Help slimy stringy algae and cloudy water!

NMETCALF · 01/15/2013, 09:20 AM

I have had my tank up for 3 month. The cycle was done and everything looked great, water quality was great. I was out of town for 1 weekend and when I got back my procollipora coral seemed to have died. I removed it from the water and all the other corals seemed fine for a week. This last weekend I was gone again, and when I got back there was this dreadful slimy light brown stringy algae all over everything, and all my zoanthids seem to have closed up. So I pulled out a bunch of the rocks and rinsed them in a freshwater dip to remove some of the slimy stuff and I siphoned off a buch and used a turkey baster to clean off the corals. Also a small anemone died, which I removed. The next day more of that slimy algae had developed, so yesterday I added some dr Tim's waste away and left the lights off except for about 1 hour. Now this morning I wake up an the water is very cloudy. What can I do?
Here's my setup:
200 gal dt
40 gallon sump/ fuge with wet dry system that I have running with some bio balls a little filter media, and few big clumps if chaeto, and some lr
I run a reactor with dr Tim's bio pellets, a protein skimmer that I run a bit wet and remove about a liter of brown murky water every other day, I also have a small 2 gallon refugium with various macro algae and lr and time tube worm colonies. Lots of pods growing in there.
I have an EVO quad 72" light on the dt that seems to be a fantastic light, I also use a 250w metal halide to add a but more lighting. Lights are all in timers. With the blue lights coming in about 30 mins before the white lights an everything is in 10 min steps.
I run a turf algae scrubber in one of the overflows that seems to be doing quite well, lots if brown green and red algae growing on it, and I scrape off half of the algae from it every other week.
Temp is 79 - 80 during the day, and 77 at night.
Water tests show:
Less than 1ppm ammonia
Ph at 8.3
KH 140ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 10ppm
Phosphates at 0
Calcium at 560

Only other thing that may be relevant is that last week after seeing some of my coral polyps closing I decided to start doing with vitamin C. About 2500mg twice a day. I use nutrition biotic sodium ascorbate which seems to be the recommended kind. Perhaps the vitamin c isn't working well with something? I don't know, but at this point I'm pretty sure something is wrong. I use RO/DI water for top offs and water changes. I don't do a lot if water changes, although I did about 10% a couple days ago.
I do replace the water I skim off so that's like a liter every other day.
Please let me know any ideas of what I can do, or what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks!!

NMETCALF · 01/15/2013, 09:29 AM

Forgot to mention, I run two of the biggest koralia pump with a wave timer and an extra one for surface agitation. I also have about 8 various damsels, a couple clownfish, a cow fish, a couple golden sleeper gobies that keep my sand bed clean. A bar goby, a fir goby, a brown tang, a fire angel, a small yellow watchman goby, coral banded shrimp, some peppermint shrimp, about 4 emerald crabs, maybe 60 tiny hermits, and about 100 snails if various types, a couple brittle stars, a sand sifting star, and a horseshoe crab.

Dmorty217 · 01/15/2013, 09:58 AM

I know you mentioned you have three of the hydro pumps on a wave maker. You may want to add more to increase the flow. I have a 125 setup right now with a mp60 and a Tunze wavebox on it and algae and cyano don't have a chance to start to build up with the flow in the tank. Also don't know how long you have your lights on for but mine are on a total of 8 hrs with 6 of those being the whites and the other 2 blues only. Cloudy water is a sign of excess nutrients so feed less and do some water changes and see if that starts to subside the problem

NMETCALF · 01/15/2013, 10:12 AM

Wouldn't the excess nutrients show up in the water testing as phosphates or ammonia?

ojonas81 · 01/15/2013, 10:15 AM

You might have too heavy of a bio-load so close to start-up. 18+ fish after just 3 months is a lot of bio-load for a new tank to handle.

NMETCALF · 01/15/2013, 10:36 AM

I would agree it it was a smaller tank, but I have less than one fish to 10 gallons and try are all very small fish. I doubt the bio load is too much when I have over 240 gallons of water.

Also forgot to mention that my return pump is running at about 1300gph what also significantly adds to the flow rate of the water in the display tank. I don't have detritus buildup on the sand bed anywhere with the flow I have. I could add a couple more moralistic pumps I suppose, but there seems to be pretty good water movie t throughout the display tank, so I really don't think any of those things are the culprit of either the algae problem or the cloudy water.

NMETCALF · 01/15/2013, 10:36 AM

I would agree it it was a smaller tank, but I have less than one fish to 10 gallons and they are all very small fish. I doubt the bio load is too much when I have over 240 gallons of water.

Also forgot to mention that my return pump is running at about 1300gph which also significantly adds to the flow rate of the water in the display tank. I don't have detritus buildup on the sand bed anywhere with the flow I have. I could add a couple more koralia pumps I suppose, but there seems to be pretty good water movement throughout the display tank, so I really don't think any of those things are the culprit of either the algae problem or the cloudy water.

NMETCALF · 01/15/2013, 08:18 PM

Any more suggestions?

NMETCALF · 01/15/2013, 08:23 PM

I added a 10x18 carbon pad filter spong to the wet dry system today to see if that will help filter out whatever is causing the cloudiness.

01/15/2013, 09:20 AM	#1
NMETCALF Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Coos Bay, OR Posts: 16	Help slimy stringy algae and cloudy water! I have had my tank up for 3 month. The cycle was done and everything looked great, water quality was great. I was out of town for 1 weekend and when I got back my procollipora coral seemed to have died. I removed it from the water and all the other corals seemed fine for a week. This last weekend I was gone again, and when I got back there was this dreadful slimy light brown stringy algae all over everything, and all my zoanthids seem to have closed up. So I pulled out a bunch of the rocks and rinsed them in a freshwater dip to remove some of the slimy stuff and I siphoned off a buch and used a turkey baster to clean off the corals. Also a small anemone died, which I removed. The next day more of that slimy algae had developed, so yesterday I added some dr Tim's waste away and left the lights off except for about 1 hour. Now this morning I wake up an the water is very cloudy. What can I do? Here's my setup: 200 gal dt 40 gallon sump/ fuge with wet dry system that I have running with some bio balls a little filter media, and few big clumps if chaeto, and some lr I run a reactor with dr Tim's bio pellets, a protein skimmer that I run a bit wet and remove about a liter of brown murky water every other day, I also have a small 2 gallon refugium with various macro algae and lr and time tube worm colonies. Lots of pods growing in there. I have an EVO quad 72" light on the dt that seems to be a fantastic light, I also use a 250w metal halide to add a but more lighting. Lights are all in timers. With the blue lights coming in about 30 mins before the white lights an everything is in 10 min steps. I run a turf algae scrubber in one of the overflows that seems to be doing quite well, lots if brown green and red algae growing on it, and I scrape off half of the algae from it every other week. Temp is 79 - 80 during the day, and 77 at night. Water tests show: Less than 1ppm ammonia Ph at 8.3 KH 140ppm Nitrite 0ppm Nitrate 10ppm Phosphates at 0 Calcium at 560 Only other thing that may be relevant is that last week after seeing some of my coral polyps closing I decided to start doing with vitamin C. About 2500mg twice a day. I use nutrition biotic sodium ascorbate which seems to be the recommended kind. Perhaps the vitamin c isn't working well with something? I don't know, but at this point I'm pretty sure something is wrong. I use RO/DI water for top offs and water changes. I don't do a lot if water changes, although I did about 10% a couple days ago. I do replace the water I skim off so that's like a liter every other day. Please let me know any ideas of what I can do, or what I'm doing wrong. Thanks!!

01/15/2013, 10:12 AM	#4
NMETCALF Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Coos Bay, OR Posts: 16	Wouldn't the excess nutrients show up in the water testing as phosphates or ammonia? __________________ Nick Metcalf www.livingaquascapes.com Current Tank Info: 200g reef, 50g refugium. I also have about 6 other tanks going at the moment.

01/15/2013, 10:36 AM	#6
NMETCALF Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Coos Bay, OR Posts: 16	I would agree it it was a smaller tank, but I have less than one fish to 10 gallons and try are all very small fish. I doubt the bio load is too much when I have over 240 gallons of water. Also forgot to mention that my return pump is running at about 1300gph what also significantly adds to the flow rate of the water in the display tank. I don't have detritus buildup on the sand bed anywhere with the flow I have. I could add a couple more moralistic pumps I suppose, but there seems to be pretty good water movie t throughout the display tank, so I really don't think any of those things are the culprit of either the algae problem or the cloudy water. __________________ Nick Metcalf www.livingaquascapes.com Current Tank Info: 200g reef, 50g refugium. I also have about 6 other tanks going at the moment.

01/15/2013, 10:36 AM	#7
NMETCALF Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Coos Bay, OR Posts: 16	I would agree it it was a smaller tank, but I have less than one fish to 10 gallons and they are all very small fish. I doubt the bio load is too much when I have over 240 gallons of water. Also forgot to mention that my return pump is running at about 1300gph which also significantly adds to the flow rate of the water in the display tank. I don't have detritus buildup on the sand bed anywhere with the flow I have. I could add a couple more koralia pumps I suppose, but there seems to be pretty good water movement throughout the display tank, so I really don't think any of those things are the culprit of either the algae problem or the cloudy water. __________________ Nick Metcalf www.livingaquascapes.com Current Tank Info: 200g reef, 50g refugium. I also have about 6 other tanks going at the moment.

01/15/2013, 08:18 PM	#8
NMETCALF Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Coos Bay, OR Posts: 16	Any more suggestions? __________________ Nick Metcalf www.livingaquascapes.com Current Tank Info: 200g reef, 50g refugium. I also have about 6 other tanks going at the moment.

01/15/2013, 09:29 AM	#2
NMETCALF Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Coos Bay, OR Posts: 16	Forgot to mention, I run two of the biggest koralia pump with a wave timer and an extra one for surface agitation. I also have about 8 various damsels, a couple clownfish, a cow fish, a couple golden sleeper gobies that keep my sand bed clean. A bar goby, a fir goby, a brown tang, a fire angel, a small yellow watchman goby, coral banded shrimp, some peppermint shrimp, about 4 emerald crabs, maybe 60 tiny hermits, and about 100 snails if various types, a couple brittle stars, a sand sifting star, and a horseshoe crab.

01/15/2013, 09:58 AM	#3
Dmorty217 Saltwater Addict Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Vandalia OHIO Posts: 11,624	I know you mentioned you have three of the hydro pumps on a wave maker. You may want to add more to increase the flow. I have a 125 setup right now with a mp60 and a Tunze wavebox on it and algae and cyano don't have a chance to start to build up with the flow in the tank. Also don't know how long you have your lights on for but mine are on a total of 8 hrs with 6 of those being the whites and the other 2 blues only. Cloudy water is a sign of excess nutrients so feed less and do some water changes and see if that starts to subside the problem

01/15/2013, 10:15 AM	#5
ojonas81 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: Jacksonville, FL Posts: 1,160	You might have too heavy of a bio-load so close to start-up. 18+ fish after just 3 months is a lot of bio-load for a new tank to handle.

01/15/2013, 08:23 PM	#9
NMETCALF Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Coos Bay, OR Posts: 16	I added a 10x18 carbon pad filter spong to the wet dry system today to see if that will help filter out whatever is causing the cloudiness. __________________ Nick Metcalf www.livingaquascapes.com Current Tank Info: 200g reef, 50g refugium. I also have about 6 other tanks going at the moment.