[dfurbee]

My tank is getting purple algae on the sand, and green hair algae & bright green type algae on the rocks. I have 20 nassarius snails, 20 blueleg hermits and 10 scarlet reef hermits, and one skunk cleaner shrimp. Is this normal? My paramaters are all good. Please help, am going on vacation in a week (someome is taking care of the tank when gone) and dont want to come back to dead everything

[Taras1]

How long has your tank been up? What are your water parameters. It sounds like you have a Nitrate/Phosphate problem? Sounds like purple = cyanobacter.

[jvharding]

Hi Deb

Give my Spraybar idea a try! It puts current acrossed the bottom of the tank. Its less than say 70 bucks to put together. By the way I might Have a sump for sale I used it on my 150 G tank.

[Taras1]

Do you have a pix of the sump? How big and how much?

[crazygator]

the purple is slime algae and usually ( but not always) a direct link to over feeding or a death gone undetected. the hair algae is due (again not always) to chemicals in the water and lighting, either on too long or getting too much direct sun light. these are linked to phosphates of a different kind and hard to detect with a test kit. if you have these algi then you have the phosphates. the only way to control it is water changes with purified water (r.o.) and either remove the dead (if any) or cut down on feeding. you'll also want to remove any uneaten food after feedings. again these are not a sure fire solution but most common causes.

as for the green algae on the back this is normal and i prefer to leave it for my tang, snails and crabs to snack on inbetween feedings.