Crazy algae growth due to lighting ?

Hi everyone,

I have a 55G tank and recently purchased a T5. After searching and reading, I got the following combination.

1 ATI 54W Aquablue Special
2 ATI 54W Blue Plus
1 Purple Plus

My T5 has 4 moonlight that I only use in the early morning and evenings. Ever since I purchased my T5 lighting, i have been getting a lot of algae growth, mostly film algae on the front of the glass. Thinking I had water problems, i decided to change water every 3 days. It did not help at all. Today I decided to turn off the Aquablue Special and Purple Plus. I had the Blue Plus for 8 hours and I got back home and to my surprises, my tank was really clean. I understand that film algae is normal but the way it was growing was really quick. When I had all 4 of them on, it will take 1 hour and I could see film algae forming. I have a skimmer and canister filter that I clean regularly, and I don't think that's the problem.

My question is, can the Purple Plus or the AquaBlue Special lighting from ATI increase algae growth ?

I used to be able to clean my tank walls once a week, which I think it is reasonable but every few hours ? it is just crazy to me.

Any advise really appreciate it.

YJ

 

How many hours a day are your lights on? What are your params? And what were they before you started doing water changes every day? What kind of algae? By film algae do you mean diatoms? How long ago did you switch to t5s?

 

check your phosphates

 

I'm running 2x blue+ 1x aquablue special and 1x purple plus. I have no algae growth The lamp colors are allowing you to see what's already there. What type of water are you using?

 

Thank you guys for the reply,

I used to have a cheap 2 florescent bulb from Petco that comes built in for the 55 Gallon tank. I upgraded my lights to T5 coz the old ones broke so I decided to invest on better lighting and start some corals.

My tank has been up for almost 2 years now and I have a 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 purple tang, 2 clown fish, 1 bicolor dottyback, 1 cardinal. I do not have a whole lot of LR but about 20 to 25 lb as I like the simple look on my tank. I have a HOB skimmer from CPR and a Cascade 1000 canister filter. I have hermits, snails, turbo snails and few others. I don't think there is that much load on my tank.

I used to test my water parameters but I got lazy and ran out of the solution but I never had problems with water so I stopped testing all together and just do my 20% water change every 2 weeks for my 55G, which I decreased to 3 to 4 days ever the film algae started to grow. I have brought a sample water to my local fish store and all he could tell me is that my parameters look almost normal and should not caused any algae growth. I was just little off on the PH and calcium but that's about it. He said, I should try better salt, which I did. I got their H2O (I don't recall the name very well) but changing the salt from my regular salt I have been using over a year did not make any difference

I feed very little now thinking it was a phosphate, I have added chemi-pure and GFO to my canister and changed new pads when all this was happening but it did not help. the green neon film algae ( I am really not sure what they are called but this is not your typical hair algae) covers the walls of my tank, making it look hazed and hard to see the inside.

I moved my power heads and pointed straight to the front walls of the tank where it was growing more, thinking i had some flow problem but the neon like film algae would grow around the area of the flow was hitting so it was noticeable.

The way I had my lights on was as follows:

I had my Blue Plus on from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM and I had my Purple Plus and Aquablue special join at 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM so just 6 hours of white light. I have my moonlights on from 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM just for look

After trying what I have read on forums, I decided to cut lights off by only turning on the 2 ATI 54W Blue Plus for 8 hours. The difference was a lot, from hazed looking tank to sparkling clean water without any noticeable film algae growth on the walls. I am going to try to have either the Purple Plus or the Aquablue special on only and see if any of them causes the algae bloom on my tank walls.

Thanks for reading and hope you can tell me if I am doing anything wrong or missing

Thanks in advance.
YJ

 

are you using tap or RO/DI water?

 

Nutrients cause algae, not lights. Different types of algae can favor different lighting though.

 

The lights should not cause algae growth. Does the algae stay even after the lights have been out for a while?

 

yes, RO/DI Water

I don't like the haze on my tank so I usually scrub them off before I go to sleep. The Algae does seem to be a lot less when the lights are out or like I mentioned on my previous post just using the BLUE lights on for 8 hours now. When I scrub the haze out of the tank, it has this powder like look when I scrub them off the tank.

YJ

 

I wonder what your Nitrate level is at, did the LFS give you any specifics