Having an algae problem - brown brush algae

[LowCel]

I'm having a problem with my tank and I can't find any information on how to fix it. There is some green algae and a little algae on the glass, I'm not concerned about those too much. What I'm worried about is the brown brush algae. The only thing I have found has been to add some bristle nose plecos or Siamese algae eaters. Problem with that is that neither one would survive in my tank.

Here is the picture of the algae.

I have a 210 gallon tank with an Eheim 2028, Eheim 2229, and a Rena XP3. I am also using a Coralife 36 watt UV. I keep the tank at 80 degrees using a temperature controller.

I thought all of my readings were pretty good but the kits were pretty old. Just for the heck of it I purchased some new test strips just to make sure. I found out that the old kits weren't too accurate.

Here are the readings I took after doing a 50 gallon water change:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 80
Nitrite - 0
Hardness - 120
Alkalinity - 80
PH - 6.4

The tank has been set up at this house for a year. It has been set up a total of two years, it was only torn down for about five hours when I moved a year ago.

Do you all think these problems can be cured with frequent water changes or am I going to have to break down and use chemicals? I hate using chemicals with the exception of melafix and pimafix.

Here's a crappy picture of the tank, just wanted to show the occupants.

 

[LowCel]

Oops, just had it identified as black algae, guess that's even worse.

 

[HarleyK]

Howdy,

It's generally a sign of old/poor/inadequate lighting.

What's your lighting, and when was the last time you changed your bulb? The spectrum emitted by bulbs changes over time, which is not noticable visually, but enough for these algae to take off.

Your nitrates are also kinda high, try to at least double your water changes.

HarleyK

 

[LowCel]

That is way too easy, and to be honest makes me feel like an idiot. It didn't even occur to me. I just checked my lights and 2 of the 4 t5's are burnt out. The flourescents are working but that doesn't mean anything. All of them are at least two years old. I'm ordering some bulbs today!

I'm going to try to get in at least two but probably three 25% water changes a week for the next month or so until I get this under control. It isn't too easy to do right now though, setting here recovering from knee surgery. It's not easy doing a water change when on crutches.