algae growth

[pickeral_1999]

I gave my 70 gallon tank to my daughter. It was great while it was here but since the move they have had a uncontrolable green algae growth. Is there any help you can offer to get rid of it? No fish are in the tank yet, it has approx 60lbs of live rock, it has been set up for 6 weeks. The first few weeks it was fine and all the tests were good. thank you

 

[mogurnda]

I fought an awful hair algae problem recently. Searched for as many threads as I could find described successful treatment. What I generally found was that people tweaked a lot of things and the problem eventually went away.

Same thing happened to me. I made a lot of small adjustments, and the problem ultimately went away. As far as I can tell, you just need to keep up good husbandry until it runs its course. To me this means:
-running a good quality skimmer
-using carbon, changing it regularly
-using RO/DI water
-regular water changes, where you remove debris that's collecting on surfaces
-manual removal to help the herbivores

What tests are you doing right now? Specifically, how are your nitrate and phosphate?

It's possible that a lot of gunk was stirred up during the move and is feeding the bloom.

 

[NDferro]

Treat the water to remove Nitrates and your algae will go away i had algae all over my plants in my tank treated to remove Nitrates and 3 days later not a spot left

 

[dolfans1]

I'm also in the process of fighting a hair algae problem, but I think I am finally winning the battle. I probably only have 20% of the algae that I had 2 weeks ago. As mogurnda said, you probably have to let it run its course, but there are probably some things that you can do to help quicken that course. These are the things that I've done:

1. I was running my MH lights 12 hours/day. I cut that down to 5 hours/day (I still have my actinics on for 13 hrs).

2. I "harvest" whatever algae I can every day. The stuff on the live rock I pull off with my hand; the stuff on the gravel I pick up with grabbers. Even though I can only get a fraction of the algae this way, I think every bit helps.

3. Even though my phosphate reading was 0, I added a phosphate reducer to my filter bags in the sump.

4. Every week I have been treating with Kent Marine SAT Biological Clarifier. This is a bacteria (not chemical) that competes for the same nutrients as the hair algae. It doesn't seem to affect my coralline algea, and it looks like I'm getting some other macroalgae growth, so it at least isn't doing any harm.

Much of the hair algae has been turning brown, at which point it's usually pretty easy to pick off the rock. Every day it seems to be getting a little bit better. Hopefully in another 2 weeks it will be all gone.

Good luck!