Algae Bloom?

7itanium

7itanium

AC Members
Jan 31, 2009
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Spokane, WA
So my reef tank has been going about a month now.. and so far no signs of much algae accept a bit of coraline on the rocks

I went out of town yesterday morning.. when I left my tank was clean- no brown what-so-ever

when I returned tonight.. my tank is UGLY

all the LR is covered in a thick brown substance and there is even blotches all over the acrylic and on the substrate (sand)

is this an algae bloom? or is it due to me overfeeding the phytoplankton (powder)

also.. what do I do to control it?
 
It sounds like you have a case of cyano bacteria. It is also known as blue-green algae, but it actually is a bacteria.


What are your water parameters? What type of filtration? What is your bioload?

For starters, cut back on feeding, increase water changes, increase flow and if you can, reduce your light cycle. The only thing that I had any luck as far as eating this stuff was turbo snails….but they don’t eat that much. You’re going to have to clean up your water parameters.
 
7itanium said:
So my reef tank has been going about a month now.. and so far no signs of much algae accept a bit of coraline on the rocks

I went out of town yesterday morning.. when I left my tank was clean- no brown what-so-ever

when I returned tonight.. my tank is UGLY

all the LR is covered in a thick brown substance and there is even blotches all over the acrylic and on the substrate (sand)

is this an algae bloom? or is it due to me overfeeding the phytoplankton (powder)

also.. what do I do to control it?
Click to expand...

Are there corals in this tank? If not, I really don't see any reason to feed phyto, and from what I understand the powder phyto won't really help feed anything and will only introduce excess nutrients into the system. That might be the cause for the algae. Also, it's my experience that algae blooms tend to happen a lot more in new systems, and once the tank stabilizes it may clear up. Are you using RO/DI or tap water?
 
didn't you just add a new clown to the tank too? (i literally just read your other post about it)

that would bring a larger bio load
 
yes there are corals in the tank... and I can acctually WATCH them eating the phyto-- so I it seems to work well for my system

and ye-- I added a new clown a week or so ago

I have cut my light to around 4 hours a day.. and cut feeding in half as well

lets see what happens
 
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