Tank glass turning green

[ttown]

I hope someone can tell me what's wrong with my tank. I just did a 20% water change a week ago. But for some reason my tank is starting to turn green again. This has been going on ever since i got into the hobby. My tank is a 100gal. I did a phosphate check and it's reading zero. Im using ro water for my water change. Is there something else that i'm doing wrong?

 

[Xtremedave67]

how olong tank set up?
I am certainly no pro, but I did hear for new tanks they will cycle thru all those fun phases of Cyno algea diatom etc... and just keep up the standar maitainence and youll get thru them all I did LOL

when I 1st got a green algea on my glass, I had my lights timed on too long, when I finally got adequate lighting. and I hear bad lighting can do that too.

Im sure someone with better knowledge will speak up soon

 

[SaltwaterNoobs]

What livestock do you have in your tank? Are there items you got at your LFS? Another reefer? Sometimes you can get an algae problem from something as simple as a shell if it had green algae from another person's tank on it. Have you put anything new in the tank since your water change?

 

[ttown]

Tank been up 4 months now. I run my light 8hrs, is that too long? All my corals i got from other reefer. I didn't add anything new after the water change. This has been ongoing. I just don't know what's causing it.

 

[BCT182]

Do you have a refugium?

 

[ttown]

yes, i have a refugium. I also have a phosphate reactor. I don't know if that's helping or not.

 

[thatguy559]

what type of lighting do you have

 

[ttown]

I have 2 250w hqi

 

[BCT182]

What do you have for live algae? Sometimes calerpa can go nuts and release alot of phosphates and color into the water.

 

[ttown]

I have probably a handful of chaeto.

 

[Aquanaut]

try charcoal bags in the sump in a passive flow area, and, or UV sterilizer durring outbreaks to reduce/remove green water. You have high nutrients that won't show on test results.

 

[tyson256031]

I would try reducing your photo period down to 6 hrs a day and see if that helps. Use charcoal, carbon, and phosban if pssible to get rid of most of the impurities in the system.

 

[Krish]

If you have algae in your tank, then it is possible that you wouldn't read any traces of nitrates or phosphates when testing for it because it will be all bound up in the algae as it uses it for it's growth. Your tank is young so it will go through a cycling stage which unfortunately varies with how long it will take to balance out as every tank is different. When doing a water change, try to siphon off or remove as much algae as you can to export these excess nutrients which will help. Also, you said you get water from your ro unit. Is it just and ro unit or an ro/di unit? Let us know...In the meantime maybe you can test the water coming out of your ro unit to make sure that it is not introducing fuel to the tank for the algae to grow in the form on nitrates and phosphates. If it is, then you can do all the water changes you want in the the world and you'd still be back to where you are.

Just a few thoughts

 

[returnofsid]

Is the glass green or is the water green? If it's the glass, scrape it off, if it's the water, you're experiencinga large diatom algae bloom, turn your lights completely off for 3 days

 

[Krish]

Better yet, post a photo if you can so we can see exactly what is going on in your tank.

if it's the water, you're experiencinga large diatom algae bloom, turn your lights completely off for 3 days
__________________

Sid, the experience I've had with diatoms in the past was that they were always brown in color and were usually on the surfaces of things and not floating in water (ie sand and rocks). And the light trick only worked temporarily for me. When I use to come to the tank after a full night of lights off I'd meet no brown anywhere then after a few hours of lighting it would come back. A week with the lights off, no signs of diatoms, and the minute the lights went back on, they came back which was probably because there was still a food source in the water column (silicates/silica). Just a few thoughts...I think a picture will help tons

 

[conduit7]

At 4 months I got algae bloom, I increased reef janitors, and added garf grunge & bag of bugs. Leroy is very helpful at garf.org

 

[returnofsid]

Better yet, post a photo if you can so we can see exactly what is going on in your tank.




Sid, the experience I've had with diatoms in the past was that they were always brown in color and were usually on the surfaces of things and not floating in water (ie sand and rocks). And the light trick only worked temporarily for me. When I use to come to the tank after a full night of lights off I'd meet no brown anywhere then after a few hours of lighting it would come back. A week with the lights off, no signs of diatoms, and the minute the lights went back on, they came back which was probably because there was still a food source in the water column (silicates/silica). Just a few thoughts...I think a picture will help tons

krish, you're absolutely right. I meant phyto bloom.

 

[Krish]

krish, you're absolutely right. I meant phyto bloom.

I figured you probably thought one thing and accidentally typed another

 

[mcdonaldjosh7]

ALGAE! haha always happens. There are ways of avoiding the algae bloom, but it is difficult.

 

[ttown]

I tried reducing my light down to 6hrs and still had the same problem. With regard to the water, i'm using ro water to do my water change. Here's a picture of my tank and refugium. I scrape most of the green stuff off already so you really don't see it anymore. But when it comes back i'll take a picture and repost it. Don't know how to post pictures but i did an attachment.