Origami December 5, 2012 December 5, 2012 Cloudy like a bacterial bloom? Sand / particulates? Did you test for nitrates? Have you dosed anything recently?
MBVette December 5, 2012 Author December 5, 2012 (edited) Just tested nitrates and they are at about 1 (I suck at reading color charts) Not sure what a bacteria bloom looks like. It's almost foggy in there. I have not dosed it added anything into the tank. My corals, shrimp, and 2 clowns are still doing good. Had a couple snails die,but nothing really dramatic. I'm guessing the snail seats are due to I didn't have enough algae and they starved? I have hair algae now but not much wlse Edited December 5, 2012 by MBVette
Origami December 5, 2012 December 5, 2012 Not sure what a bacteria bloom looks like. It's almost foggy in there. I have not dosed it added anything into the tank. My corals, shrimp, and 2 clowns are still doing good. Had a couple snails die,but nothing really dramatic. The nitrates are being taken up by the algae, I guess. Some inverts are more sensitive to high nitrates - that may be behind the snail loss, but it could also be food or acclimation issues. A bacterial bloom can look like somebody poured milk in the tank. When it's bad, you can't even see the back of the tank. Expect low oxygen in these situations. Keep your skimmer running to force more oxygen in the water. What changed recently - just before the foggy water?
MBVette December 5, 2012 Author December 5, 2012 Nothing that I can think off. I added some new corals over the weekend so disturbed the sand bed a little, but can't imagine that caused much since the sand bed is so new. The skimmer neck got overly dirty bc I needed to clean the swabbie. So the skimmer didn't pull anything for a couple days also.
Coral Hind December 6, 2012 December 6, 2012 It sounds like a bacteria bloom. The same bacteria we need to convert ammonia can multiply fast while free floating in the water which makes it cloudy. They normally do this when new tanks are starting the cycle and the bacteria population is high, or when sand beds are disturbed releasing stuff into the water column, or something dies providing ammonia. It normally runs a course and crashes after a few days. What ammonia reading do you have?
MBVette December 6, 2012 Author December 6, 2012 I have not tested for ammonia in the last few days. I'll check in the morning,should I expect something other than 0 ammonia?
Origami December 6, 2012 December 6, 2012 My guess is that the ammononia spike has probably passed given the time that it's taken to grow all the algae that he described. But a bacterial bloom seems likely. Normally it passes over a few days but, Mike, how long did you say it's been cloudy? Also, given the sensitivity of inverts to water quality, hold off on the turbos until this cycle has passed. Manual removal of the algae is a great way to export the nitrogen tied up in the plant material.
MBVette December 6, 2012 Author December 6, 2012 I first noticed it slightly cloudy sunday, probably at its worst now. The green hair algae is all very long strands, some 3" long and its all over the tank. I can definitly get in there and pull some out.
zygote2k December 6, 2012 December 6, 2012 If you let hair algae grow without current, it resembles an enormous fern. I let it grow 8" once in a tank, then got a Two-Barred Rabbitfish who made short work out of it in 2 days.
MBVette December 6, 2012 Author December 6, 2012 ok so this morning I just checked the amonia and it is coming out at 0. I also just did a 40g water change and making more water now to do another water change tomorrow.
Origami December 6, 2012 December 6, 2012 What's the reason behind the large water changes? The algae might actually be cleaning up what you have in the tank.
MBVette December 6, 2012 Author December 6, 2012 Well 40 gallon is my normal change, and I do that about every 10 days. I was thinking about doing another 40 facilitate cleaning out whatever is in the water. You think I should hold off on the second change tomorrow?
MBVette December 7, 2012 Author December 7, 2012 So this hair algae is out of hand. The cloudiness seems to have gone away and the water is clear again. I have not fed the fish in 2 days now b/c Im trying to make sure I am not overfeeding now. The most recent test shows 0 ammonia, 0 nitrate, .04 phosphate. The nitrates have dropped from about 1 to 0 in the last day, which could since the cleaning of the skimmer and the water change. But the phosphates have gone from .02 to .04 in the last day. Here is what the tank looks like now
Origami December 7, 2012 December 7, 2012 Manually harvest what you can. Believe it or not, all that algae is cleaning your water up right now. Phosphates can be pulled using GFO, but since you've got nitrates, let the algae do it. It should pull both from the water. Do you have a macroalgae fuge on this system?
Ryan S December 7, 2012 December 7, 2012 Where is the rock from? Did you cook it? My rock looked like that from BRS because I didn't cook it. I borred a sea hare for a week and he mowed it all down. You may want to try one of those for a week or two, then pass it on once the HA is all gone.
MBVette December 7, 2012 Author December 7, 2012 Tom, I tried manually harvesting it and the algae is so fine I can barely get anything off of the rocks. It's all Marco rock, I started with Marco last time and didn't have a problem. I have bio pellets but the are not rolling very well right now so I need to open the reactor and see what's going on in there. I added 10 Mexican turbos today so I am going to see what happens over the weekend, if they don't look like they are doing anything I will see of anyone has a sea hare I can borrow.
GraffitiSpotCorals December 7, 2012 December 7, 2012 I bet thoes turbos slaughter any algae in the tank, and then after its gone 8 die and you will have two left.
Origami December 7, 2012 December 7, 2012 Give the 8 away before they die. Otherwise, they just release the nutrients right back into the water column!
MBVette December 7, 2012 Author December 7, 2012 If they actually do mow down this hair I will find someone who wants a few. Bc you are right, at this point the tank can not feed many turbos
zygote2k December 8, 2012 December 8, 2012 The HA looks normal to me. If you hadn't bought corals, you could let the HA grow for several weeks to completion of the Algal Cycle, then buy a Herbivore of some sort. Invertebrate herbs will most likely die at this point, so don't kill them unnecessarily. Patience young grasshopper!
MBVette December 8, 2012 Author December 8, 2012 So rob in the meanwhile. How do you think I should keep it in check?
epleeds December 8, 2012 December 8, 2012 Looks like ur coming along nice. Just tell the kids it's sea grass. They don't know any better. Hahah
MBVette June 11, 2013 Author June 11, 2013 So its been quite awhile since I have any type of update on the tank. Well it has stabelized out and it has been running w/o issue for the last couple months. Now the corraline is taking off and the one piece of sps I have has suddenly started to encrust pretty quickly. I am running carbon and GFO in reactors and have a kalk reactor running as well. The fish I currently have: Yellow Tang Purple Tang Hippo Tang Pair of Swallowtail Angels Foxface Exquisite Wrasse Solon Wrasse Lubbocks Wrasse Pair of Rhomboid Wrasse Pair of Ocellarus Clowns Diamond Goby Pink Spotted watchman & tiger pistol Some skunk and fire cleaner shimp Here are a few pics of the tank currently
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