green algea on glass

[badger]

after three days my glass ends up covered in green algea. My nitrates are 0 and phosphates are maybe 5! Its 65 WITH SUMP/FUGE with cheato. lots of flow and some cyano is also growing. I know there is a problem but just cant find it! I feed flakes pellets and frozen. I us ro/di water which i make. I have read the other posts and trying some of the things suggested. Also my cheato is out of control how much should ypu trim and how often! It has covered the top of my fuge i have been pulling some out and makeing sure none of the pods are in there! Anything else I need to do thanks for all the info you guys always save me! BTW the tank is about 8 months old with 80 lbs of live rock

[Iron E]

It sounds like you may still have some excess nutrients in there. Even with low readings, the algae is taking up some, so that won't show. What is the current "load" in your tank? What is your feeding routine? Do you keep the detritus blown out of the rocks? The overgrowth of the cheato is another sign of excess nutrients. You can cut back the cheato to suit your needs. You do want to take care not to lose too many 'pods in the process. I wish I had that problem. My cheato just seems to sit and barely grow.

Tom

[badger]

The load is pretty light I have 2 clowns 2 anenomes and a tang. i have not been blowing the rocks lol sounds funny. what do you do just take one of the power heads and it takes everything off?? I think it is a phosphate problem. I usually feed once to twice a day. I rotate between frozen mysis flakes and pellets. i was worried maybe it was coming from the frozen food! I also put in a coralife skimmer when i redid my sump to the fuge because my other skimmer was an in sump and the water was too deep not a big fan or the coral life!! I need to put something in the bottom to get the other skimmer in. thanks for the info

[Iron E]

You can use either a powerhead or a turkey baster. Do you rinse off your frozen food?

[badger]

No should you rinse it???

[Iron E]

It's my understanding that the main source of phosphates is from the frost. Rinsing first removes the frost.

[Amphibious]

Tom, phosphates from frost or frozen food may be an Urban legend. I've been doing this for 62 years (before frozen food was available, come to think of it) and I've never rinsed my frozen food. Can't say any algae break out was caused by it. Just my 2 cents worth.

Dick

[Iron E]

Yeah, after I posted that I started to get curious and did a little searching. I couldn't find anything of note to support that notion.

"Iron E. You have been charged with ignorantly spewing forth unsubstantiated drivel! How do you plead?"

"I've been framed!"

[bbl_nk]

I think the phosphate story comes from gel binders in the frozen foods adding excess nutrients from that. I know H20 Life foods (created by Chris Turk formerly of Ocean Nutrition) uses only algae-based binders in just a few select products. Also PE Mysis are not frozen with any water. They are also collected from glacial FW lakes in Canada and flash frozen on site. I wrote a post on them here: http://www.oceanathome.com/feed-your-fish-corals-a-treat-with-pe-mysis/

My tank is going on 1.5 years and I still have to scrape away the algae and I know its from the extra nutrients. Do your best to control them as best you can, lighter feedings, weekly water changes, skimming, etc. You might want to look at getting your phosphates in check with some sort of phosphate removal media (Phosban, RowaPhos, Phos Lock, etc)