Green / Cloudy Water

Hi all,

I have just started a new marine aquarium and after several problems setting up I am now up against a one I cant seem to shift.

Green Water.

My water after a couple of months was crystal clear, I had comments from friends stating it was so clear it didnt look like there was any water in the tank.


I started to get a detritus build up so I went and bought a few cheap hermit crabs that cleared the whole tank within 24 hours.

After waiting another couple of weeks I decided it was time to go buy some fish. I went to my LFS and bough two small clowns. Introduced them to my tank and within 2 days started to notice the water going cloudy. Like looking out of the window during a very foggy day.

Then one day I came home from work and the tank was completely green.


After a friend advised to turn off my lights I have done so and closed the nearby curtains for nearly a week. But I can not seem to get it better than this.


Am I going to have to resort to blacking out the tank to get my tank back to the original clarity?

Tank specs are 200litres. Fluval 306 canister filter system (with carbon, water polishing foam and de-nitrifying foam in replacement to a protein skimmer as several sources have informed me to do this instead of a skimmer). 2 3000litre/hr powerheads. 10 kgs live rock. 300w heater. Crushed coral sand 5inches of. I have a RO/DI unit.

All tests show very good water quality. Ammonia is 0. Nitrites 0. Small amount of Nitrates <10. Ph is a bit low at 7.8 - 8. Phosphate 0. I have been doing 2 water changes a week to try and combat to which doesnt seemed to have helped.

Any help would be great. Its really started to get me down.

 

Welcome to 3reef.

I suggest also a prolonged black out of at least 3 days. Adding more flow to the tank via addition of a stronger powers heads or more.

Either get some Chempuire elite or GFO and run that as well.

I would start there and move to more intrusive measures it that fails.

Lastly you can copy and paste the photobucket image right into your post, it's the img code.

 

You can also try to do a couple big water changes along with your blackout.

 

Phyto blooms are uncommon in the hobby but not rare. I had one a few years ago, overnight shipped a UV sterilizer which will help but run some new carbon in a reactor and mine cleared up over night literally.

Its not harmful by any means but you can take aluminum foil and tape it to the outside of your tank for an actually black out. That may work as well.

 

+1 on GFO and one thing that I added to my tank and LOVE is my UV sterilizer, picked one up at Petco and within 72 hours I could tell that thing made a diffrence, after 2 weeks I was back to clear water!

 

As others have stated, a UV filter will help. Try to get a properly sized UV filter for your tank and a pump that will flow the correct rate through the UV filter for treating green water.

A good amount of UV info on :Aquariums | aquaultraviolet.com

Here's the link on Aqua UV's site for sizing a UV filter: http://www.aquaultraviolet.com/sites/default/files/brochures/UV Charts Salt and Fresh Water.pdf

Good luck.

 

FWIW, I think that the advice against a skimmer in a salt water tank was not good advice. People do run tanks without skimmers but you must be very diligent in your water change routines. I would suggest that you run fresh carbon and some sort of phosphate remover. Cut the lights also as a way to cut the green more quickly. You need to also clean your canister very good on a regular basis because it can be a trap for detritrus buildup that can cause your nutrient levels to rise.

I would look into getting a skimmer. Good luck! Your tank and set up is really nice. What size tank is it?

 

This.

 

Hi all,

Thanks for all the replies. I have literally been riddled with problems since setting this up. It is my first so I did expect issues though.

It is a 200 litre tank.

I changed the carbon bags just after this started happening during the cloudy phase before it went green. Cleaned the filter out at the same time too.

I spent a long time last night taping cardboard to the tank to do a total black out which will come off in 3 days as advised. Im assuming my clowns will be ok with no light and no food for 3 days? I also done a 25% water change at the same time.

Aaron

 

Just to add another uv shout,running a uv filter is great advice.
Slowly slowly ............ 3 days darkness will certainly help you out, the clowns should be fine, how much are you feeding them ? Don't forget just how small they are and their food capacity. Over feeding will cause all sorts of problems.

Good luck and keep us up to date with progress.