sidboswell
06/18/2003, 11:56 AM
OK. This is a rather long story, but here it goes.
My tank (75G w/ 10G sump, skimmer, 60lbs LR, 40lbs base rock, 200lbs Southdown, 10lbs Livesand) has been up for four months. Last month I went away for a week vacation and let the high school student down the street feed the tank (along with the dogs, horse, and goats). She was feeding flake (never again) and was overfeeding. I returned a week later and I had never seen my tank look so bad. I’ve got a bad outbreak of a brown type of algae that is everywhere (sand, rocks, sump, glass, back wall, etc.). This algae is sort of stringy and attaches to anything (e.g. streamers form on snail eggs on the glass), but it’s not what I would call hair algae.
So, I immediately did a water change (20 gal) with my normal well water. A week later there was no improvement with the exception of the glass being clean as I wiped it down every day.
I decided (based on LOTS of feedback from RC) to switch to RO water that I purchased from my LFS. After two weeks, I did another water change (Monday of this week)(this time with RO…20 gal) and I bought a Phosphate test kit. After the change I’m reading 0.2 ppm PO4 (everything else is 0). I also added a Kole Tang and a small Cowrie to tackle the algae on the rocks bringing my load to 2 percs, 1 mandarian, 1 queen conch, three peppermint shrimp, snails (various), crabs (scarlets and bluelegs) plus the new additions.
It’s now Wednesday and the water is cloudy in the morning (was on Tuesday too). My lights are set to come on around 1pm and are running until 9:30pm. This gives me optimal viewing time as I’m more likely to be home from 7:30 onward. At night and in the early morning the water is crystal clear, but right around noon the water is pretty cloudy. It clears up as the day goes on.
I’ve got another 20 gal of RO salt water ready to do a change, but was planning on waiting until this weekend or early next week to let things settle down.
Here are my questions:
What to do about the cloudy water (what is it)?
How can I nix the brown algae?
Anything else I should be doing?
Thanks RC. You’ve been a great help so far….
My tank (75G w/ 10G sump, skimmer, 60lbs LR, 40lbs base rock, 200lbs Southdown, 10lbs Livesand) has been up for four months. Last month I went away for a week vacation and let the high school student down the street feed the tank (along with the dogs, horse, and goats). She was feeding flake (never again) and was overfeeding. I returned a week later and I had never seen my tank look so bad. I’ve got a bad outbreak of a brown type of algae that is everywhere (sand, rocks, sump, glass, back wall, etc.). This algae is sort of stringy and attaches to anything (e.g. streamers form on snail eggs on the glass), but it’s not what I would call hair algae.
So, I immediately did a water change (20 gal) with my normal well water. A week later there was no improvement with the exception of the glass being clean as I wiped it down every day.
I decided (based on LOTS of feedback from RC) to switch to RO water that I purchased from my LFS. After two weeks, I did another water change (Monday of this week)(this time with RO…20 gal) and I bought a Phosphate test kit. After the change I’m reading 0.2 ppm PO4 (everything else is 0). I also added a Kole Tang and a small Cowrie to tackle the algae on the rocks bringing my load to 2 percs, 1 mandarian, 1 queen conch, three peppermint shrimp, snails (various), crabs (scarlets and bluelegs) plus the new additions.
It’s now Wednesday and the water is cloudy in the morning (was on Tuesday too). My lights are set to come on around 1pm and are running until 9:30pm. This gives me optimal viewing time as I’m more likely to be home from 7:30 onward. At night and in the early morning the water is crystal clear, but right around noon the water is pretty cloudy. It clears up as the day goes on.
I’ve got another 20 gal of RO salt water ready to do a change, but was planning on waiting until this weekend or early next week to let things settle down.
Here are my questions:
What to do about the cloudy water (what is it)?
How can I nix the brown algae?
Anything else I should be doing?
Thanks RC. You’ve been a great help so far….