Lighting ?-for corals-algae probelms-help?

[erictc311]

I have 50 gallon tank, with numerous corals, fish, inverts etc. I have green mushrooms,green star polyps, green button poylps,a blunt milk leather, a purple gorgonian fan, yellow colonial poyops, a green favities. I'm having probelms with hair algae in my tank. I have a good skimmer, filters, a PC, and am thinking about putting a couple actinic bulbs on my tank to help, would this help the algae grow more? BUt I beleive my corals would enjoy it but i don't want even more algae than I already have cause it covers my rocks and corals sometimes-please help if you can

 

[adrian]

Algae is caused by two thing, nutrients and light, and both of them have to be at the correct levels for algae to grow. Is your tank new, is your bulb old, are you using a decent skimmer or doing adequate water changes, what is your nitrate reading? Every healthy tank is going to have algae growth in some form, do you have any snails in your tank, in a 50 I would suggest 25-40 snails, Astrea and Turban. The more hebivores the less algae youll have. I dont think actinic will increase your algae, but your Favities will like it. HTH