Algae explosion!

[lil.guppy]

Ok so I am using R/O water after I was using city water and my algae seemed to disapear and the water started turing crystal clear.
I woke up this morning and BAM my tank looked like this!
I was a little shocked!
I have my actinic (is that how you spell it?) and regular lights on for about 10-11 hours a day and I know that is way too long. I know I need to cut it down to about 7 hours. Can I keep just the actinic lights on for a couple days or will my pulsing xenia and rock suffer from it? Just until I get some of this algae gone.
Also, the water that I get is distilled and it says R/O on the jug. Well if they are out of that water should I get drinking water, spring water, or distilled water??
Oh by the way, my carolline is already starting to grow!

 

[1990jpyj]

how old are the lgiht bulbs themselfs. i notic that as light bulbs get old they tend to cause this algee bloom. if its a new fixture they could be some cheap bulbs that have gone out(lost full spectrum).
other then that i dont know of anything that causes lots of alge like that in 1 day.
good luck

 

[jackri]

Have you tested your water parameters?

 

[lil.guppy]

Yea my nitrites went up, but my nitrates are going up too so I am guessing this is the official end of the cycle. I am doing another water change to see if that brings down my nitrites.
This happned a few days ago. I saw the nitrates going up so I changed half the water and it made my nitrites go down so I thought it was cycled and I just needed to get that bad water out. Well the next day the nitrites were going up again so I dont know whats going on.
The light fixure is brand new and only 3 or 4 weeks old

 

[spanko]

Can't see what you have there. Is it cyano, diatomes? No matter really just curiosity. Wate changes and while doing them try to suck some of it up. What is your mechanical filtration on this tank?

 

[lil.guppy]

Its the smooth algae that comes off easily. The kind that I would see in my freshwater aquarium.
I have the octopus 100ss HOB skimmer and the penguin bio wheel
Could the suge in Nitrates be what it is?
I can wipe off the algae but I cant suck it off.

 

[spanko]

Yes the surge in nitrates in a cycling tank is definitely a contributor to algae. Will it blow up with at turkey baster? If so just before your water changes use on to lightly blow it into the water column so it can be sucked out.
The use of city water in the beginning has probably contributed some phosphates to the tank too. I have no experience with phosban of rowaphos but might be worth looking into running some of that too.

 

[joe____17]

That looks like cyano. Did you test your wster for phosphates? Is it possible the water you were using had phosphates already in it without you knowing?

 

[shyfish]

Shalom Lil.guppy,
I hope you don't mind my butting in with my two cents. I was reading through the posts and came accross yours. I had this same thing happen... what you need are hermit crabs, lots and lots of hermit crabs.
They like brown algae. Once the brown goes away it will turn green. Which the snails love to eat. New live rock does this all the time. With the proper cleaning crew you won't have a problem.
Algae is good you just don't want it out of hand. It looks ugly but its temporary, I have found that everything in a saltwater tank is temporay. If you don't like something in the tank wait a week.. it will change.

 

[dennis210]

Well lill.guppy that last post was excellent advice. Remember nothing good ever happens fast in a salt water system and change is inevitable in the beginning of a new system. If your tank has been up for a few weeks already then just get your lights on to timers and get your 12 hour lighted cycle time locked in. Add your clean up crew. Test weekly for ph, calcium, alk, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Preform regular scheduled water changes - monthly 20% / weekly 10%. Get into your routine with your system. Every change you make will make a change in the system. Adding equipment, fish, corals, all this too makes for subtle changes in your mini ecosytem. Take your time, read, and enjoy - otherwise this hobby is merely a very exspensive money pit!

 

[max42]

My 55G tank has been running for about 6 weeks and I went thru the brown alge (the tank cleaners did a great job). Last week it started some light green on the LR, no stringyness. Then last Saturday it got cloudy and I saw bunches of litle white creatures (probably copepods, but does that make the water cloudy?). I did a 5G water change. Sunday the water was worse so I did another 5G, check all the parameters 1st and all was good (ph 8.2, SG 1.024, Nitrites 0, Amonia 0, Nitrates lass than 20). The water is green and cloudy. Monday it was worse so I change 10G. Today it's still very bad, no change if not worse. I also see lots of microbubbles, don't look to come from skimmer. I have a fluval 305 canaster filter and a HOT Magnum (changed the carbon in the HOT Magnum yesterday). Fish dont look distressed, if anything died it was a brittle star (have 2 but haven't seen the 2nd one in a few days). Have a new sundial T5HO hood on 12hr timers. As luck would have it I am now on business travel so won't be home til friday so anything I can do probably can't be done by spouse.
Thoughts?

 

[shyfish]

Do you have cloudy water or just tiny specks floating everywhere? Does the water smell bad, rotten?
If its just specks floating and it smells like fishy ocean than what you have is "snow" and snow is good, it feeds the corals. It might snow for days before everything turns crystal clear, so clear it will look like there is no water in the tank.

 

[max42]

The water is green no flecks. It does not smell. Around the top edge of the water is a darker scum.

 

[ocyoo]

Me too I have the green cloudy water problem! I did water changes, used RO water, did a 100% water cahnge and cleached everything even the substrate, fresh water cleaned the live rocks and now it's back... I think the live rocks has some green water left in them so it did a cross contamination! And now it's my second 100% water change and it's still becomes green! Still I have to try out a diatom/micron filter. I run carbon and floss and my parameter are perfect, pH at 8.4 salinity at 1.025.

 

[shyfish]

Hi,
I was told today that a UV light is the thing to get rid of green water. The green is caused by bacteria. The UV kills bacteria but wont hurt caraline algea. I heard this from two people so far. When I get the money Im going for it. I priced them at around $130.00

 

[jackri]

UV kills everything that passes through it good or bad... but doesn't solve the symptoms causing your problems... my own personal opinion? Waste of money. After doing more research on them they are not worth the hype I thought they were, others may disagree but I can really only see putting UV in a QT tank.

 

[fishkid13]

Originally Posted by Shyfish
http:///forum/post/2924625
Hi,
I was told today that a UV light is the thing to get rid of green water. The green is caused by bacteria. The UV kills bacteria but wont hurt caraline algea. I heard this from two people so far. When I get the money Im going for it. I priced them at around $130.00
You might of read this aready but I got 2 tetra pond uv rated up to 8800gal 1 tetra tec 100gal and 1 pond workers?? and bunch of other things it adds up to over a 1,000 all for $120

 

[fishkid13]

What type of ciclid is your avatar( it is a ciclid right?)

 

[shyfish]

have you tried one??? Where did you find info? Everything I read says there are great but then I must admit they are trying to sell UV lights.
I would like to hear from anyone who has used them to get hands on opinions. It makes sense that they would kill my good bacteria as well as the bad.
Aside from Uv lighting what would you recemmend? I use only RO water and every test is perfect. Yet I have a hairy algea problem and a green tinge to my water. I am sure its because of hair algea spores suspended in the water.
I haven't fed my tank, now its day 4. I have to feed my corals and it is going to feed the algea too.

 

[subielover]

What corals do you have to feed? If you have a bad algae problem, the only coral I would feed would have to be non-photosynthetic.