Water gone mad!

[swampy.1972]

Hi guys.
I could really use your experience here, as I've set up a new system and the water has quality has gone mad.
I have two 200lt tanks on a common sump tank holding a few hundred bio balls under about 3 inches of increasingly dense foam. It turns over at approx 2000lt/hr.
It was half filled with water from my existing tank and left to run for about three weeks with about 12 tetras in there before I added the Discus from the existing, smaller setup.
All seemed good for the first couple of weeks until a major Nitrite/Ammonia spike (obviously the sump media wasn't matured), but know I have an algae bloom.
I've lost count of how many 50% water changes I've done in this time! The water quality has stabilised now but I still have the algae... help?

[ILLUSN]

a uv sterilizer would be the easiest solution, an algal bloom isn't so bad, algae consumes ammonia NO3 and NO2, if your system isn't cycled the lgal bloom is actually helping you.

your going to have to keep doing big changes for the next few months, just remember if you do a 50% change your only removing 1/2 the ammonia, if you can step it up to a 90% change you'll remove 90% of the ammonia.

[swampy.1972]

Thanks ILLUSN. Will do..

[ozarowana]

Prime and salt are also your friends.