Bacterial bloom and Seachem Zooplankton

marcusbacus · Sep 16, 2021

A very unexpected bacterial bloom happened in my tank today. The culprit? Seachem's zooplankton, I suppose.
I have used zooplankton before, from other brands in many formats, and never noticed anything odd. I started using the Seachem about 2 days ago, always following the instructions. Tonight when I went to check the tank before the lights are off, I noticed the cloudy water. It doesn't seem too extreme, but it's not light as well. The only different thing I did was add the zoo. While googling for possible episodes like mine, I saw the ingredients, from the Seachem site: artemia, rotifers, etc. and... Acetic acid!
The list of ingredients is as follows: Ingredients: Water, Sodium chloride, Acetic Acid, Euphausia Pacifica, Artemia, Rotifer, Ascorbic Acid, Citric Acid, Astaxanthin.
They should warn us of possible cloudiness episodes ...

blaxsun · Sep 17, 2021

Can't say that I've experienced that with Seachem Zooplankton.

Reef. · Sep 17, 2021

marcusbacus said:
A very unexpected bacterial bloom happened in my tank today. The culprit? Seachem's zooplankton, I suppose.
I have used zooplankton before, from other brands in many formats, and never noticed anything odd. I started using the Seachem about 2 days ago, always following the instructions. Tonight when I went to check the tank before the lights are off, I noticed the cloudy water. It doesn't seem too extreme, but it's not light as well. The only different thing I did was add the zoo. While googling for possible episodes like mine, I saw the ingredients, from the Seachem site: artemia, rotifers, etc. and... Acetic acid!
The list of ingredients is as follows: Ingredients: Water, Sodium chloride, Acetic Acid, Euphausia Pacifica, Artemia, Rotifer, Ascorbic Acid, Citric Acid, Astaxanthin.
They should warn us of possible cloudiness episodes ...

I don’t like the sound of those ingredients. I won’t be buying that.

Sounds like a bacteria bloom, looks like you have fed the bacteria and it’s gone crazy, should calm down when the food runs out.

Maybe reduce the dose in future.

marcusbacus · Sep 19, 2021

As I said, it wasn't too serious and the next day the water was clean again. As they don't mention the amount of acetic acid (aka vinegar...) they use, it might be really the culprit. Maybe it should be used one day of the week only or something, and in a smaller dose that is recommended.

marcusbacus · Feb 23, 2022

It's me again. Yesterday I did some real target feeding (slow and gentle) with the zooplakton and all my montis seem to have an area that looks like they were burned or irritated today. When I fed the 2 btas, both closed up very very fast and kind of hid also incredibly fast in a different place, I never saw them "run" like this before or even close that fast (as fast as say a feather dust). Other corals seem fine, but definitely the montis and a Hollywood chalice have some weird spots on them. The btas are fine, I think. Probably it's definitely too acidic for being squished near the corals (and I did it very softly!) and will cause some damage to the tissues.

SlugSnorter · Feb 23, 2022

marcusbacus said:
It's me again. Yesterday I did some real target feeding (slow and gentle) with the zooplakton and all my montis seem to have an area that looks like they were burned or irritated today. When I fed the 2 btas, both closed up very very fast and kind of hid also incredibly fast in a different place, I never saw them "run" like this before or even close that fast (as fast as say a feather dust). Other corals seem fine, but definitely the montis and a Hollywood chalice have some weird spots on them. The btas are fine, I think. Probably it's definitely too acidic for being squished near the corals (and I did it very softly!) and will cause some damage to the tissues.

aren't you supposed to dilute it with tankwater first?