Algae problem

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hey everyone. i just recently moved my aquarium tank and after the first couple of weeks hairy green algae has covered everything. so i checked phosphate n there isnt any, no nitrate, nitrite n 0.01 ammonia.. no idea wat to do???? please help.
 
When you moved your tank, did you change anything or add anything.

You may not be detecting the PO4 and nitrates, because the algae is consuming it.

How much do you feed ?
 
i changed my metal hallide globes from 2 stock ones provided with my lighting system to 1 gieseman 20,000k and 1 gieseman 14,000k. but that is all. and i only feed a small amount just enough for 2 clownfish and 1 fire goby.
i did add another piece of live rock but the supplier was great n had other living things in the same tank. not to sure bout the rest of the rock in my tank doesnt look anything like this piece i bought cld the rest of my rock be dead?
 
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If all water parameters are fine, get a algae blenny(lawnmower) - I also had green hairy algae at some stage, he took care of it.:wave2:
 
Lawnmower blennies are machines when it comes to grazing. Great investment for algae control
 
Lawnmower blennies are machines when it comes to grazing. Great investment for algae control

Spot on!! Mine is quite a caracter, he's name is Anton - named after a friend of mine, also a caracter...:whistling:
 
i have the sailfin species, not the prettiest but has loads of character. Love the way he "kisses" the glass.

His body doesn't look like he would swim to well, but surprisingly he can almost "float" in mid water column.
 
Mine does the same, not sure what species though - he's head/face looks like an unhappy grasshopper with cameleon eyes...:p
 
It's all good and well to recommend an algae eater but we need to concentrate on finding out the cause of the algae, otherwise he/she is going to go out and spend R1000 on algae eating fish and they end up not doing the job, he'll lose interest because his problem is not solved and we end up losing a hobbyist.

fatalerror, Show us some pics of the rock you have in your tank, your filtration system, sump etc. and let's see if the guys pick up on anything. Also the reason why you are not detecting any phosphates in the water is more than likely due to the hair algae consuming all the phosphates as soon as they are released into the water.
 
Ditto to what Viper said - FatalError - When you moved your tank, what EXACTLY did you do?
ie.
- removed the rocks?
- removed the sand-bed/substrate?

Did you find that there was a LOT of muck in the water, turning the water a dark-brown coloration?
 
sorry bout the delay havnt been able to get a camera until now. just uploaded images then as you can see its very green, also the newest piece of live rock doesnt have much hairy green algae on it. i put it in when i moved the tank?????
as for the move yes i did remove the rock gave the tank a scrub wif a new brush and the coral sand made the water a very dark brown when i washed it in the tank water. hoping you can help me out. thnx Jacob
 
Ok - Jacob - that "dark brown" that you saw, was the detritus that was stuck/hidden IN the substrate for a long time. You have now released it into the water column. Which means that the denitrification cycle is now having a hard time breaking the detritus down to ammonia, and from ammonia to nitrites, and from nitrites to nitrates.
Added to that, the released detritus also most likely leached phosphates in to the water, giving "food" the the nuisance macro algae spores, giving them "reason to live" ;-)

Therefor the algae problems...

Here are some possible solutions that you can try:
- run a sponge filter (temporarily) to catch up as much of the detritus you can (do you have a spare canister filter - usually you should not use a canister filter, but in this case, you might need to - temporarily)
= remember to clean out the sponges every 3 days
- do HUGE water-changes - e.g. 25% every week (weekends) for the next 4 or 5 weeks
- buy some phosphate remover (ie SeaChem PhosGuard) and run this in a high flow area in your tank's sump
- make plans to replace your current substrate (which sounds like the particles are MUCH bigger than 1.5/2mm - causing the detritus to be trapped) - with some substrate that have sand particles that are smaller than 1.5mm at least - either playsand (ask at Reggie's Toy World/Toys-R-Us, or perhaps even Builder's Warehouse), OR use aragonite/carib-sea (MUCH more expensive usually)
- run your skimmer very wet for a few weeks that the crap be removed from the water column
- constantly (on a daily basis) stir up the top layer of the substrate to get the detritus into the water-column...

This whole thing will take a while to get rid of....

You should also reduce the lighting period of your lights (to a maximum of +-5 hours in the day), AND feed your fish less - try feeding only dried food ONCE a day...
 
it says i have pictures uploaded.. not sure wat else to do..
i kno bout the detritus and evthin, i didnt put the water back in the tank i cleand the sand then tipped the water out and put the sand in the sun for a day to kill anythin bad. will try evthin else you said though.
thnx Jacob
 
Ok - cool Jacob - here's the steps on how to upload a picture on MASA:
1) click on the "Go Advanced" button below the "Quick Reply" window
2) on the resulting window, look at the bottom right of the text area, you will find the "Quick Upload" link - click on this
3) You will get another popup window (ensure that Popups are enabled for MASA), which you can use to browse the pictures - click on "Browse" and find the picture you want to upload - ensure that the file-size does not exceed +-120KB - and click on "Host It"...
Then your picture SHOULD appear in the text typing window.
You can only upload ONE picture at a time...
 
i didnt put the water back in the tank i cleand the sand then tipped the water out and put the sand in the sun for a day to kill anythin bad.

You also killed off everything good - not only the filtration bacteria, but also all/any microscopic animals in the sand. These animals could/did help with filtration by eating detritus, and even algae.

Agree with Jacques advice - follow it, and the tank should recover :thumbup:

Hennie
 
thnx, hope this works..
Not sure what you're doing wrong, your pictures are there but just not appearing in your posts, anyway, I will put up your pictures for you :)

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