Cloudy/foggy water and clear algae please help

[harrypotter78]

My water has recently started to be cloudy, I’ve been doing my water changes on the same say every week and it hasn't gone away. What is the cause of this cloudiness and how do I get rid of it? There is also clear algae covering all of my rocks and I’m wondering how to get rid of that as well. I have a 25 gallon saltwater fish tank and I have a yellow watchman goby, a clown fish, and a pistol shrimp as well as a few anemones.

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

First off, Welcome to Boston Reefers Society.
What are your parameters? How long has the tank been running?
Looks like dinoflagellates. Siphon as much as you can off the rocks and sand, Kill the lights or feed the tanks super heavy with nitrates to starve back the dinos.

 

[harrypotter78]

Thank you! My tank has been running for about 8 months. These are my parameters:

 

[dz6t]

You need test kits. The strips are not good enough.
What is the salinity?


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[Sparky88]

Im not sure what that is but I always start with removing as much as possible. Brush off any rocks u can remove in bucket of tank water. Blast rocks with power head and put the smalles pore size filter sock you can get. The idear being to catch anything blasted off the rocks

 

[Chris A.]

I’m with Dz6t on this. Tell us where you live and there’s probably someone close by that can test your water for you. Without knowing the basic levels of your tank it’s all a guessing game.

 

[Sparky88]

I'm in marlbough and would test for u.

 

[Sparky88]

@jsak1976 is in Salem
@frank180reef is in groton
@dz6t is in concord
These are venders and not for sure but I bet they would help you out.

 

[Sparky88]

They realy were helpful even on first visit

 

[jsak1976]

@harrypotter78 where are you located?


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[jsak1976]

Welcome, Hard to tell from pics but does look like dino’s and tank being about 8 months running makes sense. Stop doing your weekly water changes, that will continue to feed the algae. If you are using any media reactors carbon/gfo/nitrate or phosphate removers stop using for now. You want to allow nitrates and phosphates and bacteria to build up it will help. Minimize lights, scrub rock with brush and siphon out. Adding some pods and dosing small amount of live phytoplankton with also help. It will take a few weeks but will go away. Pick up a better set of test kits when you can. You’ll want to keep an eye on your nitrates and phosphates and just make sure you buy test kits that will test in the range your looking for. Good luck


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[Sparky88]

Welcome, Hard to tell from pics but does look like dino’s and tank being about 8 months running makes sense. Stop doing your weekly water changes, that will continue to feed the algae. If you are using any media reactors carbon/gfo/nitrate or phosphate removers stop using for now. You want to allow nitrates and phosphates and bacteria to build up it will help. Minimize lights, scrub rock with brush and siphon out. Adding some pods and dosing small amount of live phytoplankton with also help. It will take a few weeks but will go away. Pick up a better set of test kits when you can. You’ll want to keep an eye on your nitrates and phosphates and just make sure you buy test kits that will test in the range your looking for. Good luck


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Why would raising no3 po4 help? Kinda the reverse of what I was thinking. Interested to see how it ties in. First thing ppl say is ur feeding to much, your nutrients are to high. Feed less. Do a water change. Seems to be common starts with algea?as always thanks gor the info.

 

[Cheddah93]

Why would raising no3 po4 help? Kinda the reverse of what I was thinking. Interested to see how it ties in. First thing ppl say is ur feeding to much, your nutrients are to high. Feed less. Do a water change. Seems to be common starts with algea?as always thanks gor the info.

They’re referring to if it’s dino’s. Normal algae thrives off of the no3 and po4 but Dino’s feed off the silicates and clean/low nutrients in the column.

 

[Sparky88]

Aaaa thank u.

 

[dz6t]

Dino is a type of algae, it take up nitrate abd phosphate to grow.

The water change myth is related to dirty source water, likely comes from exhausted filters, which may contribute to the Dino issue to begin with and feeding it via water changes.



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[jsak1976]

Dino is a type of algae, it take up nitrate abd phosphate to grow.

The water change myth is related to dirty source water, likely comes from exhausted filters, which may contribute to the Dino issue to begin with and feeding it via water changes.



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Yes Dino is an algae very similar to phyto plankton. I believe it’s a little more than a myth, I’ve used this methods a few times on newer tanks successfully, and a large part is the pods and live phyto. I believe stopping the water changes helps because I believe there is something that gets by your RODI filters probably silicates that continue to feed the Dino’s. Silicates will pass through a TDS meter and not show up, I believe some silicates will pass through even if DI resin is not exhausted.


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[jsak1976]

Also using a powerhead to blow off rocks will save some time and then use fine fishnet to remove stuff floating around


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[FREAKINRICAN69]

I think i'm having this issue in the frag tank.

I just noticed because i was away in NH for the weekend and now it's nasty in there.

 

[dz6t]

There is plenty of talk about silicate and Dino on Reef forums without providing any scientific evidence, and I yet to find a scientific paper that indicates silicate can promote dino growth. There are evidence that silicate is consumed by diatom however.
Silicate actually is an important nutrient for sponge.
Randy wrote about dosing silicate and there was no evidence that it could cause dino growth.
Just my two cents and a half.


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[dz6t]

I do agree that adding live phytoplankton is a way to combat dino. Phytoplankton can out compete dino for nutrients like nitrate and phosphate.



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