Algae on my glass... New tank syndrome?
 

Hey all. I recently started up my new reef. A 36 gallon custom starphire. All has been good up until this weekend. I get a film of green algae on my glass. I can clean it off but within 2-3 hours it has started filming up again and within 12 hours it's WAY overdue for a GOOD cleaning. I use store bought RO water with TDS guaranteed at less than 10ppm. Is this all part of the cycling process? Just asking because on my last tank (10 gallon nano) I don't recall going through this. Lighting is 13 hours of actinic with 10 hours of 250W MH right in the middle of those actinic hours. Light WAS about 5" from the surface, but I just moved it up to about 9" due to temp change throughout the day. I also lost a couple of snails and hermits this weekend, but no shrimps and neither of my percs seem at all "upset".

HELP? I am REALLY hoping this is part of the infamous NTS.

Cut the lighting down to minimal hrs.
Get a phosphate filtering media and wait for 3 month before you get any more fish.
Tank goes through many cycles not just one. Cycles get smaller with time but you will still have them regardless of how "normal" your water parameters might sem at the moment.
JM2CW.

Everyone else agree's I guess???????

I was starting to get an algae bloom in my tank thats about 10 weeks, I cut down my MH time and it has helped.

isn't algae on your glass just part of keeping animals in a box of water?

Do YOU get a thick layer of green on YOUR glass in less than 2 hours???

:eek: ...no

What are your nitrate and phosphate levels at? Since you didn't post them I assume they're OK. That kind of growth would need a lot of free nutrient in your water.

You say the setup is new. Are the lights new as well?

Last week I finally got around to setting up the macro algae refugium in my sump. It has almost eliminated algae growth on my glass, and diatoms on the sand within a few days of setup!

I'd check your water parameters and see where they're at. Seems like you'd have to have quite the amount of nutrients to be fuelling algae to grow that fast. I'd check your RO water too.

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No mention of a skimmer on you system. Do you use one? How old are you lights?