rocknut
Rocky
I'm hoping that someone will have some insight that will help me out with a strange lime green film/slime algae that I have been fighting in my tank over the past several months.
Also, the algae clip that is shown covered with algae in the picture was removed right after I snapped this shot. It is 100% plastic.
The tank has been up and running for about 18 months, and has been a zeovit system since day one. I have had various algae problems for most of this time, which doesn't seem typical for a Zeovit system. The tank has a total system volume of +/- 65 gallons. I am using one 150 watt MH lamp, and (4) T5 bulbs. I change the MH lamp every 9 months (14k Phoenix), and the T5 bulbs every six months. I have an ATB 840 V2.0 skimmer, and use a KZ Zeovit reactor. Tank has a ton of water flow (2 Tunze nano-streams and a Vortech).
My water parameters are as follows:
Alk "“ 6.7 DkH (Salifert & Hanna)
CA "“ 440 (Salifert)
MG "“ 1470 (Salifert) slowly bringing this down
K+ - 430 (Salifert)
NO3 "“ between 10 "“ 20 (Elos). This is strange that even with Zeovit, I have never reduced this to zero.
PO4 "“ 0.00 (Milwaukee photometer)
Salinity "“ 34 ppt (calibrated refractometer)
Anyway, I have been posting on the Zeovit forum, and have been getting some really good advice regarding the Zeo dosing, etc, I am still at a loss to figure out what is causing this algae, or even find any info on it. Here are the steps I have taken:
a) Changed salts from ESV B-Ionic salt to D+D Ocean. This didn't make a difference, so I changed back.
b) Increased water changes to 20% weekly.
c) Completely removed my shallow sand bed, and replaced with new sand.
d) Spectrapure is local to me, so I have had them inspect my RO/DI, and replace all filters, ensuring that I am using zero TDS water for all make-up.
e) I completely break down my skimmer once every other month to clean. It is an ATB 840 v2.0 which is rated much higher than my current +/- 65 gallons of system water.
f) Ran polyfilter to try to detect the presence of any heavy metals (no color change).
I have even removed about half of my live rock, and replaced with Marco rock that had been bathed in muratic acid, and soaked in RO/DI water, and still this rock has slowly been overtaken with the green algae shown in the pictures.
I am about ready to break the tank down, get all new live rock, and sand, and just start over. It just bothers me that I don't know what the cause of this algae is, and can't seem to fight it? It appears very un-natural to me, and if I didn't know better, I would think this was caused by using high TDS water, or even tap water, but all of my water shows zero TDS. The only thing that I can think of is that either my chiller is somehow leaching metals into the water (Current USA chiller, about four years old), or that I just have some really bad live rock?
Anyway, I'm hoping that someone will have had a similar experience, and might be able to share some insight. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Rocky
Also, the algae clip that is shown covered with algae in the picture was removed right after I snapped this shot. It is 100% plastic.
The tank has been up and running for about 18 months, and has been a zeovit system since day one. I have had various algae problems for most of this time, which doesn't seem typical for a Zeovit system. The tank has a total system volume of +/- 65 gallons. I am using one 150 watt MH lamp, and (4) T5 bulbs. I change the MH lamp every 9 months (14k Phoenix), and the T5 bulbs every six months. I have an ATB 840 V2.0 skimmer, and use a KZ Zeovit reactor. Tank has a ton of water flow (2 Tunze nano-streams and a Vortech).
My water parameters are as follows:
Alk "“ 6.7 DkH (Salifert & Hanna)
CA "“ 440 (Salifert)
MG "“ 1470 (Salifert) slowly bringing this down
K+ - 430 (Salifert)
NO3 "“ between 10 "“ 20 (Elos). This is strange that even with Zeovit, I have never reduced this to zero.
PO4 "“ 0.00 (Milwaukee photometer)
Salinity "“ 34 ppt (calibrated refractometer)
Anyway, I have been posting on the Zeovit forum, and have been getting some really good advice regarding the Zeo dosing, etc, I am still at a loss to figure out what is causing this algae, or even find any info on it. Here are the steps I have taken:
a) Changed salts from ESV B-Ionic salt to D+D Ocean. This didn't make a difference, so I changed back.
b) Increased water changes to 20% weekly.
c) Completely removed my shallow sand bed, and replaced with new sand.
d) Spectrapure is local to me, so I have had them inspect my RO/DI, and replace all filters, ensuring that I am using zero TDS water for all make-up.
e) I completely break down my skimmer once every other month to clean. It is an ATB 840 v2.0 which is rated much higher than my current +/- 65 gallons of system water.
f) Ran polyfilter to try to detect the presence of any heavy metals (no color change).
I have even removed about half of my live rock, and replaced with Marco rock that had been bathed in muratic acid, and soaked in RO/DI water, and still this rock has slowly been overtaken with the green algae shown in the pictures.
I am about ready to break the tank down, get all new live rock, and sand, and just start over. It just bothers me that I don't know what the cause of this algae is, and can't seem to fight it? It appears very un-natural to me, and if I didn't know better, I would think this was caused by using high TDS water, or even tap water, but all of my water shows zero TDS. The only thing that I can think of is that either my chiller is somehow leaching metals into the water (Current USA chiller, about four years old), or that I just have some really bad live rock?
Anyway, I'm hoping that someone will have had a similar experience, and might be able to share some insight. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Rocky
