Bacteria bloom help

[TheAquatard]

Hi, I'm becoming very fustrated with my tank. My tank seems to go through algae blooms weekly. It'll be white and hazey for about 4 days, then perfectly clear for 1 or two days then it repeats. It's really annoying as i've spent a ton of money this winter break to stop this. I basically tore apart my whole tank, took out all the sand and water. Cleaned the rocks, got a new sump and skimmer. The only water thats gone near my tank is rodi.

Tanks been "setup" for a little over a month now with the new clean water. I dont know what else to give you guys to help me so I'll just list everything.

-30 gallon breeder, 4 39w T5, 20 long sump
-about 30lbs of live rock
-50 lbs of live sand
-refugium, skimmer, running carbon in a reactor
-Only have 2 small clowns and flame angel in the tank, no coral yet
-NH3 = 0 Nitrate = 0 Nitrite = 0 pH = 8.2
-Red sea salt
-Tank is cycled, still have some diatoms left on the sand.
-Not dosing anything


If I keep my lights off the cloudyness goes away faster. Fish are all fine. I have a bottle of BRS GFO ready to go if you think that will help. Carbon doesn't seem to do anything.

This is very fustrating as my old system was like this, now after doing all this work and spending a ton of money doing it the "right way" I still have a crappy looking tank.

EDIT: Water changes seem to help, but 1 or 2 days later its back again

 

[TheAquatard]

no one?

 

[elegance coral]

The tank is still very young. Young tanks are like rebellious teenagers. Always getting into trouble. Just relax. Most of these types of problems will pass.

I would add the GFO.
How often, and how much water are you changing?

 

[doonan75]

Just wait it out. Cloudiness could be lots of things. If you have stringy stuff then it's more likely bacteria. tearing it down and restarting could actually be making it worse. You could have killed off something and not noticed(worms and such) I restarted a new tank from an old tank and all my bristleworms died and my nitrates shot through the roof. I would double check your nutrient levels with a different test kit to make sure all 0's after 1 month is pretty amazing.

 

[TheAquatard]

I do around 5 gallons a week. Might do smaller more frequent changes. Like I said, the tank is brand new, there's no comparing it to the old system. I had the tank completely empty, cleaned with vingear rinsed with RODI. I used the rocks again, after scrubbing most the algae off. Live sand was used agian.

The old system was constantly cloudy, this one is not as bad. It's not so present viewing from the front, but if you look down the side you can really see it. I have a flame angel in it thats doing really well. Along with a CUC.

Been skimming wet. I have noticed that in certain areas of flow i will have white strings of stuff hanging off the rocks. How will GFO help the problem? Just curious. Thanks for the response.

 

[TheAquatard]

If you want to see more about the system i made a rebuild thread. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2108890

Also running a filter sock

 

[TheAquatard]

Started using the gfo about 24 hours ago, waters becoming clearer. Not sure if its the gfo working or the bacteria just going through its normal stages.

 

[tmz]

If it fades with light off , I'd be more inclined to think algae blooms than bacterial blooms PO4 control via gfo should help that.

 

[TheAquatard]

Could the problem be my lights?

 

[doonan75]

No I think it's your skimmer size and that it's too little bacteria being skimmed out. Typically too much light equals brown or green not white.

 

[TheAquatard]

After I reset up my tank the skimmer hasn't been working good. I can't dial it in right. It's either not making any skimmate at all, or its overflowing. Its an eshopps 75 psk in sump.

The GFO made my tank look amazing, but when i woke up today the bloom was back. Is it possible the GFO waws depleted after 3 days?

 

[philosophile]

Very possible if your phosphates are high....

Can you post a pic if the cloudy water? Or better yet a vid? And one whenit isn't cloudy too.

 

[philosophile]

Ok, just read your other build thread... What did you do to the live rock to clean it? If you were using tap before, there is the good possibility the LR absorbed a bunch of crap from the LR like chlorine, and is slowly putting it out in your tank.

Just rinsing it new rodi sw probably won't be enough. You'll need to let it spit up all the stuff over some time. So i'd prescribe a heavy dose of wait and do nothing, or if its practical, I'd tell you to cook your LR. (Do a search on RC before you start getting out your stock pot).

 

[TheAquatard]

Sorry for the delay, I scrubbed the algae off with a toothbrush and gave them s good shake in some fresh rodi sea water. I'll post pics tomorrow. Thanks a lot for your help philosophile,

 

[TheAquatard]

Today to my suprise I woke up and my water was fairly clear, still a little hazy down the side.

What shocks me is that usually as the day progresses and the lights are on longer it becomes cloudy again. When I got home It was even clearier than the morning. I'd say it is 95% clear.

If it would stay like this i would be a very happy boy. The only change I made last night was adding some carbon in a baggie in my GFO reactor. I made a little video.

The skimmer is currently working, but as soon as I shut it down to clean the cup out it has to be re adjusted. So fustrating. Chaeto has grown quite a bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG2X2hgbUTE

 

[TheAquatard]

I woke up today, the tank was still clear. I'd say 90%, Hopefully when I get home there aren't any surprises. Whats a good (preferably cheap) test kit for phosphate? I got the basics, pH, NH3, NO2 and NO3, looking to get phosphate, calc, mg, alk. Is there any kits out there that come with these four?

Also, are there any down sides to buying a real cheap tds meter off ebay?

 

[TheAquatard]

The tanks back to looking terrible again. I changed out the GFO and carbon two days ago, did a 10 gallon water change and it still looks like garbage. I'm willing to try anything at this point. Are there any small UV sterilizers that I can put in my sump?

 

[TheAquatard]

Can someone please help? I haven't changed anything with the tank and it still looks horrible. I've had the lights out the past two days and it hasn't helped at all.

 

[crispyreef]

The ebay tds meters work fine. This may have something to do with your makeup water.

 

[xCry0x]

Am I missing something or are you just being (no offense) extremely impatient?

It sounds like you gave up on your first tank, tore it down, bought a bunch of new equipment and threw it in a new tank.

By rinsing all your rocks with tap I would imagine you essentially nuked anything living on them.

When you say live sand is this bagged live sand or sand from last tank? When this sand was new did you rinse it out to remove all the dust or was it bought as "live" sand in a bag?

A skimmer is not supposed to function well in a new tank because the bacteria & junk it skims out is no present.

Tanks typically look like crap for a few months as algae blooms and fades and bacteria blooms and fades. I honestly think you need to stop touching things and just let it run. The picture makes your tank look very very very new since all the rocks are pristine and the sand is very clean & white.

You have 3 fish, they seem healthy. You have no corals so you do not even need to run a skimmer since fish can live in moderately high nitrate water.

If you keep dumping out all the water, taking the rocks out and rinsing them off in fresh water and changing things then you do not give your tank time to develop.

I would just leave it alone for a good solid month without the skimmer running. When nitrates start to creep up turn your skimmer on since there is something to actually skim out at that point and then start doing scheduled water changes.