[fish head fred]

my 55 is ate up with green algae, help me please .im ready to throw out all my rock and start over.

[rlcline76]

Turbo snails worked nice in my tank.
In the meantime, what kind of water are you using?
Is your tank near a window receiving indirect sunlight?

[glampka]

Besides what Becky said - consider cutting back on the length of time your lights are on. How much are you feeding your fish? Excess food becomes fertilizer for the algae.

[fish head fred]

its way beyond turbos,the stuff is all over and it does get partial light from a window,i have a panther grouper and a lion fish, i feed them every 3 days, my 30 is close to this tank and its nice. is there anything i can put in it to kill the green, all my nice corals i have moved to other tanks,so all thats in it is base rock and those 2 fish

[rlcline76]

I have never heard of anything way beyond snail treatment. How much of your tank would you say is covered?
I have little fish, so I apologize if this question seems dumb, I can guess what you are feeding the lion, what are you feeding the grouper?

[fish head fred]

every rock my back glass ,filter ,skimmer, the green has overtaken my entire tank. i feed my fish,small shrimp, shrimp ive used for bait that i cut into small pieces, feeder golds ,mollys, the fish are about 5 inches long, the light from the windows is only open when we are home in the evenings,and at night. i have a 400.00 eclipse light ,that is on timers to run the actinic for 12 hrs. and the white for 8 hrs. ill try turbos to help but i think its beyond them helping a lot

[reefnoob1991]

You haven't answered what kind of lights you use...phosphates from tap water can cause hair algae to grow. I have done water changes with RO water and distilled water and i have almost none left

[rlcline76]

I agree, if you are not using distilled or RO/DI, this is a good time to start using it for water changes. I have 3 turbo snails per tank (Only have 20 gallons). They will mow the hair down while you get to working on the water changes. Clean your equipment good.

[blind1993]

also yellow tangs will just love ur tank i think u should get one.

[msbdiving]

I think in addition to the RO/DI water, you should definately look into a tang. My Kole devours every scrap of algae possible. It's great I never have to worry about it.

[reefnoob1991]

Tangs should have a tank size of atleast 90 gallons.

[blind1993]

well that is one of the main reasons i am getting my yellow i have alot of brown alage growth on my glass and fake coral.

[fish head fred]

i have a orbit light that cost me 400.00 and i have a300.00 ro system. its an agressive tank so i dont think tangs would live very long.my lps said to leave the lights off for a couple of weeks and that would kill the algae.i ordered some turbos they will be here in a few days.the lps's in my area really suck but ive had the lights off for a few days and its killing the algae

[blind1993]

what fishes do u have.

[reefnoob1991]

Blind do you use RO water? and since usually tangs should live in larger tanks have you looked around for turbo snails and hermit crabs or do you have some already?

[blind1993]

i have none of those no ro or cleaning inverts.

[reefnoob1991]

Well there's your problem right there...you're fueling the algae with nutrients from the Tap water...pick up some turbo snails and a couple red/blue leg hermits along with about 8 gallons of RO water or distilled from wal-mart, do your next water change with that and continue to after and I guarantee your algae will begin to fade away.

[blind1993]

well i figured out the probelm my mom left the blinds open while we were on vacation and the day i closed them 24hrs later all gone.