Algae and Fish Food

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by Hangfire

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Sorry about jumping in here Oscar, hope you don't mind.

No problem.

[Myka]

This question gets asked a lot, maybe I should go make a thread on it. I'll be back with a link.

EDIT: 2 hours 15 mins later I have a new guide: http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=44851

[Oscar]

An update on my algae issues:

Water volume: ~25 gallons
Temp: 79-81
ph: 8.1
alk: 7 (still trying to get to 9 using Seachem Reef Buffer)
Mg: 1275 after lots of Seachem Mg

Flow: I have recently installed a Vortech20. Much better flow which you can really see when you get in to disturb the detritus.

Waterchanges: 4G weekly Seachem salt, making sure Mg = 1300 and alk = 8

Algae pruning: with weekly water changes. I pull out ~1/4 cup weekly

Detritus disturbance: every 2 days with turkey baster

Phosban reactor: Installed 2 little fishes about 4 weeks ago. Running Phosban in the main chamber with carbon in the miniscule upper chamber.

Chaeto: In refugium for the past 2 months?

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The algae is definitely less but still quite prevalent. I just reread Myka's sysnopsis on algae contraol. I forgot about her suggestion of raising Mg to 1600. I will head in that direction this week.

I also noticed that on sunny days like this morning between 7:00am and 10:00 one side of the tank gets direct sunlight. Guess what, the worst of my algae problem seems to be in this zone.

Is it the blue or red spectrum that is filtered out when sunlight passes through the atmosphere on an extreme angle? If early morning sunlight is more red and yellow then that would partially explain the algae issue.

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Any more thoughts or tricks on algae reduction?