bacterial bloom waves..

revenant · Aug 31, 2020

All I have a tank at the end of the cycle.. 100G 60x18x20... my water params are good, I am checking daily... sometimes morning and night..

amon 0
nitrite 0
phos .23 (this was a lot higher but been coming down daily)
nitrate between 5 and 10
ph 8.2
temp 78.4
sal 1.025

I have an RO and tested the water coming out of it at 0.00 with the TDS meter. Using Instant Ocean Reef Crystals. I have a well cultured mixing barrel..

I got an attack of the diatoms and it came on fast.. on the sand bed and rocks.. getting thick on the rocks.. so I added two fish, a foxface and sailfin tang... they started grazing pretty much right away... That was Thursday(8/27.. On Saturday (8/29) I went to Vivid Aquariums and got 25 Astaea snails, three conches, two fire shrimp and a kole tang. They're doing an amazing job on the algae but now I am having fairly intense bacterial bloom issues... my water was cloudy yesterday but got way better as the day went on and was almost completely clear this morning... but I had a coating of green algae on my front plexi viewing area so I used my magnetic cleaner on the whole clear area and it released a bunch of really fine green clouds into the tank.. and since then the cloudiness has just gotten worse...

So I added a dual channel air pump with lines into the sump for extra help with oxygenating of the water.. people here warned me to do this if it got bad so just playing it safe... I have been doing little 7g water changes per day to remove nitrates which I have had a heck of a time getting below 10 but today it seemed just between 5 and 10..

All that aside there is no doubt this is related to the steep increase in bio-load.. So should I just leave the tank alone and let it do it's thing? All of the critters seem completely happy inside the tank. It's weird yesterday was cloudy and got so much better and it was like 90% cleared up this morning.. This was a lot of reading but I like to add as much detail as possible.. attaching pics in a few mins.

yesterday

today

Flippers4pups · Aug 31, 2020

revenant said:
All I have a tank at the end of the cycle.. 100G 60x18x20... my water params are good, I am checking daily sometimes morning and night..
amon 0
nitrite 0
phos .23 (this was a lot higher but been coming down daily)
nitrate between 5 and 10
ph 8.2
temp 78.4
sal 1.025

I have an RO and tested the water coming out of it at 0.00 with the TDS meter.

I got an attack of the diatoms and it came on fast.. on the sand bed and rocks.. getting thick on the rocks.. so I added two fish, a foxface and sailfin tang... they started grazing pretty much right away... That was Thursday(8/27.. On Saturday (8/29) I went to Vivid Aquariums and got 25 Astaea snails, three conches, two fire shrimp and a kole tang. They're doing an amazing job on the algae but now I am having fairly intense bacterial bloom issues... my water was cloudy yesterday but got way better as the day went on and was almost completely clear this morning... but I had a coating of green algae on my front plexi viewing area so I used my magnetic cleaner on the whole clear area and it released a bunch of really fine green clouds into the tank.. and since then the cloudiness has just gotten worse...

So I added a dual channel air pump with lines into the sump for extra help with oxygenating of the water.. people here warned me to do this if it got bad so just playing it safe... I have been doing little 7g water changes per day to remove nitrates which I can't get below 10 but today it seemed just between 5 and 10..

All that aside there is no doubt related to the steep increase in bio-load.. So should I just leave the tank alone and let it do it's thing? All of the critters seem completely happy inside the tank. It's weird yesterday was cloudy and got so much better and it was like 90% cleared up this morning.. This was a lot of reading but I like to add as much detail as possible.. attaching pics in a few mins.

yesterday

today

Yep, I'd add a UV sterilizer. I run one 24/7 for algae/bacterial blooms. Crystal clear water always.

revenant · Aug 31, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
Yep, I'd add a UV sterilizer. I run one 24/7 for algae/bacterial blooms. Crystal clear water always.

Thanks... I saw this was the answer while googling a bit. Won't that kill pods and stuff too? I was planning on having pods and dosing phyto for the sixline wrasse I am going to get... Well.. so how many watts do you recommend for my tank?

Flippers4pups · Aug 31, 2020

revenant said:
Thanks... I saw this was the answer while googling a bit. Won't that kill pods and stuff too? I was planning on having pods and dosing phyto for the sixline wrasse I am going to get... Well.. so how many watts do you recommend for my tank?

Copepods, amphipods and isopods do move around a system, but mostly attached to surfaces, rarely in the water collum.

My system has all of the above and recently I filmed a isopod explosion in my frag tank. It's plumbed into my main system with the UV sterilizer.

Anyway, I would use a 8-15watt Aqua Uv for your size tank. Some will say you should go larger, but for algae/bacterial blooms, 8-15watts is all you need.

revenant · Aug 31, 2020

ok well it's a good thing to have on hand with a reef tank and don't need to run it all the time so I grabbed this:

Adjustable Flow Submersible UV Filter SP9UV (9 Watt) - AquaTop

says good for 120G or less... Easy drop in sump install. This might just be an algae bloom too? It seemed to go crazy when I cleaned the clear plexi areas.. The uvf should be here in a couple days. Thanks!

revenant · Aug 31, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
Copepods, amphipods and isopods do move around a system, but mostly attached to surfaces, rarely in the water collum.

My system has all of the above and recently I filmed a isopod explosion in my frag tank. It's plumbed into my main system with the UV sterilizer.

Anyway, I would use a 8-15watt Aqua Uv for your size tank. Some will say you should go larger, but for algae/bacterial blooms, 8-15watts is all you need.

Ah that makes sense with the pods.. ok.. well uvf on the way.. see my previous post for details. Thanks again!!

Flippers4pups · Aug 31, 2020

revenant said:
ok well it's a good thing to have on hand with a reef tank and don't need to run it all the time so I grabbed this:

Adjustable Flow Submersible UV Filter SP9UV (9 Watt) - AquaTop

says good for 120G or less... Easy drop in sump install. This might just be an algae bloom too? It seemed to go crazy when I cleaned the clear plexi areas.. The uvf should be here in a couple days. Thanks!

White- bacteria

Green- algae

revenant · Aug 31, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
White- bacteria

Green- algae

lol.. a double dose of UGH ... looks like both kind of.. well def have green algae happening now and the cloudiness is white. So bacteria. thanks again.

revenant · Sep 1, 2020

this UV sterilizer could not get here sooner.. omg I hate seeing my tank so cloudy.. but all of the fish and other critters seem extremely happy, grazing aggressively all day - very active. I don't even know if feeding them once a day is needed with the amount they graze but am keeping that schedule so the shrimp get some food... all water params are very good.. checking daily - amon (0) and nitrite (0) and nitrate went down a bit to 5ppm.. maybe just a smidge above. UVS should be here Thursday I imagine.. It's in AZ now being handed off to usps and I am in SoCal.. Priority service so could be tomorrow but I am not getting my hopes up. lol.

edit: I keep getting green film on my clear bits (front mostly, sides a little) but am going to leave it be.. when I clean it it seems to make the cloudiness worse.. I will wait until I have the UVS in the sump to clean.

Scorpius · Sep 1, 2020

I went UV with my current build and I'll never not use UV.

revenant · Sep 1, 2020

The cloudiness is settling down... a lot. Still adding the UV sterilizer as soon as it comes.

Fishingandreefing · Sep 1, 2020

Boy I was having the same issue, the uv took care of it. Once I turned it off last week, it was blooming again. I just shut it off today and will see if it will bloom back again lol. I try not to run it.

revenant · Sep 2, 2020

Fishingandreefing said:
Boy I was having the same issue, the uv took care of it. Once I turned it off last week, it was blooming again. I just shut it off today and will see if it will bloom back again lol. I try not to run it.

Yeah I read others experience that too.. the UV is really keeping it at bay but the issue is still there.. mine went from can’t see the other side of the tank to fairly clear this evening in the space of about three hours... I have green algae on my front viewport but leaving it alone.. each time I scrape that it lets loose green clouds of fine silt and the cloudiness comes back... not sure if it’s related because the cloudiness is white - not green.. idk.. waiting for the UV before I touch that again.. man I’ll just run that UV all the time for a while.. but at the same time I want the tank to not be dependent on it.. oh well.. it’s just another filter I run all the time I guess .

Fishingandreefing · Sep 2, 2020

revenant said:
Yeah I read others experience that too.. the UV is really keeping it at bay but the issue is still there.. mine went from can’t see the other side of the tank to fairly clear this evening in the space of about three hours... I have green algae on my front viewport but leaving it alone.. each time I scrape that it lets loose green clouds of fine silt and the cloudiness comes back... not sure if it’s related because the cloudiness is white - not green.. idk.. waiting for the UV before I touch that again.. man I’ll just run that UV all the time for a while.. but at the same time I want the tank to not be dependent on it.. oh well.. it’s just another filter I run all the time I guess .

I just don’t want to rely on the uv as my other tank is almost always crystal clear except one time had a bloom which it was almost clear up the next day by itself.

revenant · Sep 3, 2020

Got my uv installed just now... have the pump
on the highest setting.. 264gph I think... now we wait.. guessing hoping in 48 hours things will look a lot better... all critters are still happy. My sump is now pretty full lol.. got the UV stuck to the bottom with the flow pointing up. Seemed like the ideal config. Gives the sump water top some agitation...

You can see the light is on with this config too.. the little bright bit near the red flow strength slider..

Looking into the water column sideways.. can
barely see the other side right now ... so bad.

oh and I see I have a very good colony of pods now ... all over the clear bits... really cool. My sixline will love those when I can add one in a month or so..

revenant · Sep 3, 2020

Omg the pods ate growing fast ... they’re everywhere... all aquarium walls and rocks and sand I would guess..

Can a pod expedition like this cause cloudy water??

revenant · Sep 3, 2020

So I am watching the water closely and I see fine and larger debris tumbling in waves in the flow... like smoke almost.. is that bacterial bloom still???

[MEDIA]

revenant · Sep 4, 2020

Uv in for 24 hours, new filter sock, things are looking less cloudy slowly because I can now see the power heads at the other side of the tank better... still a lot of haze though..