Help! To much algae growing

[phi delt reefer]

add some gfo - some people are still running some gfo with pellets.

what are you phosphates and nitrates reading at? Are you running a good skimmer?

[fishytime]

new tank blues combined with the pellets would be my guess.......manual pruning and ride it out...you could.......lower nutrients.....increase flow.....reduce photo period..and if you want, try elevating your MG....

[Aquattro]

Where did the sand come from? If it's used, or mixed up from an old tank, it could be releasing nutrients. Same with rock, if it's been moved from an old tank, it could release nutrients.
Skimming is important, as asked already, what are you using?

Water changes are the single best way to get things under control. Use RO water, good salt and don't be afraid to change 50% at a time. The typical 10% bi-weekly won't do any good.
What kind of food and how often? Easy on the flakes, and rinse frozen first.

Sand bed cleaners are good in preventing some of this stuff, but right now they'll just recycle it. For the algae pictured, you want to get it under control before you expect a fish to maintain it.
Lighting looks like MH? Is your bulb reasonably new (less than a year)?

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by fishytime

new tank blues combined with the pellets would be my guess...

I don't use pellets myself, but my first thought was this too, from reading previous posts similar to this one..

[Lampshade]

I started dosing vodka with my pellets. Night and day difference, i was debating scrapping them until i tried a small amount of vodka dosing. Cleared up all my Hair Algae in a matter of a week. Maybe give that a shot, not sure on the specifics of your tank, so might not be the only cause.

[windcoast reefs]

Originally Posted by phi delt reefer

add some gfo - some people are still running some gfo with pellets.

what are you phosphates and nitrates reading at? Are you running a good skimmer?

I'm running a reef octopus 200 currently as well as carbon in a reactor. My levels were all at 0 except phosphate which is at 0.05 ppm

[windcoast reefs]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Where did the sand come from? If it's used, or mixed up from an old tank, it could be releasing nutrients. Same with rock, if it's been moved from an old tank, it could release nutrients.
Skimming is important, as asked already, what are you using?

Water changes are the single best way to get things under control. Use RO water, good salt and don't be afraid to change 50% at a time. The typical 10% bi-weekly won't do any good.
What kind of food and how often? Easy on the flakes, and rinse frozen first.

Sand bed cleaners are good in preventing some of this stuff, but right now they'll just recycle it. For the algae pictured, you want to get it under control before you expect a fish to maintain it.
Lighting looks like MH? Is your bulb reasonably new (less than a year)?

I used my old sand, but I boiled it all before I put it back in.
I will try a few more big water changes and see what happens!
I use only frozen food and an amino acid mix for the fish, I usually feed once in the morning and once at night.

No it's A 200 watt LED fixture and I built.

[windcoast reefs]

Originally Posted by Lampshade

I started dosing vodka with my pellets. Night and day difference, i was debating scrapping them until i tried a small amount of vodka dosing. Cleared up all my Hair Algae in a matter of a week. Maybe give that a shot, not sure on the specifics of your tank, so might not be the only cause.

How much did you dose and how often?

[Lampshade]

I'm still dosing, the corals love it, better color than I've seen in a long time. I'm dosing 1/2 a small cap(polar ice) every other day in a ~200gal system. start slow, you're basically dropping a nuke on nitrates when doing this, so everything needs to balance to accomadate. I went with a cap a day for a little bit because things kept getting better and better, but realized that was too much when i started to get cyno, meaning i'd taken out all my beneficial bacteria.

I must add, that seeing better results prompted me to "like" the aquarium more again and spend more time on it, probably greatly leading to the success of the battle, haha.