Brown Water Solution

[malx]

Hi, Everyone.

Disclaimer, I have two clowns and two carpet anemones in this tank and they are doing fine.

So on my 20g Nano (it's still a new tank about 3 months old) I am experiencing a diatom outbreak like normal. The tank gets hit by the sun for 3-4 hours a day and there's no way around that. What I am noticing is that the water is significantly brown, even running carbon and a filter sock (no skimmer). I do a four gallon water change each week just to keep the parameters balanced while the tank stabilizes. Does anyone have a good solution to prevent the diatoms from blooming and floating around in the water? I believe that's my issue and why the water is so brown.

Also it's worth noting that I could clean the glass twice a day.

I guess this situation will eventually stabilize, but wanted to know if anyone had any quick tricks to clear up the water a bit while I wait. I don't want to do anything drastic though.

Cheers,
Joey

 

[mcgyvr]

Have you tried running GFO to remove the silicates (diatom food) from the water?

 

[Ghost25]

What kind of rock did you start with? Purely speculative but my opinion is that diatom blooms and new tank issues generally result from problems with new live rock.

Either:
Not enough of it
Not porous enough rock
Nutrient leaching (if using natural dry rock)
Not a good balance of other microfauna and microflora
Not enough or the wrong balance of bacteria

Of these the last three are generally self correcting in time especially if you import frags to your tank.

 

[Tripod1404]

UV will remove brown taint from the water pretty fast. A skimmer would probably do it to some extend as well. But for the sole purpose of clearing water color, UV is better.

 

[malx]

Have you tried running GFO to remove the silicates (diatom food) from the water?

No. I may consider doing this, good tip.

 

[malx]

What kind of rock did you start with? Purely speculative but my opinion is that diatom blooms and new tank issues generally result from problems with new live rock.

Either:
Not enough of it
Not porous enough rock
Nutrient leaching (if using natural dry rock)
Not a good balance of other microfauna and microflora
Not enough or the wrong balance of bacteria

Of these the last three are generally self correcting in time especially if you import frags to your tank.

I moved live rock over from my 3 year old SPS tank so I don't think it's the rock. With that said, it could be a bacterial balance issue.

 

[malx]

UV will remove brown taint from the water pretty fast. A skimmer would probably do it to some extend as well. But for the sole purpose of clearing water color, UV is better.

If I wasn't running ZEOvit I would totally do this!

 

[malx]

All, I increased the flow of the return pump up a bit let's see if that helps at all.