green water wont go away

[shaynep]

ii started a 30 gallon saltwater tank about 6 months back everything was running good for the first month then i got green water after a switch to t5 i thought i tried getin rid of it by water changes water would turn green in 2 days my water testings were nitrate 20 amm 0 nitrite0 i was using ro water from walmart. i ended up tearing it down and let everything dry out the rocks sand everything i setup a 10 using the dried out stuff and ro water it wasnt even comletely cycled and i got green water again any ideas to wats causing it

 

[dreamwalk]

hurm.....what are the test now that you have changed over to RO?

 

[Bifferwine]

Do you have any animals in the tank? If so, what are you feeding, how often and how much?

 

[shaynep]

theres nothin in there it hasnt even cycled yet and ive aways used ro

 

[Tristan]

could be lighting. I did some research on green water before and i found that sunlight is what causes most green water. so maybe less light from your bulbs or sunlight
you can also use a UV sterilizer.

 

[Bifferwine]

That's a really good point. Does it get direct sunlight (is it near a window or something)?

 

[shaynep]

no all my windows are covered. about the light though i did switch to t5 and if i remeber right thats when i got it and thats all ive bine using sence then could it be the t5 theres 2 10000k and 1 blue atinic

 

[Tristan]

so you started having green water after the t5?

 

[dcantucson]

How many hours a day are you running your lights?

 

[shaynep]

ya thats when i got the green water after switchin to t5 and i usally keep them on 8 9 hours a day

 

[Bifferwine]

Try cutting your lights back to 6 hours a day. And give it a few weeks to sort itself out. Changing the lighting can cause weird things to happen with algae. In the meantime, keep up with water changes -- don't use tap water. You can run carbon or ChemiPure, those will help too.

 

[shaynep]

then could i turn them back to 9 or is 9 to much i thinkin of redoin the 30 could i reuse my sand from before? i was also thinking of spliting it 6 inchs in and make the 6 inh sec a refugium and put a power head shooting in for inflow and for the out just drill holes anyone think this would work and use compact flouresents to light the ref from home dept

 

[darren0311]

Do you have anything in there like LR ?? and what is the lighting schedule? if it is in direct sunlight it will cause that as well, water change and get yourself a UV that will help as well.

 

[darren0311]

and also like bif said, use carbon!

 

[Solarfall]

How much flow do you have running in the tank.

Back when I was first starting, before I actually did internet research, I didn't really have any flow in the tank because I didn't know it was neccesary.

I had cyano, diatoms, slime algae etc. coming out of my ears. Then as soon as I started running my 3000 gph in powerheads/ return pump, all my algae went away.

 

[shaynep]

i changed water cleaned my sand really well no green water knock on wood and its bine sence xmas cut back to 6 hours like biff said i have a aquaclear for a 20 and 1 powerhead pointed into tumbler that i just built ill try posting pics

 

[shaynep]

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/ae33/shorty5669/P123109122044.jpg

whole tank left black space is a tumbler
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/ae33/shorty5669/P123109122056.jpg
inside of timbler
pics arnt very good there from a cell phone but u get the idea

 

[Bifferwine]

Your tank looks pretty good! Is that what you consider green water, or is that after it cleared up?

 

[shaynep]

thats after i riped it completely down cleaned the sand alot better then i had cut down the light to 6 hours. santa brought me new salt and such i also switched for io salts heard they cause problems with algae so i switched to oceanic

 

[shaynep]

im thingin of switching out to the 55 if i can get rid of my oscar and such any ideas how to set it up?
should i do the same algae tumbler section?