Lighting and algae question

[PadresGirl]

I have been running my tank on actinics only for a while as the ballasts for the daylights were out and I was waiting on a new lighting fixture. Now that I have it and am back up on a regular daylight schedule (it is a Coralife PC sys., 260 watts total) there is a weird brown (what I assume is) algae covering my sand and rock. It is not filmy or stringy; just seems to have turned everything but the corals and fish brown. Any idea what this is and what I can do to get rid of it? Thanks for any help...

 

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

It sounds like you may have a new non-established tank and are going through a cycle. Otherwise.. I would do some searches in the articles here. There are some really good ones.. don't have a link saved here at the moment... that describe all sorts of algae AND how to get rid of it.

 

[PadresGirl]

My tank's been set up for about four years now, but I'll check out the articles.

 

[Aquarist007]

most of the time as you probably aware of --aglae blooms are caused by the importing of phosphates
changing your lights, increasing the lumes can definetly stimulate the growth of algae--but it needs the food source their also

Here is a thread of tips I put together on fighting algae:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1329802

 

[PadresGirl]

Is there a specific name for this type of algae? Possibly something that might eat it while I get the phosphates under control? Thanks for the link, excellent read!

 

[PadresGirl]

Anybody?

 

[Aquarist007]

It might be bryopsis:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1113109

 

[Capt_Cully]

are there lots of tiny bubbles in it? pics would help. If so, could also be dynoflagellates. One way people get rid of them is to turn off the full spectrum lights for a few days and just run actinics. Seems curious that you added day lights and have a brown algae bloom.

The lights will definitely encourage it. You could try decreasing your photo period and gradually ramping it up by a half hour every week or 2 to get your inhabitants used to that spectrum of light again.

Don't forget to rule out other causes. Phosphates in the water or food, fish poop, and other dissolved organic compounds. Some big waterchanges might help to bail you out as well.

Good luck.

 

[PadresGirl]

No bubbles, I'll get some pics up tomorrow...I didn't add daylights, had them before, just needed to replace ballasts but decided to get new fixture instead. I only have three fish in 60 gallon, so not sure how much poop they're producing. Is there a test for phosphates? I originally had the daylights running eight hours with the actinics running ten, have since decreased daylights to 6 hours, but still have actinics at ten. I'll try the water changes, too, thanks!

 

[PadresGirl]

Here are some pics...after googling different things I think it might be diatoms...which seems weird since most of what I read associates diatoms with new set-ups...let me know what you guys think and what I might do to get this stuff under control...thanks!

 

[Aquarist007]

How much flow to you have in your tank--it should be between 20-40 times the vol of your tank
Once a week you should be taking a turkey baster and lightly basting the rock and substrate with it--this will put nitrates and phosphates--things that algae is feeding on--back into the water column where they can be filtered out.

I would also consider running a phosban reactor with phosban material--this will help reduce phosphates and will starve the algae out

the algae against the glass is normal due to algae that are in the sand bed--they are getting light through the glass
If you put your scraper down between the glass and the sand bed you can clean the front of your tank up without disturbing the overall sand bed much

 

[3D-Reef]

Diatoms live off of silicate.You may have to change the filters in the RO/DI,if You havn't done it a while.

 

[PadresGirl]

I have one Koralia 3 (850 gph). I've tried 2 Koralia 2's in the past, but the flow seemed to be overwhelming the inhabitants no matter how I positioned them. I'll start doing the turkey baster thing; any suggestions on a good phosban reactor? The algae against the plexi I'm not concerned with, been dealing with that from the get go, it's just confusing to me that I had the same amount of light under the same conditions before and after going without daylights for about a month and then getting them back up, this happened. I've only had the new fixture in place for a week. Thanks for all of your help, capn! Does it look like diatoms to you?

 

[PadresGirl]

Does anybody else think it looks like diatoms?