Algae Algae Everywhere... and maybe an end in sight?

So... I have been having a few issues with my tank the last couple of weeks. First my clam died and now my urchin has bit the dust. Anyway, RedGambit was nice enough to come over and give me a hand with it yesterday and I think we may be on to something.

The issue is that I have had a lot of algae growth. It was EVERYWHERE! Walls, powerheads, skimmer filter etc. After checking my levels, the only thing off on Friday night was my salinity. So, first thing Saturday morning, before going to the Foster and Smith open house, I did a 5 gal water change.
Rechecked my levels after we got back from the open house, and things were good. The only thing that needed to be lower was my Salinity (1.026 was the reading).

Any ideas as to why I have so much algae?
We cleaned the powerheads, the skimmer filter, wiped the lights off (All the salt creep), and did another 10 gal. water change.

Also, just for curiousity sake, we tested the phosphates in my tap water that I use to fill my tank. According to the test, they are non-existant. I verified this with the last water test we had our town do.

Oh yeah... when I get home from work this afternoon, I will have pictures of my new tank friend. I purchased it from Diver's Den and it is so pretty What is it you ask? Well, you'll just have to wait and see ;D

 

I think we need some more information first. How big is your tank? What kind of lighting? How long are the light cycles? How many critters in the tank? What are your nitrate levels? Food: how often and how much? What CUC? What kind of algae? Filtration, circulation (g/h), etc...

When algae gets out of hand, usually there is an overabundance of nutrients supporting growth and perhaps too long of a light cycle.

 

Salinity of 1.026 isn't bad.

 

A salinity swing is enough to hurt inverts. If she had a salinity swing, then a clam death, because of that, its enough to produce enough nitrates to feed the algea to make it grow in abundance.

 

29 gallon tank
Snails (60 - 100) and up until yesterday, 1 urchin
6 line Wrasse
Yellow Damsel
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 0
Nitrite - 0
Phospahte - 0
PH 8.1
Salinity - 1.026
I feed in the morning and sometimes at night
Light goes on between 730 and 8 am and off around 8 pm
Sun light comes through the window for 2 hours in the morning
2 power heads (1 Koralia 2 and 1 evo 750)
Protein Skimmer and HOB Filter as filtration

 

Agreed, a sudden change in salinity could harm a clam, but "normal" salinity for her tank was not listed. Plus nothing was mentioned that would have caused a significant swing.

 

My salinity is usually 1.022 to 1.024, so it was a little higher than normal. Also, I have tested my levels once a week because of the algae and found them to always be the same. The only other thing that would differ would be the PH... that would swing from 8.0 to 8.2. Nothing else has changed in the tank

 

All levels look ok. Could be what RedGambit said and the death of the inverts provided abundant food for the algae. If that's the case, time will tell and things should normalize.

60-100 snails? What kind(s)?

 

Snails are narscissus, dwarf cierth and florida cierth. I will not do a hermit crab, even though those apparently eat gha. I had a lot of that growing. Also, I forgot to mention that I have a deeper sand bed... it was probably abou 4 inches. RG took some of it out yesterday without sacraficing any snails (yay... no more deaths ) so it is a little less... probably about 3-3.5 inches now.

 

you might cut back that light cycle a bit. that could help with reducing your algae.