Help with algae problem

revrick3

revrick3

Member
Tank 5 months old, 90gl. 120LR; 100 LS; Before you ask, I checked all levels Tuesday AM and all was well. I made water change yestday as I do bi-weekly of about 30gls. I noticed several of my zoas not looking too good on Monday, and I have a large green polyp coral that started looking peaked yesterday. Started noticing bubbles on lr couple of days ago but attributed it to heat. I put in new lighting 2 weeks ago. 500watts of MH and 220 T5. Set timers and am in middle of acclimating tank to them. Thought bubble were from heat. Temps have gone up since new lighting. High in afternoon has hit 82, back down to 79 at night.
Algae is brownish green and looks like hair. The bubbles are attaching to it and some of it is floating in tank. I have numerous hermit crabs and 2 emerald crabs, one yellow and one hippo tank. What am I dealing with here. Cant get photo, sorry I know it helps. This stuff is covering all my rocks and coral this afternoon when I got in, on sand and floating around. Like it appeared since last night. HELP, corals dont look too good, fish seem okay
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
look up either cyano (most likely not) and dinoflaggilates... this is probably your issue since it's what i just went through when i upgraded to t5's from pc's.
up your alkalinity, but i had to take out all my rock and scrub it.
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
here's some pics of what i had:


and what the bucket looked like after scrubbing all my rock:
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
one other thing, you probably are killing off your corals if you did not acclimate the new lights to the tank.
 
revrick3

revrick3

Member
That does look like my algae. I have been aclimating the lights. I previously had T5's, 4 54 watt bulbs, poor fixture though, one reflector for all bulbs and 4 PC at 54 each. I puti in MH at 5 hours a day and added 1 hour every 3rd day. I am now at 8 hours MH and 12 hours actinic. I just cleaned all filters with new. used power head to flush what I could from rocks as another poster suggested. Will cut back on feeding, didnt think it was too much though. I can cut back on MH if I need too also. Thanks for any help
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
do you have any button polyps in there? if you do, i think mine kept on sliming up, but i took them out and scrubbed all my rock and they were gone
that is 99% dinoflag's.
 
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