Bacterial Bloom

Treefer32

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Starting a new 340 gallon tank. When I first started it, I fed a little flake food daily to just salt water, rock and sand. I dosed a whole bottle of Dr. Tims. I used a combination of Reef Crystals and Instant Ocean to start the tank.

I waited about 2 weeks got the lights installed and started running them for about 3 weeks before adding any fish. Got a little algae on the glass and was good to go. I am up to 7 fish now in a 340 gallon display. So, extremely small bio load. I was lazy and setup the auto feeder to almost the lowest feed opening and set it to run 4 times a day. Just wanted to keep things going. I noticed the sand discoloring so I raked it and overturned it and scraped the glass then, after doing that did a 10% - 30 gallon water change. That was last Friday, now, I can hardly see into the tank. PH continued to climb until Monday, hit a high of 8.37. When it's previous high was around 8.25 or so. Now, it seems to be stabilizing at 8.31-8.33 as it's high and bottoming out at 8.2 or so.

So far, I've seen all my fish eating and swimming. They don't seem to be quite as active, but I also can't see them very well, the water is extremely cloudy. Smells like pond scum. The skimmer is pulling out black stuff on a fairly regular basis that reeks like something died and died again...

I read a couple sites saying that most bacterial blooms will die off after about 10 days, hitting their max saturation then start clearing up. Last night was the first time I could start to see about 5-6 inches into the tank as the lights dimmed.

I'm hoping I hit the peak and now it continues to steadily clear up with the skimmer removing crap on a continual basis. I'm on day 7 or so of the massive bloom. I removed the auto feeder for now and am hand feeding frozen once per day just to try to keep the health up on the fish in the midst of a lot of saturation.

I know a UV sterilizer would be a quick fix, but, the size I would need to sterilize a 400 gallons would be ridiculously expensive. I may need one eventually, but really want to stay as natural as possible for filtration. I guess I have some very good bacteria populations. Now what to do to keep them in check?

What's the chances the bloom will resolve itself and start to clear further in the next 3 days? And will the die off start a new cycle all over again?
 

lapin

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Starting a new 340 gallon tank.I know a UV sterilizer would be a quick fix, but, the size I would need to sterilize a 400 gallons would be ridiculously expensive. I may need one eventually, but really want to stay as natural as possible for filtration. I guess I have some very good bacteria populations. Now what to do to keep them in check?
What's the chances the bloom will resolve itself and start to clear further in the next 3 days? And will the die off start a new cycle all over again?
If you want tot go a cheaper route you could purchase a diatom filter. I think they run about 150.00 new. They will remove all that stuff in the water column pretty fast. They will not effect your good bacteria on your rock and sand.
 
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Treefer32

Treefer32

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If you want tot go a cheaper route you could purchase a diatom filter. I think they run about 150.00 new. They will remove all that stuff in the water column pretty fast. They will not effect your good bacteria on your rock and sand.

I did not know there was such a thing.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

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