JoeDaddy February 5, 2008 Share February 5, 2008 I started to get either Diatom or Cyanobacteria. I have a protein skimmer and perform 20% weekly water changes with RODI water. I have hermits, cerith snails, necessarius snails and a few turbo snails. They seem to get eaten overnight when I wake up in the morning but when I come back to work they are back! After reading a few websites, it was recommended that additional skimming is needed or that the Bioballs, Sponges and other filter media in my Wet/Dry is causing the growth. Any thoughts on just dumping the bioballs and removing the sponge in my Wet/Dry and completely using the Berlin method and merely skimming in the sump? ~JoeDAddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawns February 5, 2008 Share February 5, 2008 WHAT KIND/HOW MUCH SUSTRATE IS IN THE TANK?? WHAT IS YOUR FEEDING SCEDULE LIKE?? SORRY CAPS LOCK IS ON AND IM NOT GOING TO RETYPE, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djcerna February 5, 2008 Share February 5, 2008 Check your nitrates. If they are high then usually your overfeeding and removal of your nitrates by refugium or major water changes are needed. david Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawns February 5, 2008 Share February 5, 2008 Check your nitrates. If they are high then usually your overfeeding and removal of your nitrates by refugium or major water changes are needed. david this too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami February 5, 2008 Share February 5, 2008 Bioballs and your sponge filter are notorious contributors to high nitrates in the water column. Removing them is a good idea but do it in stages so that the biological filtration in your live rock and sand bed can develop to accomodate the extra load. Nitrates and DOCs (dissolved organic compounds) may be behind your cyano bloom. Apparently all new tanks go through it. I'm going through it myself now (hopefully at the tail end of it, too). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeDaddy February 7, 2008 Author Share February 7, 2008 (edited) Bioballs and your sponge filter are notorious contributors to high nitrates in the water column. Removing them is a good idea but do it in stages so that the biological filtration in your live rock and sand bed can develop to accomodate the extra load. Nitrates and DOCs (dissolved organic compounds) may be behind your cyano bloom. Apparently all new tanks go through it. I'm going through it myself now (hopefully at the tail end of it, too). Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions. I have a 55 Gallon with a 3" sandbed and about 75+ lbs worth of live rock. After much deliberation, I decided to turn my Amiracle SL-50 into a sump. I removed all of the bioballs (since I thought my live rock can handle the change) and in the first chamber moved my skimmer and used the second chamber as the return. I also did a 10% water change, changed the sponge and installed a phosphate filter. I'll give updates today when I get home to see if it has improved. Edited February 7, 2008 by JoeDaddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharkb8 February 7, 2008 Share February 7, 2008 Welcome to the group! I am not too far from you (Springfield). One thing to remember, nothing good in this hobby happens fast, generally speaking. I would not try to do too much too quickly or expect too much of an immediate result. Steady and cautious is the best. If your solution does not work right away, give it some time. Other ideas - make sure there is good water flow near the areas generating the cyano and diatom, etc. Check your bulbs - are they getting old? Also, perhaps review/reconsider your feeding schedule/habbits and look for any excess. Also remember to remove the phosphate sponge at least by 48 hrs or it will tend to just dump the excess phosphate back into the tank (re-equilibrate). Come to the meeting and get some macroalgea to hang in your tank. This will also act to "soak up" excess nutrients in the tank. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeDaddy February 8, 2008 Author Share February 8, 2008 (edited) Welcome to the group! I am not too far from you (Springfield). One thing to remember, nothing good in this hobby happens fast, generally speaking. I would not try to do too much too quickly or expect too much of an immediate result. Steady and cautious is the best. If your solution does not work right away, give it some time. Other ideas - make sure there is good water flow near the areas generating the cyano and diatom, etc. Check your bulbs - are they getting old? Also, perhaps review/reconsider your feeding schedule/habbits and look for any excess. Also remember to remove the phosphate sponge at least by 48 hrs or it will tend to just dump the excess phosphate back into the tank (re-equilibrate). Come to the meeting and get some macroalgea to hang in your tank. This will also act to "soak up" excess nutrients in the tank. Tom Hi Tom, I guess I need more patience and wanted to phase out the Bioballs but I couldn't help myself! Here's an update though; when I got home there was new growth as I tried to clean up the existing algae last night. However, all of the corals looks healthier and vibrant with color! I need to check my nitrate levels but removing the balls and putting the phosphate and the new sponge seemed to have even made my water less yellowish and somewhat more clearer. I'll check the water levels and post them here later. Edited February 8, 2008 by JoeDaddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami February 8, 2008 Share February 8, 2008 (edited) Removing the bioballs, in the long run, is a good thing. The reason for advising the slow removal is because they provided a large base of aerobic bacteria that converted ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrates. Because of the way they're built, you don't have the anaerobic bacteria population here, however, to break the nitrates down. That's why it all ends up in your water column. Now, when you remove the bioballs quickly, you remove some of your tank's capacity to deal with the ammonia and nitrite loads. While this might stop some of the nitrate production, it also removes some of the capacity to deal with the ammonia and nitrite. The consequence, then, can be an ammonia spike followed by a nitrite spike because the tank's biological filter (live rock and sand) has insufficient capacity (because it was not given the time to build up by removing the bioballs in stages). Going slow in this hobby is generally good advice. Unless there's a real crisis, it's easy to do more harm than good by making quick changes. Another thing to note. If your tank water was yellowed, it was probably because you had a buildup of dissolved organic compounds (DOCs) that could be the consequence of overfeeding, overstocking, or inadequate skimming. Carbon is often used to "polish" the water - removing some of these DOCs after skimming. Again, caution is advised, when clarifying yellowed water. If your water was significantly yellowed, then cleaning it up quickly can effectively deliver far more light into your tank than its inhabitants are used to, creating problems in the short term. You may want to consider backing off your photoperiod a bit and increasing it a little each day until you're back to where you want to be. Edited February 8, 2008 by Origami2547 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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