Algae attack after returning from 2 week trip

[Dturner]

Hey Guys,

I just got back from my Vegas business trip tonight and came back to find my tank COVERED in green algae. I believe this is due to me getting a new T-5 light right before I left, I upgraded from 54W in my 60 gallon tank to 324W.

I need help. Besides a cleanup crew, what can I do to eliminate or drastically reduce my algae problem. I had almost no algae before leaving and now it's covering all the glass and rock. The pics I took were after I scrubbed 3/4 of the glass clean, before you could barely even see through it.

I appreciate any advice you guys can give me.

Daniel

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[ErinCahir]

Is everything accounted for?
Was there overfeeding while you were away?

 

[Dturner]

Everything is in the tank. Looks like some of my hermits aren't showing up, but I only had like 3 small hermits in the tank. I had someone feeding my fish every other day at the most (unfortunately) and I showed them exactly how much to feed them. So if anything they were being underfed.

 

[little_fish]

Im willing to bet that they still overfed. But i would get either a scrubber, or skimmer going, and do a week long black out. Remove as much as you can by hand before and after (with a water change). And keep up with your water changes.

 

[Dturner]

Im willing to bet that they still overfed. But i would get either a scrubber, or skimmer going, and do a week long black out. Remove as much as you can by hand before and after (with a water change). And keep up with your water changes.

Well my skimmer is going full-force right now. It was almost full of dark green goop. I am probably going to buy a 90 gallon tank tomorrow w/ sump from someone with a really nice setup on craigslist.

So I'll probably just clean the rocks as I switch to the new tank. A week long blackout is probably a good idea. Hopefully that'll give my lawnmower blennie some time to catch up on eating the algae.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Piratefish]

Were they topping off with tap water?

An algae scrubber works great. Might take a few weeks though.

 

[ErinCahir]

If you want to give him a shot at it you're going to need to trim it a bit... they won't eat the long stuff.

 

[Dturner]

I told them to top it off with tap water but I came back with the water 2 inches from the top and the hang on filter barely working.

 

[ErinCahir]

You should be using RO water... and the HOB probably isn't helping.
And +1 on the scrubber
https://www.livingreefs.com/mega-powerful-nitrate-and-phosphate-remover-diy-t16734.html

 

[BL1]

Definitely top off with RO water. Topping off with tap in going to put all sorts of nutrients in the water that will just feed the algae. Your profile says one month but, how long has the tank been set up? It could just be a normal part of the new tank process.

 

[fastrd400]

I will tell you exactly what happened. You upgraded the wattage and the par of your lights quite a bit. You left them on the same light cycle and left town. You should have reduced your lighting and photo period drastically.

Not sure what kind of fixture you have, but what I would do is this. Run your actinics at 6 hours, and daylights at 4 hours. Every week, bump both up an hour to get to your desired time frame.

You don't really need to do a black out, but start cleaning the best you can, and do some water changes.

 

[chiqui bb]

I had an algae problem early on with my tank and added some turbo snails. They cleaned it up within a week and now I have to give them algae sheets!! That could help with the immediate problem but like everyone else has suggested, you need to locate the source of the algae and eliminate that.

 

[wontonflip]

+1 everyone.

In the future, try pre-measuring your food for pet sitters. I've had 100% success w/ my petsitters this way.....and they were 12 year old kids! (child labor, I know ;) ) I bought one of those pill boxes, cut up little squares of saran wrap, and plopped in a daily dosage of food in there and put them on separate compartments. Then just stored it in the freezer. Unless they purposefully dump the whole pill box, they cannot overfeed. I even told them it's ok to skip a day or 2. I've never ever had issues w/ overfeeding. I have an ATO, so I just asked them to make sure there's no flood :) But prior to having ATO, I showed them my rodi reservoir.

Most importantly, I did not make any drastic changes/additions to the tank when I knew I'd be out of town. You never know what can go wrong. Even with my ATO, I made sure i had it up and running for a few months before trusting it.

 

[AmberSunrise]

I am going away for 19 days in June and I am terrified of what could happen while gone.

 

[Dturner]

Thanks for the advice. The pill container is a good idea for food measurements.

I usually wouldn't have made such a drastic change but I have 3 corals in the tank that didn't have enough light and I figured if I didn't put up the new light they'd be dead by the time I got home. I had 54w over a 60g tank.

 

[wontonflip]

OH and when topping off, mark where the acceptable water line should be. In my 45g, my return chamber had a piece of blue tape where the water lin should be. that way, the sitter knew not to go above or below that line. Foolprrof :D The key is to make it as simple as possible for the sitter, even if they are seasoned hobbyists. Everyone has their way of doing things.