is my skimmer causing this?

[dieselndixie]

well, as most of you know....I use a sea clown skimmer that is just not working anymore.

i am getting lots of algae on my glass....I can see all the snail trails on it...and the red algae/bacteria is coming back.

is this results of my crappy skimmer?

[caferacermike]

That's a tough call. Of course a good skimmer will help prevent that. I have a great skimmer but still deal with trace amount sof algae from time to time. Water changes work even better than skimmers. If the tank is over stocked or over fed skimming won't prevent algae. Also to low of flow in the tank will let algae grow. Is it the fault of the skimmer? Not sure. I'm not at your house watching you take care of the tank. A better skimmer could help.

[hammondegge]

do you have any nitrate? if it is above undetectable a new skimmer or less feeding may remedy your problem. a phosphate reactor may help too. but if it is not really bad then it may just be a cyclical bloom and will recede on its on.

oh and lights, did you change bulbs or increase your photo period?

[xcreonx]

Is it brown algae or green algae? I get phytoplankton growing on my glass pretty regularly. The green stuff is fine, your skimmer may or may not get rid of it. Brown stuff would certainly be taken care of with better water conditions, which a skimmer can help, just like frequent water changes.

[Kingfish]

This type of algae is very common. It is a simple single celled green alga or dinoflagellate. This may or may not be the case, but it is common in aquariums where fluorescent (or esp. PC) bulbs age and begin to emit more of a yellow to red spectrum than the blue/violet spectrum. If your white bulbs are over 10months or actinics/blue over 8 months I would suggest you change them. '

Check phosphate and run some carbon. These simple algaes can often bind to activated carbon. (Good carbon that is, like hydrocarbon2 by two little fishes)

[Crab Rangoon]

Water changes work even better than skimmers.

I never thought I'd see the day when you'd voice something like this! laughing6.gif

On topic... Brian said it better than I could, much more technical than I'd have mentioned, with the yellow to red spectrum bit. But I side with him, as I tend to tell most customers to save up for new PC bulbs at 7-8 months, as I strongly suggest they don't go 9-10 months with the same bulbs, as at that point they often do more bad than good.

[dieselndixie]

ya know, my daylights are about 7 months old...but there were "off brand" lights that came with the fixture.

I already replaced the actinics because they werent "blue" enough....i didnt even think about the fact that the daylights were probably crap also.

so I ordered the current bulbs 6700k/10000k

thanks, hope that is my fix.

...also ordered a new skimmer too.....couldnt make the euroreef happen, but went with a coralife 125.....sounded like a decent choice for the money

[Kingfish]

I like the current dual daylight alot, but i have found that their dual actinic (which is a good bulb) is not enough to balance out the dual daylight enough to give you that crisp "12000K ish" look that everyone is looking for. i would suggest that you buy an all true actinic that peaks at 460nm.

Yall will have to bear with me on the technical posts, its just that at macna everybody talked like a reef geek and it just rubbed off on me.