NateHanson
Non-member
I received a private question from a member that I thought would be applicable to others, so I'm posting my response here for everyone to benefit and/or offer their different opinions.
Is the scum on the surface something thick that you could scoop out with a spoon? Or is more like a thin oil slick on the water?
If the pond scum you're talking about is more like a gooey brown bubbly stringy sludge, that grows on your rocks over the course of the day, and when you blow off your rocks brown bubbly stuff floats up to the surface and collects there, then you probably have dinoflagellates. They're kinda nasty. The sludge smells awful, and they can be hard to get rid of, but they don't seem to bother corals too much. I found that dripping kalkwasser for your topoff does wonders for decreasing dinoflagellates, maybe because it raises the pH of the tank. While you're at it raise the Alkalinity of your tank to above 4.0 meq/L too. If you're already close to that you can probably do it with kalk over a few days since I don't think you have many corals - or use Washing Soda fully disolved and added slowly to boost it. I found Baking soda made it worse, possibly because it depressed the tank pH slightly. I'd try that (kalk and high alk), and blow off your rocks at least every day, and scoop out any sludge that collects on the surface. After a couple weeks I bet you'll see an improvement.
Good luck,
Nate
Hi Nate,
I have a problem, I need some help with. Recently, I have gotten an out break of maroon hair algae. I have also noticed for a month or so tiny bubbles, I thought micro bubbles from the skimmer, sticking to algae around the tank. Whenever any of the bubbles are disrupted there is a horrible stagnent water smell. I am not running any filters on the tank, but I do have the remora pro going, a penguin 600 powerhead, a small 260 (just to keep one corner moveing), and a 2600 via aqua (i think that's what it is) which turns 700+ gph. Anyway, there seem to be no dead spots in the tank, but there seems to be something floating on the top of the water on the right side of the tank, the side the skimmer is not on.It almost looks like a pond does in the summer when there is still water and pollen on it.
what's going on??! any ideas??
Thanks
Is the scum on the surface something thick that you could scoop out with a spoon? Or is more like a thin oil slick on the water?
If the pond scum you're talking about is more like a gooey brown bubbly stringy sludge, that grows on your rocks over the course of the day, and when you blow off your rocks brown bubbly stuff floats up to the surface and collects there, then you probably have dinoflagellates. They're kinda nasty. The sludge smells awful, and they can be hard to get rid of, but they don't seem to bother corals too much. I found that dripping kalkwasser for your topoff does wonders for decreasing dinoflagellates, maybe because it raises the pH of the tank. While you're at it raise the Alkalinity of your tank to above 4.0 meq/L too. If you're already close to that you can probably do it with kalk over a few days since I don't think you have many corals - or use Washing Soda fully disolved and added slowly to boost it. I found Baking soda made it worse, possibly because it depressed the tank pH slightly. I'd try that (kalk and high alk), and blow off your rocks at least every day, and scoop out any sludge that collects on the surface. After a couple weeks I bet you'll see an improvement.
Good luck,
Nate
