Jump to content
ReefCleaners.org

HELP! Algae bloom suspended in water, brown water


LittleFishy

Recommended Posts

LittleFishy

For the last ~9 months I have had this cloudy, brown water that will not go away. It is an algae bloom (I think a diatom of some kind) and I think i just have enough water movement and a large enough bloom to have it suspended in my water. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get rid of it so PLEASE HELP! There should be a picture of the tank and I also took a sample of water to work with me to look at it under a microscope (I work in a marine lab) and have added pictures of the cells too.

 

Background: RSM 130D

~35-40lbs live rock, assorted snails, sand sifting sea star, assorted soft corals, 2 clowns, 1 yellow tang (yes I know it is too small of a tank. I inherited all these fish plus a blue damsel in a BC14 so this is definitely an upgrade and is what I can afford right now. Please focus :) )

 

It has been going for 3 years. It went through an ugly hair algae stage for a couple months right after the cycle, but after that cleared up it ran beautifully for over 1.5 years. In late December 2013, we had a really bad ice storm that knocked out our power for 2 days and I don't have a generator and was visiting my family while it happened. Thanks to the heroics of my boyfriend, my fish and most of the coral survived. He pulled the fish and as much of the coral and rocks out as he could and put them in buckets to bring them somewhere with heat. I arrived home afterward and got everything introduced back into the tank slowly. It went through a cycle like I expected but it was much smaller of jumps than I expected so I was happy. It was looking good for 6 months and around June the bloom began. It showed up quickly and has been steadily ugly since then. The fish and corals seem to be acting normal and doing fine although I'm sure it is an unpleasant environment to live in.

 

Parameters:

Salinity: 1.026

pH: 8.6 (this is usually around 8.0-8.2 it has just recently gone up)

Alk: ~3.0 (this has also just recently gone up)

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 0

Phosphate: 0

Calcium: 500ppm

KH: 8 (143.2ppm)

 

In the back I have an inTank media basket with their filter floss pad and a 50 micron filter in the top, chemipure elite in the middle, and carbon and nitrasorb in the bottom. I have 5 mangrove seedlings doing very well, I got a small ball chaeto as one of my latest attempts to do something a couple months ago but that is still struggling right now. I tried some Marine SAT additive stuff that my LFS suggested but that was just a waste of money. For a couple months I did weekly 30% water changes and that did nothing. The bloom just came back full force the next day. I tried leaving the lights out for a couple days and that didn't help at all. My recent experiment is letting it go and doing 30% water changes once a month like I used to do to see if whatever is feeding it will become depleted, but that isn't working either. I use tap water with conditioner, but that is what I have always used in my 5 years of owning these fish and haven't had problems. I can't find anything online about changes to the town water supply so I don't think that's it.

photo%204.jpg

There are rocks and fish in there.

photo%202.jpg

Lower Mag. (100)

photo%201.jpg

Highest Mag. (500)

Link to comment
Markburns43

For the hell of it switch to ro water . Its the only thing you haven't done, and I think it took a long time to get like this, that's a terrible bloom. If its diatoms there feasting on silicates in the water

Link to comment
LittleFishy

That's the response I was expecting to get.

 

It really took just a couple weeks to look like this. I noticed a little brown on the rocks and then in the next week it got cloudier and cloudier and now I'm in this situation. I don't know why but it came on fast. UV sterilizer and RO water were what I was going to go with next. I wish someone has had this happen to them and will say it will go away if you just do... blank. I will keep this updated if anything changes. Also would love any more input.

 

And I forgot to say I feed sparingly every other day. flakes/pellets. Lights reduced to 9hours per day. temp 78.5-79.0

Link to comment
Markburns43

That's the gamble of using tap water, we have no way of saying 100 percent that is the cuase. But all the media your using your water change schedule how you feed, all exceptional. Its the only part of your tank that's not constant. Just out of curiosity is it municapal or well water?

Link to comment

Those look like diatoms to me, there is silica in your tap water. RODI or distilled. UV sterilizer could help but it isn't green which the UV usually helps with, I could be wrong on that.

Also a silica absorber resin is needed - I think Brightwell xtraphos comes with a silica remover.

Link to comment
CronicReefer

Extraxphos like metrokat said to remove silicate. You will probably need to replace it pretty often till you get it under control. Water changes with tap water will only make it worse.

Link to comment
  • 5 months later...

My bloom has cleared up! I apologize for the late response since it has been clear for some time now. I was told my landlord was going to sell my house and had to move so I took that chance to change all the water in the tank and try that method, but the algae came back just as strong as ever and two days after set up was just as bad as in the first picture. I used RO water and it didn't make a dent.

 

What worked: I finally gave in and bought a UV sterilizer and within 24 hours the bloom was gone. I left it running 24 hours/day for 1-2 weeks just to get it all. I turned it off about a month ago and I have had crystal clear water ever since. I just needed that to kill the algae to break the cycle. Thanks for the help everyone!

Link to comment

Glad you got it dead, naturally in the oceans there are animals to eat these things.

I'm thinking it could have also been a dinoflagellate, diatoms aren't usually spherical like yours.

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recommended Discussions

×
×
  • Create New...