algae algae algae!!!!!

how much light, what kind of fish, how big tank, how much feeding, how many cleaners

Oliver said:

how much light, what kind of fish, how big tank, how much feeding, how many cleaners

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And most importantly what are you using to filter the tank? And how old is the tank?

There is your problem, too many nutrients in the water and algae will grow. What is your nitrate and phosphate reading? If you want to control algae you have to stave them for nutrients. Adding bio-mass will feed the algae , hense the algae outbreak, and if you added everything all at once the tank will not be able to adjust and consume all of the fast accumulating nutrients. The only thing you can do is manualy remove the algae, physicaly taking it out of the tank and do more water changes until uverything catches up. Even then if the live rock and live sand cant consume all wastes and nutrients you will always have a problem with algae, water changes will help I must say.

Try putting in some macro algae. I had a algae problem a while back and used Chaetomorpha crassa which grew very rapidly and didn't seem to cling to any of my rock or sand. I used it along with some phosban and it worked, though it doesn't sound like the phosbane would help you out any. It might outcompete the other algae for the excess nutrients.

I'm no expert but it sounds like things might have been added faster than the bacteria could keep up. Good luck!

combskyle said:

how do i physically take it out of the tank? i can scrub it off the walls, but what more can i do to get it physically out? so you are saying that i will always have a problem with algae now?

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Scrub the algae then do a water change, you wont get it all out but at least you will some of it , and doing regular water change's will help. Algae never goes away, it is always there, it is just that when it overruns everthing that it becomes a problem. So what I am saying is if you tanks nutrients are allways high you will have an algae problem, that is if you think it is a problem. There are forms of algae that you need in your tank and like wattsd said and put macro algae in there to export the excess nutrients. But doing this has its problems in itself, b/c if the nutrients are plenty the macro algae can get out of control, but I you learn how to use it it can be great. Just keep doing your regular maintenance and things should balance themselfs out, and what I mean with what I said earlier was if your tank dose not return to a balance state then you will always have excessive algae growth, which could be perceived as a problem.