Can anyone tell me what Im doing wrong?

[cwason]

I have a 50 gallon tank with a protein skimmer, a hanging filter[Skillter]and two canister filters hooked into eachother,on with activated corbo and one with nitrate rock. I have a 250 watt metal halide. My problem is this.. I am getting blotches of lime green and purple algae, it cover almost the hole bottom of my tank like a blanket. I havent been able to find any information on this and i want to know if it is something Im doing, or is my equiptment wrong or is it water related? And what kind of algae this is, as I assume that it is not good.

 

[flydan]

Hey,
I don't know that much about your set up, such as lighting, lr, dsb. What I can tell you is that all those mechanical filters with charcoal ect. in there will turn into nitrate factories. Algae love nitrates! I have one hang on filter and I've removed all filter media from it. I just use it for surface water movement. HTH
Dan'l

 

[twoods71]

IMO some algea is the sign of a healthy tank if the tank has been established. On the other hand if it is out of control it could be a problem.
Test for things like Nitrates and Phosphates.

 

[jacrmill]

purple algae is a type of coralline algae. it is a good kind. by good kind i mean the kind that most aquarium keepers want to grow. also filters dont contain charcoal, they contain carbon. and i dont believe that carbon is a nitrate factory, the problem is that the crap thats floating in the water gets swept up into the filter and then turns to nitrates.

 

[flydan]

Hey,
I guess I was speaking in broad terms. The carbon losses its effectiveness within a couple of weeks and then all it's doing is trapping garbage that accumulates inside creating all kinds of nitrates. (If I'm not backwards here, it actually creates amonia which then breaks down into NO3.) Anyway, algae feeds off this stuff. As posted here, some kinds of algae, namely coraline algae is very good in a reef tank, or any tank for that matter. The stuff you describe clogging up the surface of your dsb is not.
Dan'l

 

[mr . salty]

This sounds more like SLIME ALGAE too me..Try using a slime algae remover,then once it is gone check your phosphate and nitrate levels.As long as the algae is in the tank,the readings you get will not show the total ammounts.(the algae is feeding on it) It could also be the light.How long is this MH bulb on per day?? How old is the bulb?? What k-value is it??

 

[jacrmill]

yeah salty is probably right. i just read it real quick and saw lime green and purple (which is the color of my coralline algae) and thought thats what it was.

 

[beecher]

In reply to Flydans comment on filters being "Nitrate Factories" How can something (filter) be a "Nitrate Factory"? As we all know, nitrate starts out as ammonia. Granted, the filter media catches waste and such that in turn produces ammonia, but the waste is IN the tank to begin with so why does it matter if it decomposes in the filter media or in the substrate? Nitrate just cant appear out of nowhere. Unless I'm missing something here, I think using the term "Nitrate Factory" should refer to over-feeding and/or poor tank maintanence.
[ September 21, 2001: Message edited by: Beecher ]

 

[jacrmill]

the reason certain filters (cannister and wet-dry) are referred to as nitrate factories is because they have a faster water flow. they will grow the necessary bacteria to breakdown ammonia into nitrites and nitrites into nitrates but the water flow is too fast for the bacteria that breaks nitrates down to grow. the bacteria that consumes nitrates must have a much slower water flow because too much oxygen will allow this bacteria to feed off the oxygen instead of the nitrates. someone correct me if im wrong on this but thats how ive understood it.

 

[jacrmill]

thought id add that i dont really like the term nitrate factory either. but i believe thats why its called that.