Phytoplankton bloom or what?

[Alexraptor]

I restarted my reef tank a couple of weeks ago after a major tank crash.

After two weeks of cycling after i determined the water parameters had stabilized i transferred the livestock over. A bit rash maybe but it was an emergency.

 

Anyhow now something very wierd seems to be going on, the sides of the aquarium are covered in a thick layer of green film algae as is the water surface, and the water of the tank is lightly cloudy/misty.

I used RO water as a source, ive tested the tank for Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and Phosphates and all check out.

The first two are non existant, Nitrates are a little under 10ppm and the phosphates are non existant as well.

The Phosphate and Nitrate tests were also taken at 3am in the morning, hours after lights off in order to get as accurate readings as possible.

Livestock seems very healthy otherwise, corals, Goby, hermits, whelks.

 

Frankly, i'm at a loss, the only thing i can think of is either its a generic algae bloom in which case im not sure what to do about it or i am having a phytoplankton bloom, no idea which as ive never experienced anything like this.

However i am using Nature's Ocean, Bio-Active live aragonite, considering that it claims to be collected and packed on the ocean floor it might be slightly possible it contained trace amounts of photplankton that have now bloomed, though its purely speculation.

 

Anyone have any ideas?

[stingythingy45]

Sounds like "green water"or water born algae bloom.

I had something similar happen in a QT tank that I was running hypo.

You might want to shut the light down for 3-5 days.Also,I f you have a UV sterizer or can borrow one it will clear up in about 48 hrs.

[Alexraptor]

How harmful is the algae bloom or is it just a nuisance?

Because i rather not shut down the lights just yet as some of my corals were stressed/damaged considerably when my tank crashed. So if possible i want to get them to recover somewhat more first.

[Mr. Fosi]

Since the algae appears to be green, I would say that it is only a nuisance. If it were brown or red floating algae, there would be a remote possibly of harm.

 

Grab an HOB filter or a cannister out of your fish stuff and stuff it full of filter floss then drop it on the tank. That will clear up the water but it won't solve your problem, which is too many nutrients.

[stingythingy45]

How harmful is the algae bloom or is it just a nuisance?

Because i rather not shut down the lights just yet as some of my corals were stressed/damaged considerably when my tank crashed. So if possible i want to get them to recover somewhat more first.

 

Ifit's truely a green water algae bloom you'll have it clear for less than 4-8 hrs. after a water change.Then it will return to the same green color and just a much.The only thing I've heard that this will do is deplete oxygen levels in the tank.Also can block a lot of useable light from the tank.

 

Fosi's idea of using floss in a canister filter or HOB will work to get a lot of it.

But you can't use the normal filter material.You have to have something that is very dense and tightly woven.

I've heard of some hobbyest using cotton balls.

[Mr. Fosi]

When users on this site say "filter floss" what they generally mean is "polyester fiber" usually of the Morninglory brand that you can find in the fabric/craft section of your local Walmart.

 

That is a fairly dense material that is very good at removing even the smallest water particles.

[Alexraptor]

So i guess the correct approach to this problem then would be filter out the existing algae from the water column, cut back on feeding and keep up with the weekly water changes?

[Mr. Fosi]

That approach will work so long as your source water has no detectable nutrients.

[Alexraptor]

this is worrysome... i just did a test today on my RO water, seems there are slight amounts of Nitrate in it, a little under 5ppm.