help! green water.

[whysohigh]

I recently moved my livestock from my 75 gallon to my 180, everything went well, tank cycled perfectly, levels are perfect, then about a week after everything was in the water seemed a bit cloudy, I suspected a micro bubble issue because it wasn't that bad. The next few days the cloudiness increased then became green. It's been about 2 weeks green, I've done water changes and have been running a 13w uv sterilizer the last 48 hours to no avail. I can see about 2"in to the greenness, every once in a while I see my clown fish, arrow crab, hermits, peppermint shrimp and snails doing fine. Any suggestions?

 

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by whysohigh http:///t/397709/help-green-water#post_3545883
I recently moved my livestock from my 75 gallon to my 180, everything went well, tank cycled perfectly, levels are perfect, then about a week after everything was in the water seemed a bit cloudy, I suspected a micro bubble issue because it wasn't that bad. The next few days the cloudiness increased then became green. It's been about 2 weeks green, I've done water changes and have been running a 13w uv sterilizer the last 48 hours to no avail. I can see about 2"in to the greenness, every once in a while I see my clown fish, arrow crab, hermits, peppermint shrimp and snails doing fine. Any suggestions?


Hi,

Are you running a skimmer? It pulls out the organic matter, which is what I think causes green water. If you have macros you may have something that went sexual. I'm sure some actual help will be forthcoming from those more in the know. If it was just cloudy (which is what my tanks did once) it just needed more oxygen and it cleared up. I'm sure the fish are quit happy since they feel safe in all the murky water, but corals will close up when they don't detect light.

This hobby is supposed to be relaxing...my eye. Hang in there.

 

[whysohigh]

Yes I'm running a skimmer and I have a small chunk of cheateo in my sump, probably the size of a tennis ball. I've been running a real wet skim the last few days not really getting much out of it. I do have a decent amount of coral, from what I see it looks ok but I'm worried about what I can't see.

 

[bang guy]

Sounds like you have a Diatom bloom.

Do you know where all of the silicates came from? Did you add any new sand? What kind.

Is your RO unit working properly and removing most of the silicates from your tap water?

 

[whysohigh]

The tank is new, rocks were cured and dead for years, I put the water in using a 5 stage r/o di filter, I then added live sand to cycle and the rock work. The tank cycled nicely with the rocks in it after about 6 weeks. Once cycled I added inverts only for the first week or two then fish and coral, everything was perfect for about a week. I did dose phytoplankton about 3 times, but a very very small amount as I was concerned about any sudden changes to the water chemistry. It appears to be possibly clearing up today, if the uv sterilizer is working it's doing so very slowly. Which might be due to using a 13 watt sterilizer on a 180 gallon with a 45 gallon sump. I'll keep you posted, thanks.

 

[whysohigh]

It looks like I'm just impatient, it appears to be clearing up.