Helllpppp!!!!

[flipmodez5]

Hey everyone,
I have this enormous problem with my tank as of right now...Let me give you all the specs of it...I have a 55 gallon tank with about 12-16 lbs of live rock, a 4 inch sandbed, a 220 watt PC lighting system 2 atnic blues and 2 10k bulbs which are 55 watts each, I have an MTC skimmer and 2 Zoomed powerheads rated up to 50 gallons...as for my livestock I have 3 peppermint shrimp, 1 camel back shrimp, 1 horseshoe crab, 1 clarki clownfish and 1 cleaner wrasse...My water levels are perfect...0 ammonia, and 0 nitrate and nitrites...My saltlevel is at 1.023 and my pH is 8.3...Here is my problem...My tank is EXTREMELY cloudy...its soo cloudy that the lights are dull when they hit my liverocks...it hardly reaches them and the rocks itself have this brown hair like shrubs all over...my glass is also that way...its covered wit a brown film...the tank has been running for about 5 months now and its been like this for about 1 and a half months...its not changing at all...I use tha Magfloat to clean the front and sides off and it comes back again within an hour...
If anyone out there has any advice...it would be GREATLY appreciated!
Thanx! :happyfish

 

[saltynewbie]

is it a white cloud that could be caused by constant sand stirring or another color?

 

[dburr]

What color is your water? Do you use RO/DI water?
I would do some water changes with some quality water and syphone off those rocks of the hair to start.
On a side note: you could use some more rock, that will help with water quality. More water motion also.
Will you be staying fish only? The camel back and horseshoe are not reef safe.

 

[fishman88]

haha welcome to the club... this happend to me. what i did is i got a good filter (penguin 330) and put that baby on there that did the trick and it worked in about 2 hours... but befor i had that all i did was turned off the powerheads and let it all settal. and also do about a 10 gallon water change. and more live rock would be good (not really for the cloudyness but for yr fish and everything in yr tank)
mike :happyfish

 

[flipmodez5]

Hey,
Thanx for the responses...Just to let you know its a white cloudyness and I dont think its sand stirring...I do use DI water now...get it from walmart...hopefully i'm going to get some more live rock this weekend....I dont know if the filter will help cauze I do have an aquaclear 300 and 150...I'm going to get some carbon and that hopefully will do the trick...as for that brown algae...which i think it is...any ideas on how to get rid of that???...should i buy a blenny lawnmower cause i know he eats brown and green algae...
Thanx!

 

[saltynewbie]

do you have a picture to show exactly what type of algae you have? if you could post a pic, maybe someone would be able to help you cure it!

 

[flipmodez5]

I tried to post a pic before but it didnt work...does the image have to be on a website or somthin??? or can I just upload it to fit in my message?

 

[rwhite]

IMO, the horseshoe is keeping the sandbed stirred up thus producing the cloudy water. As far as the algae, the tank is still young and may have more adjusting to go thru. An algae bloom has many causes. Do you have an active clean up crew in there, snails/hermits?

 

[flipmodez5]

Hey,
well I have 3 Nassarius snails and thats it....I dont like to hav any hermit crabs...I rather go pure snails...

 

[rwhite]

JMO, but add more snails. We are currently keeping at least 10-15 Astrea along with about the same amount of hermits. The snails should help with your algae problem, but may not solve it. We like the hermits cause they'll eat up the leftovers, which contribute to the algae blooms. Any reason why you dont like hermits? How do you feel about Emerald crabs or Sally Lightfoots?

 

[clarkiiboi]

Originally posted by FlipModez5
I tried to post a pic before but it didnt work...does the image have to be on a website or somthin??? or can I just upload it to fit in my message?
I didnt read your whole post, but caught the pic problem. Go to here and dowload it, its free. Go to step 1 open---get your pic. Skip down to options and set width to 400 (height will set itself, dont change anything else). Click resize, step 2. Then save new pic, step 3 (in JPEG...). That should help with posting pics.

 

[bang guy]

Is there any chance the cloudyness is caused by very very fine air bubbles?
If you turn off all of your pumps the water will become clear in about 10 minutes if it's air bubbles.
My second thought is bacteria. If that's the cause then you may be feeding too much.
It would be highly unusual for your tank to have 0 Nitrates with a DSB that has no sand infauna. Do you have another way to export Nitrates like an algae refugium?
Bang

 

[flipmodez5]

HERE is a pic of my tank...

 

[shoreliner11]

Just a thought, but is it getting any direct sunlight...this will speed up algae growth. Also, are your lights as old as your tank or older?...if they are older you might want to replace the lights because they might be out of spectrum. Although, those two things together I wouldn't think would cause an algae problem that bad. If, I were you I would do several water changes over the course of a couple weeks and run a phosphate sponge and or setup a refugium if you don't already have one. All that algae has got to feed off something...just need to cut its food a bit..either nitrates...or phosphates. Good luck.

 

[flipmodez5]

Hey all,
Well I dont want to do water changes cause that will cause more of a bloom when I replace it with new water...I was thinking of letting it go for a bit and see if it will go away by itself...As for my lights...I dont think there outta spec cuz there only 2-3 months old...before I use to have the fluorescents on....and there is no sunlight hitting my tank...As for my water conditions...they are PERFECT...no nitrates, nitrites or ammonia...my pH however has jumped up recently...its currently at 8.9 and my calcium is up as well...I dont know why this occured since I havent added any pH buffer or any trace elements for about 2 weeks now...:notsure:

 

[rwhite]

Water changes should not contribute to your algae problem unless you are using the dreaded tap water. If you are using tap, that is probably your biggest contributing factor to algae growth. And algae wont just go away, if you let it go too long you will have one heck of a problem on your hands. Just realized I havent looked at your pic yet. Anyway, biological warfare is the way to go: algae grazers, limit food, limit light. Good luck!

 

[squidd]

Just looked at your Pic...
Your using Tap Water ...aren't you...:yes:
Get a Phosphate and Silicate Magnet by Marc Weiss...(there are other comparable products) and run it in your filter system...Go to the local Grocer and purchase some RO filtered water and do a few WC...
Your "Problem" will be gone in a week...

 

[flipmodez5]

Yea I did use Tap water b4 but I stopped about 2 weeks ago...I just keep adding RO/DI water whenever the water level drops from evaporation...any recomendations for algae grazers...anything besides crabs...and the reason I dont like hermits or any other crabs is that sometimes they try to pick at my fish...especially at night cuz my clown and cleaner wrasse sleep on the ground...I dont want any crabs trying to pick at them when there trying to sleep...so I really prefer snails...but anywyz...do you guyz hav any recomendations on any good alage grazers???

 

[rwhite]

Before we get to the grazers, when was your last water change? If it was 2 wks or longer, definitely do one ASAP with quality water and what kind of salt mix?
There are many types on grazers. We only have Astrea in ours and they seem to be doing the job, with help from our crabs. I've heard good and bad things about Turbos, excellent eaters but they have a tendency to knock things over; some people have good luck in keeping them, others dont (our 2 died in a week or 2). I would suggest going to the Inverts page to get an idea of what other types are available.

 

[flipmodez5]

Well its been longer than 2 weeks since i did a water change...actually...I have never done one to be quite honest except 3 weeks back...other than that I just refill the water when it evaporates with RO/DI water...See, if you do a water change...its going to create more diatoms in the new water...I did a water change before about 10 gallons and when I added the new water it cleared up pretty good...actually the water was almost crystal clear...however in about 6 hours my water went worse than that pic I posted up...so I just refill the water as it evaporates now...I heard fighting conchs are excellent brown algae eaters...I think I'm going to get 2 of them...