Green Water

[Arctic Fox]

Hey, it's me again. I've had this problem that is kind of reccuring with my tank. I get this algae that lives in the water, never attaches to anything, (phytoplankton?). It straight up turns my tank water DT's green. I mean visibility is like less than 1" if I leave the lights on for 12 hrs a day for a week. My protien skimmer doesn't seem to be doing overtime, I empty the cup about once a day, or so. Ammonia is 0, Nitrite is 0, Nitrate has been between 4 and 20 for the longest. I've tried leaving the lights completely out for a whole week, I've tried doing water changes every other day, I've tried a combination of both. The tank has been up for about 9 months now, and this has been a problem for the last month or so. Right now I'm only giving it 6-8 hours of light a day and visibility is about 10". When I left the lights off for a week, the tank looked crystal clear, so I gave it about 8 hrs of light a day for two days and it was green again that quick. I've tried everything short of nuking it with copper to kill it, and I'm not about to get anything copper anywhere near that tank. So any suggestions?

btw, all the squishy inverts in my tank, anenomoes, mushrooms, polyps, coral, etc... ironically seem to love it...

[ClintoninCali]

Check your phosphate levels for one. If it's high run some phosguard or something. Do you have a refugium with any caulerpa in it? Does it get any direct sunlight? I'm grasping at straws...

[Arctic Fox]

I don't have a phosphate test kit, I need to get one. I don't have a refugium or anything, it's a 29 gallon tank, I do however have some of that grape seaweed plant growing and some I dunno what this other plant is called that is growing, but it has spikey waxy thin leaves. Can this stuff live on phosphates alone? The tank does not get any direct sunlight.

[jbicb3]

Where does your water come from? What filtering system are you using before you put it in the tank?

[Poseidon]

DON't use Phosguard it leeches aluminum into the water... But YES I agree that Phosphates could be the problem. Tropic Marin makes a Phosphate removal pad that should work well for you.

I also suspect you are using well water for your tank? If so that would explain the algae problem. I ran out of RO water once and added about a GALLON of well water straight to my 135, I had a HUGE algae bloom the next day, it lasted about a week too! In a marine tank it is almost mandatory to use RO/DI water to avoid algae problems!

I would also cut back on feeding, all food contains phosphates, and that contributes to the problem.

As far as your skimmer, what skimmer is it? Mine produces some really thick NASTY DaRK BROWN ooze! That is what you want, not a yellow watery skimmate.

If it is a free floating algae you can treat the symptons using a micron type filter. Something like this would help remove it from the water:



But that is like taking an aspirin for a migraine, it treats the symptom, but does not prevent another one from coming.

I would take a sample to a LFS and ask them to test for PO4, I'll bet that is the source of your problem.

[Arctic Fox]

I use city water and treat it to kill the chlorine. I am pretty sure the water is completely dead and void of life comming out of the faucet. I use a Red Sea Berlin airlift 60 for my tank, and the stuff in the collection cup is a dark nasty green colour. I feed my fishes about 3 times a week, I use 1 "fishy gum drop" soaked in Zoe when I feed them. So they get 3 "gum drops" a week. Corals and inverts get 4.5 mL each of Kent Phytoplankton and Kent Zooplankton about 3 or 4 times a week, depending whether or not I remember to feed them. I'm going to buy a PO4 test kit probably tommorrow to see what's up with that, and I'll update to see what exactly it's at and see what I should do about it.

[Reefland]

Might want to stop the phytoplankton additions until you can find out for sure what's going on.

[stang69]

Thats what im thinking it is too Scott maybe a live Phyto bloom but I could be wrong.

btw, all the squishy inverts in my tank, anenomoes, mushrooms, polyps, coral, etc... ironically seem to love it...

Water change with ro would be my suggestion 10 to 20 %


Just and Idea

Jeff

[Arctic Fox]

it's gone. I woke up today about 11 AM, turned on the tank and visibility was about 30". Very clean, couldn't believe it. It was dark green yesterday, today it's very clear... weird... anyways, I bought and did a phosphate test today and it was .5 mg/L. Sooooo.... PO4 is really low, the test says anything below 1 mg/L is ideal. So what do ya'll suppose happened?

[Reefland]

You have some form of free-floating alge in teh tank that is blooming would be my guess. Do you run carbon or any type of filter floss?

[Ninong]

anyways, I bought and did a phosphate test today and it was .5 mg/L. Sooooo.... PO4 is really low,

No, on the contrary, 0.5 mg/L PO4 is high!!!

the test says anything below 1 mg/L is ideal.

That is most certainly NOT correct.

What brand of phosphate test kit do you have? For comparison, my Salifert phosphate test kit has the following table:

ppm phosphate (mg/L)
0.03 (good)
0.10 (critical)
0.25 (coral growth retarded)
0.50
1.00
3.00

The ideal phosphate level for a reef tank would be undetectable by hobby test kits but certainly less than 0.02 ppm (mg/L). Phosphate levels above 0.03 ppm will cause problems.

From Dr. Randy Holmes-Farley's article on phosphate:

"At concentrations below about 0.03 ppm, the growth rate of many species of phytoplankton is dependent on the phosphate concentration (assuming that something else is not limiting growth, such as nitrogen or iron). Above this level, the growth rate is independent of phosphate concentration for many organisms. So if you want to deter algae growth by controlling phosphate, you need to keep phosphate levels quite low."

"Typical phosphate ocean surface concentrations are very low by reef keeping standards, sometimes as low as 0.005 ppm."

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...t2002/chem.htm

[Arctic Fox]

I'm using "Nutrafin" Phosphate 0.0-5.0 mg/L test. The page in the test book says:
"0-1.0 mg/L = Ideal phosphate range.
For fresh and saltwater, the ideal concentration of phosphate should never be greater than 1 mg/L of Phosphate (PO4)."

Is Nutrafin not a good test kit company or something? Because this test kit goes all the way up to 5 mg/L and from my understanding of what you just said that would be like dropping a nuclear bomb in my tank.

btw, I'm debating on whether or not I should do my regular weekly waterchange or not, because Ammonia is 0.0, Nitrite is 0.0, Nitrate is like 3.5, and best I can tell, all the levels are pretty damn good except for PO4 then.

btw again, visibility is back to crystal clear, tank looks beautiful now.

[Ninong]

I'm using "Nutrafin" Phosphate 0.0-5.0 mg/L test. The page in the test book says:
"0-1.0 mg/L = Ideal phosphate range.
For fresh and saltwater, the ideal concentration of phosphate should never be greater than 1 mg/L of Phosphate (PO4)."

I have no idea why Hagen would make such a statement. I guess you would have to ask them that question. I'm not familiar with their test kits so I searched Marine Depot and this is what I found: http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewIt...roduct=HG17840 It seems that their phosphate test kit sells for $7.99 and is good for 75 tests. That's $0.11 per test.

I'm presently using a Salifert phosphate test kit that Marine Depot sells for $20.00. It's good for 60 tests, so that works out to $0.33 per test. http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewIt...product=SF1133

Notice that the Salifert phosphate test kit write-up includes this statement about phosphate levels:

If phosphate is present in too high a concentration there may be an increase in growth of undesirable algae and if the phosphate level is higher than 0.04 mg/L the growth rate of corals and calcareous algae may decrease by as much as 90%.

That is consistent with everything that I have read in the hobby literature, too. So I have no idea why Hagen would state that 1.0 mg/L or less is an "ideal" phosphate level. Sounds to me like they have no idea what they are talking about. Maybe they get their technical advice from the same people who advise Tetra? :eek3:

Marine Depot also sells LaMotte phosphate test kits. They run $52.99 for 50 tests, or $1.06 per test. http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewIt...product=LM1117

I am using LaMotte's test kits for calcium and alkalinity and I like them a lot. My only experience is with test kits made by Salifert and LaMotte. I consider LaMotte superior to Salifert. I have no experience with any of the other test kits.

As you can see, the price range is quite broad. Hagen's phosphate test kit runs only 11 cents per test, Salifert's test kit runs 33 cents per test and LaMotte's test kit runs $1.06 per test. This might very well be one of those instances where you get what you pay for.

Is Nutrafin not a good test kit company or something? Because this test kit goes all the way up to 5 mg/L and from my understanding of what you just said that would be like dropping a nuclear bomb in my tank.

See my comment above.

btw, I'm debating on whether or not I should do my regular weekly waterchange or not, because Ammonia is 0.0, Nitrite is 0.0, Nitrate is like 3.5, and best I can tell, all the levels are pretty damn good except for PO4 then.

Regular water changes are a good thing. Some people do them every two weeks and others do them every two months. Your regular water change schedule should not change based on your water's tested parameters except that problems would indicate the need for a special water change. Water changes accomplish more than the obvious. In addition to their obvious dilution-of-pollution benefit, they also replenish depleted elements and, just as important, export certain nasties that might otherwise be building up to toxic levels.