algae oubreak

[jason71832]

My tank is about 3 months old and I'm going through an outbreak of red hair algae and green algae. My lights are pc's and they are only a couple months old. I have turbo's, zebras, and some hermits. I have one percula, one dragonette. My water is at about 80, ph is 8.2, amonia is zero, nitrite is zero, and nitrate is about 20ppm. WHAT DO I DO TO GET RID OF THIS STUFF?

 

[scrmbld33]

have you been doing water changes? or test for phosphate, you can also pull what you can off but the algae is feeding on something, phosphate

 

[jason71832]

haven't done a water change in a while, would 5 gallons help?...on a 29 gallon tank?

 

[jason71832]

Also, I don't have a skimmer yet, could this be causing it?

 

[scrmbld33]

both, the skimmer will help get out some extra nutrients but wont do it alone, 5 gallons will help if done weekly, also siphoning out some detrius off the sand will help some too, im guessing you have one fish? make sure your not overfeeding this can be the biggest source of phosphate, phosphate=unwanted algae/poor water quality