First Diatoms, Now Green Algae

[paulcoates]

I have had a few spurts of Brown Algaw in my tanks, I think primarily because I had beenn using tap. I went to Walmart and bought 10 gallons of Distilled Water (58 cents a gallon). Now my diatom problem has turned inot a green algae problem. I literally think it happened overnight. I dont remember seeing any green algae last night and now I come to green algae all over the glass walls. I have about 30 astrea, 1 lawnmower, a few blue leg hermits and 2 starfish.
I did my first top off two nights ago, adding 3 gallons of the distilled water. Should I do a water change? I did a 12 gallon water change about 2 weeks ago (55 gallon tank)
What is the green algae? Is it a problem? Will my reef cleaners eat it up?

 

[unleashed]

the green algae is good not very pretty but its not a bad thing to have.your clean up crew can normaly keep it down to a minimum.its the red algae that is not good for your fish.your snails and any other aglae eating critter can pretty much live on it .so dont try to get rid of all of it.for the veiwing part of your tank that can be cleaned with either a algae scrubber or my fav mag float I use that on the front and sides of the tank for nicer veiwing.if your snails arent eating it fast enough try tossing in a couple turbo snails.mexican turbo are the power house of cleaners and work very fast

 

[benj2112]

How old is your tank?
That is pretty much the same thing that happened to my tank. Diatoms on everything and then a quick switch to green algae on everything. This was all before I added any fish.
I have a clean-up crew to eat any algae that might pop-up and a regugium with chaetomorpha and a filter with Rowaphos to make sure there is very little, if anything, for the algae to eat.