brown alage

leaffish75

leaffish75

New Member
ever since i upgraded my lights my tank glass is over run with a brownish alage. what can i do to stop this? its been over a month now.
my levels are all optimal. they are either 0 or non readable. Alk was a little low so i dosed lime water the other day (1 drip per 2 seconds). This doesnt effect the alage since it was their before hand. just some back ground info.
 
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incysor

New Member
You can try cutting back on your light cycle somewhat. I can't remember if you're running a fuge or not. If you are, get some more macro for it, the added macro should help pull more nutrients out of the system. By upgrading your lights you're putting more energy into the system. It's great for your corals, but it's also good for algea. If you gradually increase the light then the sytem often has a chance to balance things out, but sometimes you can't be gradual enough. When I upgraded I took nearly two months to get my light cycle up to it's current level, and even moving that slowly I defintely have more algae growth on my glass than I had before, both the nuisance kind and coraline. I scrub it more often with the magnets, and scrape it more with the razor than I ever had too before...But most of my corals are very happy, so it's a bit of a trade off. It's not out of hand, it just requires a bit more work on my part. I also clean out the 100 micron bag more often than I did before. Unfortunately I'm not running a fuge, so my only choice is clean more, or cut the lights back.

B
 
leaffish75

leaffish75

New Member
i have a HOB refugium packed with macro. i need to disconnect it and clean it because its got a thick brown film alage on it and on the glass. I didnt realize that my ph was clogged causing it to build the flim in the refugium. now its up and running but still there.
 
Sugar Magnolia

Sugar Magnolia

New Member
Have you tested for phosphates yet? Since your fuge hadn't been working to export excess nutrients, you may have built up some phosphates in the system.
 
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incysor

New Member
If I'm understanding this correctly you ran a phosphate test on your tank water and got zero.

You then ran another test on tap water and got zero.

You're taking this to mean that your test kit is accurate.

However this doesn't mean that your test kit is accurate, or inaccurate.

It could be that the test kit is bad and just giving you a reading of zero no matter what. Or it would be that the test kit is accurate and you don't have any phosphates in your tank water or your tap water. The problem is using tap water to test a kit. There can certainly be phospates present in tap water. Heck, there can be phosphates present in RO/DI water if you haven't changed the filters in awhile.
:?

I'd take a water sample over to John/Sergio at Global and let them test it.

From the state of your fuge, it sounds like it was harboring a lot of the nuisance algae. Once it's cleaned out good maybe things will clear up. Running a canister filter or a filter sock for a couple weeks might help pull some of it out as well.

Good luck.

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leaffish75

leaffish75

New Member
no i mean i had a reading on the tap water. which is normaly my tap is high in phosphates. RO unit is brand new only about 40 gallons have gone thru it. i do need to clean the refugium and will this Sunday.
 
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