900dublr
Member
I have had my tank running for about 9 months and I have always had a lot of algae but now i am completly overran by it. My sand bed is covered in black algae, the lr has brown algae, the glass stays green and there is red algae starting to grow between the glass and sand. When I started my tank I used silicate sand and the advice from my lfs was to switch to carib sand and setup a plenum. So I setup the plenum and added about 3-4in. of sand to the tank. Although the algae eventully come back I did start to get a lot of coralline algae which my tank hadnt had before. I started my tank with tap water and I switched to ro/di. I bought a ro unit thinking it would cure the problem but it hasnt. I started dripping kalkwasser as I was told from the store this would help but it really hasnt. How can I get rid of this stuff. I tested my water and the phosphate is nearly 0. I have about 50 lbs of lr. When I started my tank I only used about 15lbs of lr and the rest was base rock. I also run a bio wheel that was given to me. I have never changed the filters in since the tank has been running(the lfs said they never change theirs). I pulled up one and they are pretty dirty. Should I change them? Another think is flow, I have 2 maxi jet 1200's and the bio wheel over a 55 gal. Is this enough? I have them setup on each side pointing toward the top about midways down. I threw away my cheap skimmer b/c I got tired of cleaning it. I have an aqua c remora coming this week. Should I try using a silicate sponge since I used the silicate sand? I have 220 watt pc's that are about 6 months old so the bulbs should be fine I think. I have cut back on lighting some. They are running 11 hours I believe. I do pretty frequent water changes, mabe not as much as I should and the algae just comes back. I would appreciate any advice.
