My tank is always covered in algea

Administrator

Hi,

The sides of my tank are always covered in brown algae which becomes green and must be scraped off with a metallic edge if not addressed and recently the ornaments and sand are covered in a brownish/red looking algae.

I have a fish only 55 gallon tank. The lighting fixture has two 48" All Glass Aquarium bulbs. I have one small piece of live rock in the tank which I was told may now be dead due to lack of sufficient lighting to sustain it and now the ich treatment I've been using the past few days.

Any ideas for how to reduce the algae would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
Mike

usmc121581

Can you give us the water Parameters? and how long have you had the bulbs . The bulbs could be on the last leg as beable on the red side of the light spectrum that algea trive on. Also how long has the tank been setup for.

Administrator

The tank has been setup since July. The bulbs should be brand new... they came with the new fixture. I don't know the water parameters at the moment but I will test soon.

Assuming it is not the bulbs, what would you recommend?

usmc121581

Lets wait till we get your water para. My tank as been setup for a year and I will get algea on the glass still that I have to scrap of and my water parameters are good. Lets see what your water para. are because different types of algea feed on different nutrients. Example one algea in your tank my feed of of nitrates and another of of phosphates. So test your water for Ammon., Nitrite, Nitrates, phospates, Alk., calcuim, Ph. Since you just got the bulbs in july they should be new.

Daz

What is the postioning of the tank?

usmc121581

Good one. Is it by a window?

bettababy

So far so good here...
How many and what kinds of fish? What kind of substrate? And, what kind of foods are you feeding? Some foods contain heavy amounts of phosphate, among other things, and decreasing a particular food can sometimes do the trick. I agree that we need to see water params before anyone can define the problem.

trreherd

how old is the tank i here marine tanks will turn brown with algea within the first month and than it will go away.

White98SVT

Mine did that same thing really bad. I added a good clean up crew (snails etc.) and lessened the time my 10,000k's were on and it slowly went away. I was told it was part of the natural "cycling" process of a new tank.

usmc121581

It is part of the natural cycling. But in order to know were the cycle is you need to test the water.