nasty green algae problem....please help

[skiflyer]

Hi all,

I'm having a real problem with algae in my tank. It seems to be taking over my tank, speading all over the LR and back glass.
Now, I never cleaned the back glass in hope for some pretty coraline algae, however....should i clean it......it is very ugly and green.
Another odd thing about the algae on the backglass is that the build up stops at the heigt of the LR.....weired or what>>??
Anyway, i'm not sure if it has anything to do with it but i upgraded my lighting about 2 weeks ago from lo 2x15watt to 220 watt power compacts.
Should i clean the glass??? Is there anything else i can do to avoid this algae,,, ( I added some S.A.T. Marine... already, and did a water change since my nitrates were farely high)
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Whiskey]

I don't know about your problem however I think I can explain why the algae stops at the top of the rock. In my tank I only get algae up to about 5 inches from the top on the back glass, when I put a new light on the level changed then I realised that becasue of the design of the refector on the light the glass only got direct light to that point.

I would clean the nasty algae off to make the tank look better, just my opinion.

Whiskey

[jman785]

I would clean the algae off, and work from there.

Test for phosphates...nitrates, and iron. These all play factors in algae outbreaks.

Do a water change...hopefully you got a RO/DI unit and not tapwater, because tapwater, can contain some high amounts of phosphates and iron.

[skiflyer]

I have been using tapwater.......but for 4-5 month and never had a problem.....checked water and everything fine.
How much are RO/DI units, what do they do, and where can u buy them???
thanks in advance

[upstoday]

I found a RO/DI unit at Homedepot for 160 +tax , also check out the sponsors section there. Aquariamwaterfilters.com has a ton of them for sale.