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Old 05-09-2004, 06:45 PM
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Quagmire Quagmire is offline
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Your lights skould be ok if they're only 2 months old.How bad is the out break, is it the whole tank or just the area in the pic.?Your PO4 and NO3
aren't off the scale,but if you have alot of algae it may be taking up the nutrients before it can be measured.I haven't had much luck with the prizm skimmer,mine is on a 30g with a low bio load so it does the job,but if you have alot of fish it may not be able to keep up.Phos.pads may work for now,but you need to find out where the nutrients are comming from.The two ways that I can think of that cause high nutrient are adding water and food.You have already cut back on feeding and you can only cut back so far. The DI water, is it bottled water,or do you use a tap water purifier(sp)or an RO/DI unit?Even if its store bought old filters can still be a problem,so its a good idea to have this tested for TDS.If you can't cut back what you put into your tank,then you have to look at ways to take nutrients out of the tank.The choices I can think of for this are water changes,better skimming,havesting(planted fuge)and animals.I find animals are better for matinance than for reducing algae.IE if you put in enough snails or other animals to reduce the algae,then when its gone you end up with a bunch of dead snails,because theres not enough food left.
Try the phos.pads for now.This is a bandaid approach it just covers up the real problem,but it may give you time to find the real problem.
Good luck
Greg
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