My Water Is Brown!!!

omgsaltwat

omgsaltwat

Member
Originally Posted by aredmon
Ok. I looked everywhere and the only skimmer I found around here was a red sea prizim skimmer. I have had it running for about 2 days now and it hasn't collected a darn thing. Also the colection thing at the top filled with water. Is it supposed to do that? I thought only the foam collected up in it? Any help would be nice.

Wow a $150.....I think you should take it back and get a Coralife Super Skimmer Needle Wheel Protein Skimmer I got my 220 for $150 (for a 220 gal tank)...You could get the 125 for $114.00 or the 65 for $75.00...If you would like give me your e-mail and I can tell you where I got mine from....JMO
 
aredmon

aredmon

Member
I thought that was a little much. I got it though because all the other fish stores I went to had none!! So I bought the ***** one. They only had 2 in stock. So I just got what I could get. My husband is tired of looking at my turd tank as he calls it. I got the skimmer figured out though and it is working good now. I also got some of that algone as stated above. I can notice a difference in the water. I can see my LR now but it is still realy brown. I will let everyone know how it goes. Thank you all for your help!! I am still open for suggestions though.
 
aredmon

aredmon

Member
Ok I am so fed up with this stuff!!!!! It is worse now. My skimmer is working and I put the algone in there, and activated carbon in the filters and also phos ban to take care of the phosphates. I have done so many water changes that I have had to have changed 100% of the water in a month and a half. The fish are doing great and and the amm-0 nitates-0 nitrites-0 and ph is 8.4. Temp is 78. The only problem is this brown water. It looks realy nasty and smells to. It is a little clearer first thing in the morning but the longer the lights are on the nastier the water gets. The bulbs are new. I don't know what else to do. Someone told me to put marine water clarifier in it. What do you think???
PLEASE HELP!!!!
 
hardcrab67

hardcrab67

Member
Does your filter have a bio-wheel on it? Sound to me like you don't have any good bacteria to eat the brown diatoms. I had green water, due to phosphates, so I'm just trying to help here. My tank had brown algae when it cycled but I have a sump w/ bio-balls and the nitrites spiked and turned to ammonia, thats their job, brown algae cleared up. If you used a chemical to kill the algae and its in the water column, you can use a 1micron filter pad, cut to fit your filter, put it in back so water flows through it first. Rinse it out w/ RO water everyday or just chuck it and replace it(thats what I did). I did a 25% water change every 3 days for 2 weeks, along w/ pulling my rock and rinsing it off in a bucket a fresh saltwater before I saw a difference in my water clarity. I ran a UV sterlizer for a couple months and do it periodically, but they kill the good with the bad so I don't run it constantly. I run carbon every 3-4 months, again it strips the good along w/ the bad, some run it all the time 24/7, so that can be debated as well as the UV. Hope this helped. I know I was ready to give up, but I couldn't let my kids see that, so I kept plugging till I found someone w/ the right answer, Namely a LFS that really is knowlegable and taught me that there is a few out there and alot that aren't. Clarifier didn't do squat for me, but plenty of them wanted to sell it to me.
 
aredmon

aredmon

Member
I had a brown algea outbreak but I got rid of it with messing with my lighting. Shortly after the brown algea was gone I got this "dust" looking stuff floating in the water. I do not have a bio wheel but I have what I guess you could call a bio mesh the water goes through that grows the good bact. that I need. I do not have a water problem as far as a spike in anything. Just this brown crap all over in my water. I guess I could explain it as looking like someone took a bucket a dirt and dumped it in there. The sand is still for the most part white and the live rock looks normal with no nusance algea growing on it. I realy don't know what this stuff is. No LFS has any clue and I am getting realy frustraited. i am seariousloy thinking about selling my set up. I just can't figure out what is going on. My seahorse tank is doing good. I do the same thing to it and it is crystal clear. I run carbon, phos ban, and a skimmer all the time with no results. I also have the I have the micro filter pad also but it doesn't seem the help much. I stuff comes back faster than I can get it out. I will do a 30gal. water change and not 1hr later it is all fogged back up. I keep doing this over and over but nothing works.
 
nigerbang

nigerbang

Active Member
Hmmm what a pickle that seems to be. At the advice of a great friend with 20 years exp. He said even with phos ban and everything else when you put the water in all it is doing is increasing the phosphate. He said to try doing a large water change with RO water a few times and see if it gets any better ( said he had the same prob) so that is all i know, and thats from word of mouth. take it how you want, but its worth a shot i would imagine vs the loss of all. Couldnt hurt, Right?
 
anonome

anonome

Active Member
Have you tried poly filter? It is a special pad that can be cut to fit any area that water is going through. It is a pad or sorts that really filters out discolored water. There web-site is poly-bio-marine.com
It worked for me.
 
aredmon

aredmon

Member
I haven't tries a poly filter but I have this filter pad in there that is supposed to catch the smallest of particals but the more it catches the faster the stuff comes back. I also tried the two big water change idea. The first thing I did to try to fix the problem. I have a 75gal. tank and I did a 21gal water change and then a 30gal the next day because the stuff came back so fast but it seem that if the stuff is in even one gal. of water it contaminates the other 74gal with in 1hr. I also noticed that it is light respondant so after doing the water changes I left the lights out hoping to kill what was left from the water changes and that did not help.
 
hardcrab67

hardcrab67

Member
What is your water source, reread the thread if its in there, just remind me. The reason I ask is your problem seems similar to the one I went through. No matter how many water changes I did, same result if not worst. My problem layed in my water source( R/O wasn't pulling everything out like I thought), so in fact I was putting more in(bad) than I was getting rid of.
 
aredmon

aredmon

Member
I was using RO water from a car wash here that sells it in a seperate building. I was afraid that it might not be getting taken care of like it should so I started buying the water from a fish store. It still hasn't helped any. My sea horse tank gets the same treatment and is fine I don't know what happened to the 75 gal tank. Please help!!!!
 
gexkko

gexkko

Member
Do you have any corals/anemones or other light-sensitive critters? If not, I would drastically reduce the amount of lighting you are giving. Another option (or in conjunction) is to try clams. They are great at removing nitrates from the water, but that isn't all they eat. They filter out plankton, and may be able to help with the algea/diatom outbreak. I can't say they will work for sure, as I am going off my knowledge of wild clam antatomy/feeding and what I've read on this site, but it's worth a shot.
A UV sterlizer may be needed to help eliminate the problem. It will kill the diatoms that flow through it, and hopefully your skimmer would then remove the dead particles.
A heavy duty algea eating crew may also be needed (if you don't already have one).
Those are just a few suggestions, based not on my own experience in the hobby (brand new to SW) but my knowledge of marine ecology and readings on this site. Good luck.
 
aredmon

aredmon

Member
Do you think it is an algea problem? It is free floating and I already went through the diatom outbreak once and got it under control then had a slime algea outbreak and got it under control and now this. I am going to try and get a pic as soon as I can but I don't have a digital. I have been doing RO water changes every 2 weeks at about 30-20 gal at a time. I do run carbon. I have talked to fish stores and no one knows what this stuff is in my tank. I am almost to the point of taking the fish out and putting them in a small aqarium and just compleatly redoing my entire tank. I don't want to do this so any sugestions at this point would be great.
 
hardcrab67

hardcrab67

Member
Originally Posted by hardcrab67
I did a 25% water change every 3 days for 2 weeks, along w/ pulling my rock and rinsing it off in a bucket a fresh saltwater before I saw a difference in my water clarity. .
This helped me, I tried the bi-weekly WC after I got things back to normal, but now w/ a rise in nitrates, due to Pwrhd falling to the bottom and disturbing the sandbed I'm going back to weekly, if that doesn't do it than I'm going to do a WC every 3 days. To quote another member here " the only solution to polution is delution". Added WC's helped me before so I'm going to give this a shot again. HTH
 
aredmon

aredmon

Member
I figured WC would help also but since I started this thread I have probably taken out and replaced over 100gal of the water. In other words I should have just bought an RO unit because I am paying $.80 a gal. This problem is costing me some serious $$$$$. I have some more phosphate remover coming and some marine water clarifier on the way. I hope this helps.
 
aredmon

aredmon

Member
I am using the phosphate remover and some stuff that came with it to help control algae. I am also using some stuff called Poly Ox. After I am finished using poly ox I am supposed to start using the marine water clarifier. I am 48 hrs into the treatments and still no change. I hope this stuff works.
 
mikeyjer

mikeyjer

Active Member
I really think your worrying too much, after going through this post several times and looking back at all the postings, it seems like a normal cycle a newer tank goes through. I would just let it do it's own thing, in the mean time, save up for a better skimmer and just keep on doing what your doing. IF you want to feed frozen food, be sure to rinse'em before feeding. Depending on how many fish you want to feed, you might want to cut the cubes up as well. I personally would just stop adding chemicals to my tank and let it do it's own thing. My tank did the samething in the past and it just goes away completely on it's own, but when I added a better skimmer, all that algae bloom went away within a week. :happyfish
 
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