Algae bloom in dirted tank:(

Hi everyone,

Well as you read I have an algae bloom...green water:(
My tank isn't too new. I converted my tank to dirt a month ago and all is going good. All water parameters are great, fish are great. Plants are reproducing and growing like crazy. I recently updated my lighting, I had only 32 watts on my 55 gallon. Less than 1 watt per gallon. The bulb was a florasun bulb 6500 K.
Now I have 128 watts over the tank and has been for roughly a week. And of course the lighting change must have sparked a bloom. Darn!
What I've done so far over the last two days is 2 50% water changes, keeping the lights off for the most part and during the day keeping my tank covered with a towel. There has been little improvement.
Was wondering if anyone has any suggestions?

In the tank I have approximately the following plants:
2 Anubias
4 bunches of hornwort
20-25 jungle val stems
20 or so dwarf sag that are pushing up lots of runners
4 spiralis plants
2 crypts
2 anarchias (I think that's spelled wrong)
A few pieces of water sprite and lugwegia
A lily
Some of the bulb plants apagotem (spelled wrong)
2 java fern
5-6 swords
So I feel like my tank is well planted? Which should combat the algae but isn't at the moment.
I removed a bulb from light too so now I have around 96 watts.
Thanks everyone!

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Comment by Luke Newcomb on January 8, 2013 at 6:23pm: I had an algae bloom and this is what I did, cover your tank completely for 3 days. absolutely no light can get in during this time. use a blanket and/or black trash bags. after the 3 days do a couple of water changes and empty your filter boxes. bump back the time your lights are on, maybe 5-6 hrs till you can figure out a good balance with your new lights. This worked for me, hope it works for you.

Comment by Peter on January 8, 2013 at 7:31pm: What Luke said Green water happens when u run your lights for too long. Do a 2-3 day blackout on ur tank and follow Luke's instructions. Also for measuring light dont go by wpg. http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=184368

Comment by GSP on January 8, 2013 at 11:04pm: You should have adjusted the new light intensity slowly... This green pea soup can occur simply from replacing a couple old bulbs to new bulbs, let alone going from a single t8 bulb to 128W of new bulbs!

The methods above will work, but a uv sterilizer will destroy it. The dirt in your tank will make it very difficult to get rid of as it feeds the algae.

Daphnia also eats it.