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29 gallon: R.E.E.F Tank


EthanPhillyCheesesteak

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4 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I’ve heard that UV lights do work. How low should I lower my temp? I just don’t know where the green water came from. My tank has been established for more than 2 years

What is it at now? Only a few Degree's F I would think. I dropped mine from 78 to 72 (2.5G tank and this temp drop was the smallest I could manage)

 

From what I can gather the green water is Phyto so it will be using up the oxygen in the water.  Increasing surface agitation and dropping temp will give the water more ability to hold onto the oxygen and not mess with your fish and corals. 

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26 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I’ve heard that UV lights do work. How low should I lower my temp? I just don’t know where the green water came from. My tank has been established for more than 2 years

have you switched up your food offerings recently or started using any type of supplements?

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak
59 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

What is it at now? Only a few Degree's F I would think. I dropped mine from 78 to 72 (2.5G tank and this temp drop was the smallest I could manage)

 

From what I can gather the green water is Phyto so it will be using up the oxygen in the water.  Increasing surface agitation and dropping temp will give the water more ability to hold onto the oxygen and not mess with your fish and corals. 

My temp is at 79 right now. I’ll have to turn on both my wavemakers when I get home to increase the top water agitation. 

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak
39 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

have you switched up your food offerings recently or started using any type of supplements?

No I haven’t switched up my food recently. I always feed a mix of mysis, brine shrimp, and flake when I’m in a hurry. I’m still trying to figure out my bar gobys eating schedule, so I think I did feed more heavily last week than I usually do. Could over feeding cause this? 

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak

Ok so I lowered the temp in my tank from 79 degrees to 74 degrees. I also left my wavemakers on all day and night. It seems to be helping my water looks a lot clearer already. I also pulled out my old protein skimmer and plugged that in to see if that would help, and wow did it go into overdrive. It filled up its first cap of gunk in like 10 minutes.

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak

So I got home last night hoping that my tank wasn’t as green and cloudy, but it looked the same as when I left that morning. My protein skimmer is pulling some excess nutrients out of the water, and I have a lot of top water movement as well. I lowered the temp in the tank. And today I’m also leaving my lights off for a day to see if that helps.

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak

What else can I do? I really need to get rid of this? It’s making my nems angry and I haven’t even seen my Haitian nem or my bar goby or gold nugget maroon clown in like a week bc I can’t see towards the back of the tank. I just throw some mysis in there and hope that they are finding some. Just what can I do? This is kinda scaring me. The only coral that I can tell that is being affected from this is my setosa. He’s loosing flesh and I don’t know why.

My monti cap and birdsnest are doing good tho, as well as my other corals

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Bacterial blooms or phytoplankton blooms can suffocate fish so I would be keeping a close eye on them.

 

The cause in an established tank is a build up of organics somwhere (like a dirty sand bed) or overfeeding or something is dead or dying or too much bioload. 

 

Besides finding the trigger and removing whatever the bacteria/plankton are feeding on....the quick fix is a UV sterilizer. A green machine or something.

 

 

 

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak
1 minute ago, Tamberav said:

Bacterial blooms or phytoplankton blooms can suffocate fish so I would be keeping a close eye on them.

 

The cause in an established tank is a build up of organics somwhere (like a dirty sand bed) or overfeeding or something is dead or dying or too much bioload. 

 

Besides finding the trigger and removing whatever the bacteria/plankton are feeding on....the quick fix is a UV sterilizer. A green machine or something.

 

 

 

Yea I was thinking about getting one of those. Hopefully it isn’t too expensive. Idk what could’ve died. It could possibly be my Haitian nem. I haven’t been able to see him in about a week and I tried to feel my hand around the spot where he was last at and I couldn’t feel him at all. So idk where he could be, bc I also couldn’t see. He was fine the day before this happened 

And I feel like a dead nem would be making my water toxic. Nothing is dying in my tank

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak
6 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Meh... anemones can die in a tank and nothing gets nuked.... just increased organics. 

Oh, I never knew that. Well hopefully when I get home my water may have gotten better, but if it didn’t then I’m gonna get a uv filter. I’ll try to find him when I get home too. I’m also really worried about 2 of my fish. My bar goby and my maroon clown. I haven’t seen them, but I can’t see all the way to the back. I can only see about half way into the tank

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Pictures would help... you know that. 

 

If you can't see through your tank, that's pretty bad... it's not like you have a huge tank to begin with... 

 

When was your last water change? What are your parameters? Come on, man, you know these basic things... 🙄

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mitten_reef
35 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

Oh, I never knew that. Well hopefully when I get home my water may have gotten better, but if it didn’t then I’m gonna get a uv filter. I’ll try to find him when I get home too. I’m also really worried about 2 of my fish. My bar goby and my maroon clown. I haven’t seen them, but I can’t see all the way to the back. I can only see about half way into the tank

So you can’t even see through 5-6” beyond the front glass? And you still haven’t thought of doing a water change?  Are you cleaning your glass?  stop asking dumb questions and start doing water change, c’mon, have some common sense. 

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak
16 minutes ago, mitten_reef said:

So you can’t even see through 5-6” beyond the front glass? And you still haven’t thought of doing a water change?  Are you cleaning your glass?  stop asking dumb questions and start doing water change, c’mon, have some common sense. 

Bru, I said a while back that I was doing water changes. It’s not helping. I haven’t seen it helping at all. I’ve done about a 25% water change 2 or 3 times a week. 

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak
38 minutes ago, kimberbee said:

Pictures would help... you know that. 

 

If you can't see through your tank, that's pretty bad... it's not like you have a huge tank to begin with... 

 

When was your last water change? What are your parameters? Come on, man, you know these basic things... 🙄

Last water change was last night. It was a 25 % water change. Or around there. I changed 6 gallons of water. 

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak
39 minutes ago, kimberbee said:

Pictures would help... you know that. 

 

If you can't see through your tank, that's pretty bad... it's not like you have a huge tank to begin with... 

 

When was your last water change? What are your parameters? Come on, man, you know these basic things... 🙄

I tested params two days ago. My ph was 8.2, ammonia was 0, nitrite was 0, and nitrate was around the 2.0 mark. As I said everything in the tank is fine. All my livestock is doing good. 

I didn’t test alk, Calc, or mag yet bc I didn’t think those could be causing this. My salinity is 1.026

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak

Ill see if I can get some pictures. My phone’s camera isn’t working, so I’m gonna have to use my iPad. I accidentally hit my phones camera at lacrosse practice.

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mitten_reef
2 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I tested params two days ago. My ph was 8.2, ammonia was 0, nitrite was 0, and nitrate was around the 2.0 mark. As I said everything in the tank is fine. All my livestock is doing good. 

Pretty sure you just said you haven’t seen your nem and two fish in a few days on this very same page. 
 

what about sand, how often do you clean the sand during water change? Honestly I don’t know what could cause a bloom so bad you can’t see thru the haze. I’d have done 50% or more wc and do them more often if I had to until the bloom subsides a bit. Oh and look for dead stuff like @Tamberav had mentioned. 
 

you’re using HOB right? How’s the flow through the filter, with all the muck in there, do you change the floss/media daily?  Is it filtering as it’s supposed to?  
 

 

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27 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

Bru, I said a while back that I was doing water changes. It’s not helping. I haven’t seen it helping at all. I’ve done about a 25% water change 2 or 3 times a week. 

What salt are you using 

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ECLS Reefer
32 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

Last water change was last night. It was a 25 % water change. Or around there. I changed 6 gallons of water. 

I don’t think 6 gallons from a 29g tank is 25% 🤔 You probably need to pull more out than that, and you may even have to do it daily. I got a bacterial bloom in my freshwater tank and I had to do daily changes for quite a while and ended up getting a UV filter. You may need to get on that more statly than you are if you want your animals to survive. This blooms been going on for over a week now if I recall and it’s been suggested more frequent changes and UV sterilizer from early on. I hope your delay hasn’t cost you any fish.

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ECLS Reefer
34 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I tested params two days ago. My ph was 8.2, ammonia was 0, nitrite was 0, and nitrate was around the 2.0 mark. As I said everything in the tank is fine. All my livestock is doing good. 

I didn’t test alk, Calc, or mag yet bc I didn’t think those could be causing this. My salinity is 1.026

You’ve said how many times you can’t find or see your maroon clown, Haitian nem nor barred goby but yet all your animals are good? Dude. Denial kills. You need to develop a more proactive sense of urgency when dealing with problems in your tank.

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Water changes won't help an aggressive bloom as far as lowering bacteria...the type that causes these blooms can duplicate so fast you would need a constant water change going.  

 

It will probably help correct parameters of those are off. 

 

You need to find the source of what the bacteria are feeding on...a UV would be the only other quick help.

 

If you can find the source then a UV will probably be a waste of money as this is something that should be corrected if the cause is found.

 

My bet is a dirty sand bed or a dead anenome. If you have to drain the tank to find it then so be it.

 

Having not seen your fish is a bit alarming as blooms can suffocate them.


 

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak
18 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Water changes won't help an aggressive bloom as far as lowering bacteria...the type that causes these blooms can duplicate so fast you would need a constant water change going.  

 

It will probably help correct parameters of those are off. 

 

You need to find the source of what the bacteria are feeding on...a UV would be the only other quick help.

 

If you can find the source then a UV will probably be a waste of money as this is something that should be corrected if the cause is found.

 

My bet is a dirty sand bed or a dead anenome. If you have to drain the tank to find it then so be it.

 

Having not seen your fish is a bit alarming as blooms can suffocate them.


 

Ok so I’m getting a uv filter. I have also finally found my maroon clown and bar goby. The maroon clown was just hanging with my carpet nem and the bar goby was just hanging towards the back of the tank. The only thing I haven’t been able to find yet was the Haitian nem. I’m trying to find him. I’m probably gonna have to drain my water like your said to find it. I’d hate to do that, but if I have to then I will

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