rosebud161616
New member
Yep you heard me right.. how do you crash a culture?
We set up a custom built 30 gallon tank about 6 months or so ago. After being up for a few months (no inhabitants other than a few snails) the water turned green and just kept getting darker like a phyto culture. We broke it down to make some changes to the way the baffle system in it was working and in the process I bleached the rocks and everything in it.
Now we have it set back up... with the bleached rock. Cycled for a nice long time with high nutrients and guess what? I have a nice deep, dark green, 30 gallon phyto culture again.
I assumed the high nutrients from the cycle were the problem. I have since tried everything I can think of to kill the culture. I let it go hoping it would eventually crash, water changes, added a GFO and carbon reactor, have a ton of chaeto in there (the chaeto is slowly dieing), added pods and brine shrimp (hoping they would consume the phyto), and tried no lights. The only thing that has seemed to help was the no lights. We got a nice light hazy green but as soon as the lights came back on... it's back to a deep dark green.
About the only thing I don't think I have tried is a UV sterilizer, but I'm not convinced that they even do much.
Any thoughts? Help me crash this giant phyto culture!
We set up a custom built 30 gallon tank about 6 months or so ago. After being up for a few months (no inhabitants other than a few snails) the water turned green and just kept getting darker like a phyto culture. We broke it down to make some changes to the way the baffle system in it was working and in the process I bleached the rocks and everything in it.
Now we have it set back up... with the bleached rock. Cycled for a nice long time with high nutrients and guess what? I have a nice deep, dark green, 30 gallon phyto culture again.
I assumed the high nutrients from the cycle were the problem. I have since tried everything I can think of to kill the culture. I let it go hoping it would eventually crash, water changes, added a GFO and carbon reactor, have a ton of chaeto in there (the chaeto is slowly dieing), added pods and brine shrimp (hoping they would consume the phyto), and tried no lights. The only thing that has seemed to help was the no lights. We got a nice light hazy green but as soon as the lights came back on... it's back to a deep dark green.
About the only thing I don't think I have tried is a UV sterilizer, but I'm not convinced that they even do much.
Any thoughts? Help me crash this giant phyto culture!
