Water is green! What do I do?

[nilestr]

I have been setting up a 90 gallon tank and have been curing 60 pounds of live rock for the last 3 weeks. Everything was going fine I guess. Ammonia spiked at 7ppm then slowly started falling. I left for a business trip last week and the ammonia was 3ppm. I came home to a completely green aquarium. There was hair algea all over the glass and the water was so green I couldn't see more than 3 inches into the tank. The live rock has no hair algea on it though. Seemed odd.
I tested the water and the ammonia was now testing 0. I didn't even test the nitrate/nitrite cause I am sure it is off the chart. My coepod population has gone nuts. I have never seen so many. Must be 100 per square inch.

Anyway what is the deal with the algea? Is it normal, will it go away, what do I do? It look terrible.

 

[King Jason]

Algae is normal, and green algae is a good sign if it's a new tank. What type of water did you use? RO/DI? I would test the Nitrite and Nitrate to see what might be going on. Do a big water change and see if that helps. Also, what kind of lighting are you using? Is the tank next to a window?

 

[olgakurt]

The water probably won't test high because all the algae is sucking up the nutrients. I would agree on a change with clean water. I'd also try to get some macro algae in the tank to shade out/compete with the hair algae. Once that stuff gets hold it's hard to eradicate.
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