The Green Lagoon (w/ pics)

Many of you have seen the disaster that became my tank.. but after a few days of skimming and micron filtering, it's starting to turn around...

The micron filter was a Marineland HOT, the skimmer was a Red Sea Pharm 90 skimmer. The first few days I was pulling out 2+ cups of green sludge a day. Now that it's looking better, I'm going to pull the micron filter and leave the HOT for just flow.

Most of the critters were removed to a hospital tank when the tank went south, so little was lost other then a few snails and hermits. Amazingly enough, the blue damsel survived through the whole ordeal.

Here are some shots:

Originally:

Green lagoon:

After skimming/filtering/~100g of water changes:

Hospital tank:

many of you may be wondering what happened.. the short of it is a phyto bloom after replacing color-shifted compacts...

I plan to let the tank sit for a week or so before re-transplanting the corals back in...

EL Niceo........Junko Rocko En El Tanko Dudder00........... WTF-0

sucxk ass........

FWIW. restack + add leik 15 + more pounds = to 20 Kg

ya ge kosher then with ./...........

seriously. Look at some other setups. get anidea. your stack is ok,

but........ it could be be better.

SPACE is all about it/ FLOW 2 =

HTH

well.. I've been planning a restack.. that tank actually has about 40# of rock in it (25H).. the problem I have with stacking rock in this tank is the vertical aspect. It doesn't look to be as full as it is... I was thinking to stack all the rock up one side..

The restack has begun:

I apologize for the poor quality but the water was a bit murky and I had to turn down the contrast or the glare off the glass would have been to much...

There are a few new pieces in there that are rather white because they have been out of the tank for a few months.. but should regrow quickly...

Wow! That sucks, but it's definitely looking better.

What kind of water do you use? I'd recomend distilled from your grocery store. I've been using it for over a year now with no problems. If you can figure out how to use a protien skimmer, I'm sure you know this by now.

Also, you might try getting some macro-algae. (seaweed) It'll eat up some of the nutrient that your green slime runs on. I've had a little sprig of brown seaweed(species?) that appeared on my live rock about a year ago. I don't run a skimmer or a micron filter and I've never had a problem like that.

By the way....how come some of the corals in your hospital tank are suspended in the middle? ??? Is there some kind of clear plastic shelf there? It looks weird.

I used a skimmer and micron to eliminate the suspended green algae.. I do have macro, didn't seem to do much - my rock also has a twig of brown kelp.. I currently use Arrowhead distilled until my xmas present arrives (a three stage RO/DI unit)

The "magic" corals are sitting on top of an upside down breeder box.. I wanted to elevate them a bit closer to the light, although the box doesn't really get them all THAT much closer.. room was also a factor, so I can sit my GOB on the edge, and he hangs over a bit, but seems happy...

Awesome. I see my JEDI mind trick worked.

if you open the lower area up a tad more, you will get a convection current. you will see MUCH better water flow.

PS: for those who DON'T know it, I was KIDDING in my first post here in this thread

just stare at my sig...... and fer get lolz

So all you did was replace some bulbs and your tank turned into a phyto-farm? I bet your feather duster was loving it. You should have turned it into a sponge/gorgonian tank.

Originally posted by Dave ESPI

if you open the lower area up a tad more, you will get a convection current. you will see MUCH better water flow.

The bottom right of the tank, or just the bottom all around.. It's hard to tell, but the bottom right pieces is actually one huge chunk.. about 15#.. I suppose I could move, or remove, the tonga jutting out.. that would open it a bit more.. although, I do kinda like having that branch there... it provides me a ledge to put some high flow, high light corals.. maybe I'll pull it and just see how it looks.. can't hurt..

Originally posted by Dave ESPI

PS: for those who DON'T know it, I was KIDDING in my first post here in this thread

Bah.. they just don't know how to appreciate your own special way of saying things..

Originally posted by Korbin

So all you did was replace some bulbs and your tank turned into a phyto-farm?  I bet your feather duster was loving it.   You should have turned it into a sponge/gorgonian tank.

Yup.. pretty much.. although, I was also dosing addatives, so it could've been a combination of the two.. either way.. it was bad.. since then I've stopped dosing, but I do notice that occationally the water gets a bit foggy, and I can tell the phyto is coming back, so I drop the skimmer in for a day or so and it cleans it right up (the tank is empty of corals except a few zoos at the moment - so nothing to keep it in check really)...

It would've been clam heaven as well.. I've been contemplating getting one just to keep the phyto from exploding again.. but I haven't got the proper lighting for critter, and wouldn't want it to suffer (25H, 3 x 55w - 10k, 50/50, 03)..

I also thought about skimming the crap off, bottling it, and selling it as X's Phytoplankton.. but you know.. the market is saturated as it is

Have you tested your phos and nitrate levels...I bet your tap in combo with the dying matter and dosing you have done is causing alot of the nutrients. Another way to combat this is to remove all light dependant organisms and kill the lights for a while...or by intruducing a bunch of macro algae.

well.. the problem is pretty much gone.. I just posted this just to show what it was and what I did to get rid of it.. I've done the testing.. the lights out.. stopped dosing... larger, more frequent water changes.. added a skimmer and micron filter... removed the light dependant corals.. put macro in.. I've done it all.. I have it under control.. I just figured it might be of interest to people who may have similar problems, or newbies who might encounter it..

Your aquascaping looks as good as mine does. Rock on!

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/showthread...=&threadid=7823