HELP nasty algae

Do you have lots of liverock? That beats out bioballs anyday

 

Like everyone else is saying use live rock and rubble the more pouris the rock the better. I would recomend bali rock.

 

I am going to ask another question. When I moved everything from my 55 to my 100 it looked good at first but did not take long to get an algae bloom. I also noticed an increase in bristle worms. My problem was that I did not have a suficiant CUC and I did not completley rinse the sand before adding it to my 100, I added about 60 lbs of new sand. I have been making changes slowly to my tank and one of them was a phosfate reactor, got it for $30. In the reactor I run phosban and charcoal. I change it every week. My algae is going away and even my corals look better. I found out that if phosfate is even presant at all it will cause a problem. My tank was getting HA so bad I thought about bailing it, LOL. I have also added a tang to help clean this up.
I have not been reefing for a long time but I have found that almost all of the problems seem to have a simple cause to them. It is also common that a simple answer is the key. I think that when we start making big changes and trying all sorts of different things to fix one problem we cause more problems or at least make the first problem worse. In the case of algae during an outbreak I will do nothing for at least two weeks except more water changes and media changes. I will however look into what the algae feeds on, nitrates and phosfates. They have to get food from somewhere. Once I have located there food source then it is a two option deal, first is the source going to be continious and need to be changed to correct the problem and second will the food source "dry" up and starve the algae in which case you would do nothing.
Now this is from my experiance only and I am not an expert. It is also possible that your city has done work on the water system and stirred up a bunch of stuff. I really hope this helps you out, Shaun

 

^ditto....And Shaun your gfo will be much more efficent if you don't run charcoal with it. The gfo is designed to roll and the carbon effects that motion. Either way works, just might help cut costs down.