Daily glass cleaning

[sgarron]

What causes that light green film on the glass everyday? I'm getting real tired of cleaning it. Is there anything that can be done to prevent or at least minimize it?

[Toddrtrex]

Excess nutrients/phosphates in your tank.

What are your current water parms, and what type of water are you using?

[demonsp]

Low flow , age of tank , water readings,amount of CUC. I do once a week and razor off coraline once a month.

[gsxunv04]

do you put phytoplankton in your tank?

[sgarron]

ph 8.1
nitrate<5
nitrite 0
amonia 0
alk 9dkh
cal 430
mag 1300

I have used ro/di from day 1. I run 2 phosban reactors, 1 w/carbon 1 w/phosban. I have 2 - koralia 4's and 2 koralia 3's. This tank is 4 months old but everything in it came from my 1 year old 65 and a 2 year old 90 of someone elses. My cuc is a little lacking, been meaning to add more. And I feed DT's phyto once a week.

[demonsp]

This maybe a little to much flow.Something i say rarely.But rock placement and powerhead placement helps.A pic would help.

[sgarron]

I doubt it's too much flow. I know plenty of people running 2 and even 3 Tunze 6100's on a 180. I have a k4 in each upper rear corner and the 3's in the center section. There is only 1 of the 3's in the pic, I have since put the second one back in hoping the increased flow would help. It hasn't.

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa271/sgarron/DSC_0193a.jpg

[demonsp]

Well the one in the center will acutally prevent good circulation. Like i said placement. If you can try and get it to circulate.BTW nice looking tank and let the back incrust in corline.Its a never ending battle to keep clean. I also let the sides incrust.

Look here ,good article.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/1/aafeature/view

[sgarron]

I'll try removing the center ones. They are there for surface aggitation, didn't think about them blocking the flow from the #4's.

I gave up trying to clean the back, purple and green splotches are growing as I type. Besides can't realy clean the overflow covers anyway.

[demonsp]

On my 75 good cross flow is great but if yours is a 180 i cant see doing this and getting enough flow to the center.But if you cant creat a circuler motion then the repitition alone would only help increase flow.@ facing front 2 facing toward the back.I like to say add i little extra frozen food at feeding time and look how it moves.It should be kept in motion in every area of the tank possible.This would help see low flow areas.

[ACBlinky]

Green dust algae is normal, most if not all tanks get it to some degree. If you're removing it daily, try cutting back on feeding (if that's feasible) or otherwise lowering N and P.

I run my Mag-Float over all four walls of my 90g daily -- it removes any green powdery algae and also takes care of 90% of the coralline before it can take hold. I know some people like to leave it be, but I despise coralline on the glass (I leave it on the overflow, not much I can do there, but the GSP is rapidly overgrowing it anyway). Once a month I take a razor blade to the stubborn bits, but a daily swipe with the Mag-Float is invaluable; it really keeps the pink stuff in check.

[jafish26]

I have the same problem and im gettin tired of it too i run a phosban all the time with phoslock and still cant get my phosphate levels to zero out or pretty much zero anything i can do it seems like every three days my tank has a green film everywhere it never had it before i moved i have moved 3 months ago and its been like this from then till now

[tmz]

Thaw /rinse frozen food with tap waterbefore feeding. There are a lot of nutrients in the packing water and the tap water will help control any harmfull bacteria.

At the risk of a great debate a uv sterilizer will cut down on glass cleaning considerably.

[jafish26]

i have a uv and dont feed frozen food much at all maybe once a month anthing else that would cause it?

[plyle02]

IMO, you have excess nutrients, more than likely your PO4 is higher than you think. Despite the fact that you run GFO in a reactor does not mean PO4 is not present in your tank. I would test with a high end test kit or Hanna Meter. Maybe it is time to change the media, increase reactor flow output, or increase the amount of GFO media. Just a thought. Also, what test kit are you using to test NO3? How many fish and how often and much do you feed? Good luck, and keep us posted....

[sgarron]

PO4 tested with Sera and Salifertm - 0
NO3 tested with Sera, Salifert and API - <5