Film algae wont go away =(

juanro

Member
Its been a while since I've come to the forum, I'm back for some help...
as the title says, i have a serious problem with what I believe is film algae since 2 weeks ago. Left for 5 days and when i came back I couldn't even see inside the tank, apparently a blackout messed up the timer and the lights were left on for about 3 days or so. I cleaned up the tank, and when i woke up the next day, the algae was back. It's been like that since then, its gotten to the point were I clean, and 10-20 mins later there's a green tint on the glass already.
The tank is a 55 gal, lightning is 2 10,000k and 2 actinic bulbs. The Ph, ammonia, nitrates and nitrites are fine, wrote them down, when i find the paper I'll edit the post. Salinity is 1.026. The temp is usually at 78, but these past days have been incredibly hot and it goes up to 84 if I leave the lights on for a while.
What I have in there right now is:
1 inch sandbed
~50lbs live rock
Starfish (no idea what kind, was a gift from my parents, looks like a marble starfish)
~10 hermit crabs
Down to 1 snail, but they never seemed to clean anything
Sun coral
Zoo frag
4 Feather Dusters (and some baby feathers)
Pair of False Percula Clowns
Red Stripe Goby (haven't seen it in a while)
2 Engineer Gobies
Coral Beauty Angel
Starry Blennie
Paired up (now) Yellow Watchman Gobies (once was a grey banded, but now their both yellow? is this normal?)
*Scopa Tang
*Powder Blue Tang
*I know that my tank is not enough for this, or any tang at all. I'm taking care of them for a friend while his 150 gal is cycling. Since I've brought him up, would it be safe to add a Blue Hippo, Naso (normal or Blonde), Powder Brown and a Yellow Tang after he adds the Scopa and Powder Blue? From what I understand, the Powder Blue would harrass the Blue Hippo since they have the same coloring.
I'm adding Essential Elements and Phytoplankton with every weekly partial water change.
Most of the time I only have the actinics on, since I've been told that these are enough for the coral, and that the 10,000k are just for our pleasure? Is this true? Also have been told to change one of the 10,000k for a red bulb (dont remember the name right now), is this better?
As always, any kind of help is more than welcome.
 
Your right, something's going to have to give. You have to control your nitrates and phosphates. Do a 50% water change with fresh made saltwater. If you make your own top off water, check your TDS and replace your filters if needed. You may have to clean your tank more often and do more water changes. Usually green slime algae is a sign that something else is going wrong in your tank that is contributing to your nitrate and phosphate build up. Check to make sure you still have all of your inhabitants to make sure nothing died in the tank. If all of this still hasn't helped, you may need to adjust the lights down thirty minutes a day until you can figure out the problem.
Hope this helps.
 
By the way, It doesn't matter that your nitrates and phosphates aren't showing up. Your algae is eating up the nutrients before it can be measured.
 

juanro

Member
I haven't seen the red striped goby for a while, because I assumed he made a cave on the back of the tank since I first got him.
3 days ago I got a Green BTA and a Sleeper Gold Head Goby, both seemed fine, a few hours later I turned on the lights (couldn't sleep) to find that the goby had died and the BTA committed suicide, got its foot into a PH.
Other than that, the only thing I've seen die is some hermit crabs fighting over shells, even though I leave tons of em for them, they just seem to want the ones that are occupied.
Also I've been feeding Nori to the tangs and the angel, could this have something to do? Like 'seeding' the tank with algae?
 
Top