Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

i have a twenty gallon high with two 65 watt power compacts in the fixture everyday when i get home i have algea build up on the sand in my tank, any solutions?

Increase the ph, and lower the nutrient level in the water.

Better skimmer or more water changes, or activated carbon will help lower the nutrients in the water. The algae can't grow so fast if it doesn't have an available food source.

I say increase PH, because higher ph helps precipatate phosphates out. I have no idea of your setup, but if you have corals and depending on how you are getting your calcium, you may think about kalkwasser. It will increase your PH and calcium which will really help bind phosphates and they will precipitate out as calcium phosphate.

Really it all boils down to you have to make the water an environment that makes it hard for the algae to grow in.

Hope that helps.... And Welcome to MBRK by the way.

I thought about it bro after we talked earlier, you could use a sea cucumber and when you get the pistol shrimp from me to go with the watchman it should help to keep the sand moved around a little more... also if nothing else you could try an engineer goby ... and for the phosphate thing you can use phosband for that... Rich sells it an progressive just ask him about it next time you go by there...

Carefull on the pistol shrimp, they dig a lot. I have had two in so many years and since they move around they burrow under the rocks a lot. My rock dropped about 3 inches during the 6 months I had one in the tank. Since the rocks did not drop evenly I had some rock fall and hit the glass, not an ideal thing.