Neon blue skimmate

[incapearl]

Hey all...I just emptied my skimmate and it was neon blue. Never had that before. Does anybody know why? Or anybody else ever had wierd color skimmate before? My system has been up for over a year. Its a 135gal w/ sump. Nothin special. I manually add calcium and food for coral once in a while. I have 7 fish; psudochromis, 2 blue damsels, yellow tang, powder blue tang, fox face, and a six line. I feed them only once a day (formula 2).Corals are a big toad stool, GSP, Xenia, kenya tree and assort mush. I have noticed that my GSP isn't open in some spots lately though. My lighting is 520 watts of PC. Never had any problems with my system. levels look okay. Any thoughts??

thanks Ian

[Chaotic Reefer4u]

wow, never heard of neon blue skimmate before? you might have the rare skimmate juice everyones been looking for.

[Ron S.]

Is your skimmer a needle wheel skimmer? Maybe a mushroom went thru the pump. Just a thought.

[lovethereefer]

thats some nasty koolaid

[Zoos]

alien juice!

[know-it-all]

what kind of Calcium do you add?

[Ti]

got pics?

[tangwang]

two things come to mind. Copper, and zooxanthellae expelled by corals....


Matt

[know-it-all]

I was thinking more along the lines of more calcium is being added than the system can use.
especialy if your using the "blue" seachem calcium

[NoSchwag]

I want to see pics, i'm a non-believer.

[wahshk]

Are you using Kent Essential Elements, it is neon blue too?

[incapearl]

I'm using kent marine concentrated liquid calcium. The color of the liquid calcium that I am adding is clear. The stuff that you just find at Pets Mart. Been using it the whole time. I only add 3 cap fulls about once a week. I will post pics of the skimmate when my cup fills up a bit more. Another couple days. Skimmer is not a brand name skimmer. I think the skimmer was made by the same place that made my tank. It's just a regular venturi skimmer I believe. I will post pics of that too. Thanks for the replies guys.

Ian

[snulma1]

I actually am having the same thing on my Prizm skimmer. Its weird, and all I'm adding is Kents Phyto, and I dosed with Kalk and superbuffer. But other then that, nothing else. and my skimmate is a weird blue, even under normal lights, not Actinic. Under actinic it looks like electric kool-aid!

[EnderG60]

yup had that happen when i was skimming some new liverock....it was copper that i had dosed that tank with when i was using it for a hospital tank.

[Frick-n-Frags]

It was the Tidy Bowl fairy



This is a strange one. I'm looking forward to knowing what this ends up being.
OK, So what is different in this last week? 2weeks?

I think the animal life puree' theory could be a good one. I had an anemone go through a powerhead once. There were bits of neon green everywhere and I could see the day the bits kind of fell apart into the water column and got concentrated by the skimmer I could get glowy water in the cup.

I also always reserve a bit of open mind to all this because I don't think we've seen everything that the ocean has to offer us yet. Maybe some algae/bacteria bloom once again concentrated into a visible concentration.

Somehow, I can't see how all the invertebrate life in that tank would still be alive at all if there is so much copper in the water that it is causing visible evidence, even concentrated. If I had a copper test, I would test, just to be sure and cover all possible bases.

But, maybe there is some weird precipitate from the combo of stuff you use as mentioned, or something leaching. I wonder if Randy has some info on that?

And the old "what got into the tank" like overspray or febreeze, etc has to be considered. sidewalk chalk dust, I don't know, crazy things happen


Bottom line: I would love to see a pic for sure.

[rangerfan]

i could be crazy but is it possible to grow floresence algae in an aquarium i know when i was growing up in corpus christi certain times of the year we would have the blooms and the waves would glow like an indiglo color and if you threw a rock into the water it would glow if it is possible to have in an aquarium the swirling motion of your skimmer could set it off because it only glow when it is in motion it is a really neat thing to see and it helped if you were night fishing during this time because you could see the trout while you were reeling them in glowing the whole way.

[jgoodrich71]

Another possibility, have you added any new livestock, especially corals, maybe blue ones. Several years ago wholesalers where selling dyed corals as rare color morphs, mainly pink and yellow. It would stain the colloection cup pink.

[snulma1]

I really hope thats not it. Its a used tank, but has been empty for a few years. I have 2 clowns in there, about 10 astrea's and 15 blue legged hermits, and a frag of yellow star polyps. Is there anyone of those inhabitants that would act up if it was copper?

Originally posted by EnderG60
yup had that happen when i was skimming some new liverock....it was copper that i had dosed that tank with when i was using it for a hospital tank.

[BloBBeBo]

Funky! I want a pic

[duec22]

My first thoughts of a heavy metal that turns up as blue are nickle and copper, but if either were high enough for you see "tinting" the water color I think most your livestock would be dead. I also don't think that a skimmer can remove heavy metals as it does organics. I'm guessing some kind of organic dye from frozen food, or maybe something natural from the LR. You could try running some carbon to see if that takes it out.

[KAiNE]

Sea hare ink can turn your skimmer effluent a purple color. I actually found 2 in a batch of Fiji LR.

[snulma1]

I guess I will probably pick up a copper test @ the LFS today

[sjm817]

Missing any neon blue fish?

[snulma1]

didn't have any. But the tank is fairly new, and the LR is new as well.


Although.....I did add Kents essential elements while the rock was curing. And I was not running a skimmer on that tank. Could that be whats causing the color. The color is a real dark blue, and you are supposed to be running carbon after you use it (whoops!)

[ridetheducati]

Can not wait to see the pix.