By Request - green tank pics

[AJ_77]

For all you who've yet to share my pain, here is something apparently rare. Note the big difference in the "before" and "after" pictures.

The difference is six weeks. "After" is the present state, as of this week.

Enjoy. :(

Before:


And After:


Woo-hoo...

Alan

[Delphinus]

Alan, I hope you don't mind, but I am going to move this into the main forum in the hopes that it might foster some ideas to help you out.

Six weeks. What an unimaginable nightmare. I don't think it should take this long to clear up.

Can you post the particulars as to size, age of system, what you have been doing so far to try to deal with this (carbon, water changes, diatom filters, anything like that).

[AJ_77]

good grief, Tony, this is emabarrassing enough. Got advice from not a few people, and used carbon, floss, various filter cartridges (including micron), fluval with combinations of filter materials, regular water changes, no maxi-changes (advised against by one of the only people I could find who has had this - they said they just repopulate after a large change), cut back photo, cut back feeding, got a new skimmer, over-skimmed, tried various combinations of all the above.

Now I look at it and think how much it cost, and what I could get for it...

Bummer, dude. Normally I'm a happy guy, but I may have to change my avatar. ;)

Alan

[StirCrazy]

you coupld probably bottle that and compete with Dt's :D but seriously that is bad.. to bad it wasn't a fresh water tank you could just fill 1/2 the tank with giant hygro and cover the top with duck weed and it would be clear in no time.. have you tested to see what is causing it? phosphates mabe?

Steve

[Canadian Man]

Alan, Man Last I saw your tank it was about a tenth that bad. HOOOOLYYYY CRAP! Now thats pea soup.

Anyways, back on topic. I was reading a post tonight on RC and it mentioned a very similar situation. The guy tried everything, which we thought we did with your tank as well. One gentleman came up with a suggestion which his friend apparantly did or somethinglike that.

Anyway maybe adding a UV STERILIZER may solve your problem. It kinda makes sense as it would kill all the free floating algae in the tank.
Hey maybe buy one from bgals and use it for a week then return it ;)
Just a thought.
What does everyone else think about the UV sterilizer idea?

[AJ_77]

actually Jon the pics don't do it justice, the green is so bright and vibrant that it is quite impressive. my brother especially likes it with just the actinics - I should've posted a shot of that.

as for the UV, I would prefer to rent one. ;)

[Delphinus]

Does anyone in Calgary have a UV sterilizer Alan can borrow?

Bob has also suggested a diatomaceous earth filter. These filter out anything larger than 1 micron (if I remember correctly?)

The one profound thought I have is this. There really is no difference (to my eye anyways) in the pictures taken six weeks apart. This suggests to me that the phyto, or whatever it is, is somehow feeding off something. If they weren't, eventually there would be a crest and subsequent population die-off. Instead we see a more or less constant population.

So, what could feed phyto? I thought pretty much that phyto/green water is pretty much completely photosynthetic (I could be way off base here). So, my first questions, what lights are you using, how old are they, and does your tank have any direct sunlight exposure? (I know you said you've cut back on photoperiod, but I am fishing for ideas here.)

Is there a specific thing that you can remember, that before which, there was no green water, but afterwards, there was?

Have you increased, or have you considered increasing, the light over your caulerpa refugium? If you can perhaps get the caulerpa to grow fast, perhaps they can eventually outcompete the phyto for whatever nutrients that are feeding them?

[DJ88]

Alan,

I have probably missed this somewhere in all the posts but what about your top off water? is it RO/DI? What may have happened is that you have slowly built up enough "stuff" from your water that it is feeding itself now.

Personally I'd suggest getting all livestock out in another tank and do a 100% water change with RO/DI.. wait a week or two. and do another. only with RO/DI.

I know how it has been said how clean the water is there but I am sorry. Tap water is not THAT clean. I don't want to sound condescending but you will get impurities that will vary from week to week in a city water system. It's a fact.

By the looks of it your tank has bult up the nutrients that it needed in cunjunction with your feeding of DT's to become a self sufficient DT grow out tank.

Your only recourse is get it all out.. basically "wash" the tank.

[AJ_77]

Tony, the lights are 4 OVRNO (3 65k, 1 10k) on 2 of those e-ballasts, and 2 NO actinics. The 4 NO are new, the actinics are middle-aged or so. No sunlight at all hits the tank. The only thing that I can point to is my POS skimmer basically stopped doing anything for a few weeks before this started. Of course I got the new one pretty quickly (TF1000 Multi). It's been working hard since.

I've yet to implement new lighting over the refuge.

Darren, I top up daily with RO, but weekly changes are from the tap, and treated with the bottled goop from Big Al's for chlorine, etc. I have never used DT's.

Your solution seems very near to shutting the tank down. I have considered that.

Cheers, all.

[EmilyB]

Is this bottled goop something that is a pure chemical remover, or one that contains that aloe vera or other fish slime crap.....