poker_nerd
New Member
I have a 72 FOWLR tank. The tank has been up about 2 months. I used cured live rock to cycle it so it was fully cycled in about 2-3 days. Fish are real healthy. Anyway, I was using a single strip fluorescent to light my tank & Only had it on 4-5 hours in the evening when I was home. The owner of a local fish store told me that if I wanted to avoid unnecessary brown algae growth to keep the lighting on @ a minimum because the lighting I was using wasn't powerful enough to stimulate green algae which would be eaten by my inhabitants.
I replaced the cheap light with a Nova Extreme T5, 4 lights & lunar basically because I wanted to see if I could stimulate some coraline growth on my rocks... as i said, the fish have been doing great. I was running the blue lights 10 hours & the white/blue for about 7-8. Anyway, I have had a huge growth of brown algae all of a sudden.
My nitrates are @ .20ppm which I know contribute largely to alagae growth. What do I need to do? Is it my nitrates? My lighting? Should I just cut back the lighting or is this brown bloom the one you always hear about that's associated with newer tanks? If I keep the lighting on will the brown turn to green? I was thinking of adding a 20 gallon elevated refugium with a deep sand bed & plants to help reduce the nitrates. Any help or advice would be good.
PS: I have probably 50-75 lbs. of live rock in tank. I'm not using a sump because my tank wasn't drilled & I didn't want to get into leaky overflow boxes. I'm running (2) Emperor Bio-wheel filters (the biggest ones - 4 wheels total) & I also have a UV sterilizer I'm running.
I replaced the cheap light with a Nova Extreme T5, 4 lights & lunar basically because I wanted to see if I could stimulate some coraline growth on my rocks... as i said, the fish have been doing great. I was running the blue lights 10 hours & the white/blue for about 7-8. Anyway, I have had a huge growth of brown algae all of a sudden.
My nitrates are @ .20ppm which I know contribute largely to alagae growth. What do I need to do? Is it my nitrates? My lighting? Should I just cut back the lighting or is this brown bloom the one you always hear about that's associated with newer tanks? If I keep the lighting on will the brown turn to green? I was thinking of adding a 20 gallon elevated refugium with a deep sand bed & plants to help reduce the nitrates. Any help or advice would be good.
PS: I have probably 50-75 lbs. of live rock in tank. I'm not using a sump because my tank wasn't drilled & I didn't want to get into leaky overflow boxes. I'm running (2) Emperor Bio-wheel filters (the biggest ones - 4 wheels total) & I also have a UV sterilizer I'm running.
