How to prevent brown algae on glass?

[DamnPepShrimp]

I have always been battling brown algae on the glass of my tank. I upgraded lights with my corals, running 200w of T5s, bulbs are 6 months old. When I had my FO tank, I didn't have as bright of lights, and not so bad algae problem. The algae seems to be mostly on my glass, some on the sand and very few if any on the rocks. I checked my phosphate levels, they are 0 or very near, hard to tell with the test kit coloring. I have a refugium, running two types of macro algae, also a DSB and plenty of live rock in the system. This algae makes my tank look like crap, so I want to get rid of it so it is nice to look at again. I do not run an RO unit yet, but will be getting one when I set my 110 up in 2 months. I know that could be the problem, but with no phosphates, what else could cause it? I run my lights for about 9-10 hours a day. Should I cut back a little on the photo period? Thanks for any help/ input.

 

[criticle]

If you have base rock, that'll somtimes leech metals which feeds film algea

 

[DamnPepShrimp]

I haven't added any rock in about 6 months. All rock I've added was live. I did have some lace rock that I put in the tank about a year ago, which is now live and has feather dusters growing on it. Any other ideas? Thanks.

 

[fat-tony]

the RO will help, I used black turbos to clean mine

 

[DamnPepShrimp]

Well I'll be getting an RO/DI very soon. Any other suggestions?

 

[leeweber85]

Using RO/DI will help a TON... next to that, UV sterilizers and phosphate reactors will help. As far as I know, there really isn't any way to completely rid it. Most just use a mag foat and clean it every few days.

I'm assuming you got that phosphate reading with a salifert or api kit. These kits are pretty much useless and any reading from them means your phosphates are far too high.

 

[DamnPepShrimp]

I used an api kit, so what else would you use? I am going to get some phosphate media and put it in a cartridge in my sump.