Guys I'm so discouraged, P***** Off, ready to give up

[daniella3d]

did you leave that clam without light all this time?

It needs light to survive.

Could it be a bacteria bloom? if you left the lights out for a month, maybe some corals on the liverock died?

Hard to tell where the cloudy water is coming from, bacteria bloom or calcium precipitation, or something else.

[ScubaSteve]

I share your pain. I too am a poor-a** student. This hobby combined with school ain't the best combo at times. But... we can get through this. I've had my share of s****y times with the tank too. Just gotta persevere.

You might have a couple of things going on here. The first being the algae itself. Algae is incredibly persistent and can survive with very little in the way of nutrients. There is a reason why algae has gone, more or less, un-evolved for millions of years and still kick ass. It is really good at what it does - unfortunately for you. Before you moved the tank it was in a sorry state of affairs and over run with algae. You went lights out for a few weeks and killed off the algae (or so you think). This die off released nutrients into the water and rocks. As soon as the lights came back on BAM! algae comes back with a vengeance because it has the nutrients to do so. Algal spores can pretty much survive a nuclear holocaust, so they were just sittin' there waiting for the lights to come back on.

You're probably not measuring much in the way of nutrients in the water because, well, the algae is consuming it all. Even as algae dies off, there are new cells forming that scavenge the nutrients. It's the circle... circle of life...


Gotta break that cycle up! The worst thing about algae is also its best: it's really good at scavenging nutrients! Right now all of your nutrients are, more or less, locked up in the waterborne algae. This makes it really easy to remove. Do HUGE water changes (50%+) every couple of days to try to export as much of the algae (and along with it, the nutrients) in one go as possible. Take your more delicate corals over to a friend's place (someone here will probably be willing to coral-sit) and go to town on your tank. Do a few really big water changes over the course of a few days to really cut down the population and reduce nutrients. Hopefully the GFO can then start to compete with the algae for phosphate and wipe out the population. And the BRS reactor, whenever it gets there, will do an even better job of that. You might have to do this a couple of times but eventually the algae will exhaust it's own food supply, especially if the GFO is doing its thing.

Basically, good ol' fashioned water changes is what you have to do. Adding GFO to your tank will remove nutrients from your water as they are produced (be it from feeding, dying corals, or dying algae).... assuming the algae doesn't get to it first. Typically just adding GFO in a reactor works for algae growing on rocks because you can remove the phosphate before the algae can get it. But right now, with waterborne algae, you probably have more algae than GFO (in terms of surface area). They're winning the battle simply by sheer numbers. Water changes will, literally, divide and conquer.

Remember, a tank is a closed system. Accumulation = Mass in - Mass out. Even if you kill off the algae, that mass has to go somewhere else in your tank. You need to take it out of your tank via skimming, water changes and GFO. Water changes are the big guns in your case.

Also, if you're looking for a cheap maintenance method consider vodka dosing or VSV + MB7. Serious, what student doesn't have an excess of vodka around the house. This has been incredibly effective for me in keeping the tank in good order.

[Skimmerking]

Originally Posted by wmcinnes

Canister filters tend to do more wrong than right when it comes to a reef tank. They have been coined the name 'Nitrate Factories'.

.

i disagree with you on this one lots of people are using cannister filters to polish the water and run CArbon and floss to help clear up . I have know some to run rock in there in smaller tank to help out with the Bio load. That is depending on the size of the cannister filter of course.

[Skimmerking]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

I share your pain. I too am a poor-a** student. This hobby combined with school ain't the best combo at times. But... we can get through this. I've had my share of s****y times with the tank too. Just gotta persevere.

You might have a couple of things going on here. The first being the algae itself. Algae is incredibly persistent and can survive with very little in the way of nutrients. There is a reason why algae has gone, more or less, un-evolved for millions of years and still kick ass. It is really good at what it does - unfortunately for you. Before you moved the tank it was in a sorry state of affairs and over run with algae. You went lights out for a few weeks and killed off the algae (or so you think). This die off released nutrients into the water and rocks. As soon as the lights came back on BAM! algae comes back with a vengeance because it has the nutrients to do so. Algal spores can pretty much survive a nuclear holocaust, so they were just sittin' there waiting for the lights to come back on.

You're probably not measuring much in the way of nutrients in the water because, well, the algae is consuming it all. Even as algae dies off, there are new cells forming that scavenge the nutrients. It's the circle... circle of life...


Gotta break that cycle up! The worst thing about algae is also its best: it's really good at scavenging nutrients! Right now all of your nutrients are, more or less, locked up in the waterborne algae. This makes it really easy to remove. Do HUGE water changes (50%+) every couple of days to try to export as much of the algae (and along with it, the nutrients) in one go as possible. Take your more delicate corals over to a friend's place (someone here will probably be willing to coral-sit) and go to town on your tank. Do a few really big water changes over the course of a few days to really cut down the population and reduce nutrients. Hopefully the GFO can then start to compete with the algae for phosphate and wipe out the population. And the BRS reactor, whenever it gets there, will do an even better job of that. You might have to do this a couple of times but eventually the algae will exhaust it's own food supply, especially if the GFO is doing its thing.

Basically, good ol' fashioned water changes is what you have to do. Adding GFO to your tank will remove nutrients from your water as they are produced (be it from feeding, dying corals, or dying algae).... assuming the algae doesn't get to it first. Typically just adding GFO in a reactor works for algae growing on rocks because you can remove the phosphate before the algae can get it. But right now, with waterborne algae, you probably have more algae than GFO (in terms of surface area). They're winning the battle simply by sheer numbers. Water changes will, literally, divide and conquer.

Remember, a tank is a closed system. Accumulation = Mass in - Mass out. Even if you kill off the algae, that mass has to go somewhere else in your tank. You need to take it out of your tank via skimming, water changes and GFO. Water changes are the big guns in your case.

Also, if you're looking for a cheap maintenance method consider vodka dosing or VSV + MB7. Serious, what student doesn't have an excess of vodka around the house. This has been incredibly effective for me in keeping the tank in good order.

Well Said Steve

[whatcaneyedo]

Am I the only one who thinks that the skimmer is grossly inadequate for this tank? Based upon the picture it also looks quite immature, especially for coral and clams.

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by whatcaneyedo

Am I the only one who thinks that the skimmer is grossly inadequate for this tank? Based upon the picture it also looks quite immature, especially for coral and clams.

I couldn't find an exact spec on the skimmer but it looks to be of a CPR BakPak style design, which for this tank I wouldn't call grossly inadequate but certainly on the lower end. That said, I grew SPS happily for many years skimmerless and with a CPR skimmer on a similar sized tank.

Mandyplo: what kind of skimmer are you running there?

I agree with you though: tank looks young. I don't think that's the problem at hand but without the tank's "immune system" at full speed, it's more of a battle keeping things in check.

I bet the clams are lovin' the excess phyto though

[whatcaneyedo]

I've yet to see a tank with a good skimmer turn into green soup. I've also run the CPR BakPak, Aqua C Urchin Pro, Red Sea Prism, and some other horrible piece of crap that no one else has heard of. They're alright for aerating a nano but I'd spend the money on good liverock before I'd purchase one again.

[mandyplo]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

I couldn't find an exact spec on the skimmer but it looks to be of a CPR BakPak style design, which for this tank I wouldn't call grossly inadequate but certainly on the lower end. That said, I grew SPS happily for many years skimmerless and with a CPR skimmer on a similar sized tank.

Mandyplo: what kind of skimmer are you running there?

I agree with you though: tank looks young. I don't think that's the problem at hand but without the tank's "immune system" at full speed, it's more of a battle keeping things in check.

I bet the clams are lovin' the excess phyto though

Hi tank is a year old in January. Should I keep the clams in and let someone babysit my corals? Also I am running the octopus BH-2000 skimmer.

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by mandyplo

Hi tank is a year old in January. Should I keep the clams in and let someone babysit my corals? Also I am running the octopus BH-2000 skimmer.

That skimmer should suffice for now but in the future you should try looking for something more powerful like a Vertex, SWc, etc (I know, more money, right?)

I was going to say that if you're good at matching the temperature and salinity of the tank when doing water changes then you could leave the corals and clams in when doing big changes but I'd feel better saying just get someone to just look after them for a couple weeks while the battle rages on. I do 50% water changes in an SPS tank every once in a while without issue (taking great care to match parameters) but I've got a better feel for my own tank and feel comfortable enough hitting the reset button in the tank (and the possible consequences).

My biggest concern with leaving the clams in when doing this is that you might stress them out and they spawn as a result (weird stress reaction mechanism, eh? Such a reaction would make exam time far more exciting... errrr... awkward...). The resulting spawn would just exacerbate the current issue (in fact when I first looked at your tank I thought the clams had spawned until you said the water was green).

[Aquattro]

I've got a slightly different take on this. The tank is young, but not new. It's settled, biologically, for the most part. The cloudiness also looks like clam spawn, but if you say it's green, ok, maybe algae.

If this was my tank, and I'll probably get some disagreement, I would leave it alone. I would take the filter off the back, add some carbon to a bag and toss it in the sump. With no measurable PO4, I wouldn't worry about GFO right now.
I would not be doing large water changes, and in fact, would do no water changes. If it's algae, let it burn itself out. Feed sparingly. Keep the tank aerated. Buy a real skimmer for in sump. Stop messing with it, there is nothing in your parameters that dings any alarms.
I would remove the glass tops, let the light in. Don't move the lights around, don't change their cycle. Make a pot of coffee, relax. It's not an emergency or something to quit over. It just needs TLC.
I assume the fish are fine? Not gasping for air at the surface? Then algae isn't consuming excess O2. Still not sure that's algae. Is it green? Or is the water just cloudy?
Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. Often you can cause more problems than you solve by trying to fix everything overnight.