae scrubber. An algae scrubber full of cualerpa would out compete the other algae for nitrates and the other two would remove them once created. I would suggest a DSB and algae scrubber. The only thing left would be to increase the number and amount of water changes. HTH

 

[jim672]

downunder,
I've lived with the green-algea-on-the-glass problem so I can offer you some additional suggestions. You can confirm you have a phosphate problem by getting a phosphate test kit. If it is phosphate, buy some PhosGuard and put some of that in one of the compartments of both of your fluvals. If it is phosphate, since your tank is so new, I'd be concerned about where the phospahte is coming from. How much do you feed? How often? What's your substrate? If it's crushed coral, your phosphate problem may be coming from the cc leaching phosphate back into your system. You should consider removing the cc and replacing it with a sand bed.
You also need to consider upgrading your clean-up crew. I see you have 3 snails. You probably need "lots" more. I have 50 in my 45 gallon tank. They really control algea!! You may want to add some hermit crabs, too.
Welcome!!
Jim