It's all we can see!!!!!! GHA

If you can take anything that has it on it out--do so and scrub with a toothbrush, also get any you can picked short, as the longer it is the more nutrients it can hold onto to help it grow. you probably not resister any phosphates as the GHA is using them all up. Also cut back on feeding, as this is helping to fuel its growth. It will probably take quite awhile for you to get rid of it.

 

I have this sneaky suspicion you're using tap water?

Forgive me if you're not, but if you are, you simply can not expect your algae problem to go away. Using tap water in an algae-ridden tank is like putting out a fire with kerosene.

You have to provide an unhospitable environment for the algae. Rob them of their nutrients and they can't thrive.

 

I agree what you can take out take out and scrub it clean and rinse well in salt water.

6 small fish in a 26 gallon is fine but you really have to watch how much you feed. The more uneaten food the more nutrients it has to grow, just a few flakes is all that they require. And if your feeding frozen rinse it out before introducing it to the tank.

Cut your lighting down but don't turn it off completely. Is that Athena on the right? if you turn out the lights it will not do good and might die.

If you can afford one order a Phosphate Reactor and run it with some PhosBan in it.

The other thing is how old are the bulbs in your light, if they are old that might be part of the problem. I know in my smaller tanks as the bulbs got close to the end of their life I noticed more and more algae growing, Replace them and it slowed the growth.

 

Our light bulbs are about 3 or 4 months old. I think we will try the rock scrubbing idea.. But will this kill anything living on the rock, then will it cause an ammonia spike?? What is the minimal time that i can have the lights on for? Currently I am only feeding flake food and very very small amount once a day.. I used frozen food only twice about 3 weeks ago because i had a fish that was not eating so we tried to spot feed it with some seaweed, he ended up starving to death..

 

We currently do not use tap.. We use the R/O water from the grocery store, but we think that tap water was what helped this out brake.. Before this out brake, (we have had one another one during the cycling process) my husband said that he liked the way the GHA looked so he decided to do a few top offs with our really bad tap water (with out me knowing)... Then the algae started... Then we had really really hot weather for about a week and we have no air conditioning in our apartment so it got up to 95 in our apartment causing the tank temp to raise as well to about 90. I thought everyone was going to die I was very mad at this point.. Then the algae went out of control after that.. We are now investing in a tank cooler for next summer... I really hope we can beat this GHA problem...:-/
I am ready to look at a nice clean tank again...

 

If you use water from your tank to scrub it when you are doing a water change and rinse in new saltwater the same salinity and temp as you tank it will not hurt anything. This is what I did, but you also have to correct your feeding habits. Oh, by the way do you clean your filter---you need to keep it clean or phosphates will build up there also.

 

Ok, I think we will be scrubbing the rock today...!! I will definitely correct my feedings I dont want this to happen again! How many times a day should i feed once this algae is done?? I was feeding twice a day but it may have been too much...Currently I am feeding only once a day but a very very small amount, the fish gobble it all up, i dont even see any fall to the bottom.. About the filter, we just cleaned it about 2 weeks ago.. We usually do it about once a month.. should we do it more?? When we clean it we replace one layer of our activated carbon. Every 2 months we change a layer of the filter floss then we pull out the old one once the bacteria has transfered. We have bio rings that we dont touch.

 

Two months is a little long for filter changes. You should change your media about every 3-5 weeks depending on the the load.
What kind of filter are you using?

 

As 1st time said use tank water, do a water change and mix a little new and use that to clean them and you should be fine. anything like pumps, filters and heaters. I would scrub and bleach them, then rinse them in a bucket of fresh water with some de-chlorinater in it.

Using water from the grocery store is not the same as using RODI. those grocery store filters still leave allot of crap in the water. you need to invest in a low cost RODI Unit, it will be the best purchase you can make, believe me. till them get a dozen or so 5 gallon buckets and make the trip to the LFS and buy RODI water from them.

As far as cleaning the filter, I do mine Bi-weekly. The build up of crap and food in there can cause all kinds of problems. it is the mechanical filter the bio filter is your rocks so the mechanical should be kept clean.

 

I am only feeding mine every other day, they seem fine and happy.