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Thread: Coudy water

  1. #1

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    Coudy water

    OK, so I set up my ATS using all the instructions here, almost a year ago. A bit before, by heater had gone haywire one night and pretty much cooked the tank. killing most everything. This resulted in a Biblical scale algae bloom. Set up the ATS into this mess and even with already seeded screen it would not take off, probably due to the jungle of algae in the tank taking all the nutrients. Next step - cook the rock. It has been in tubs in a dark bathrrom upstairs for over 6 months now and still has stubble of algae after water changes, plucking, shaving, etc. Anyway, the ATS has run since and never has developed a full beard, but assume that is beacuse it is servicing an empty tank.

    Problem - Water was turning green. A problem noted here and I took the advice found somewhere to add a charcoal filtration bag. That seemed to be working for about a week then one AM woke up to a cloudy white tank. You can see through it front to back, but side to side it is like soup. It is like being in a thick fog with a tiny bit of breeze, you can see the cloudy water moving around. Google research tells me that this is a bacteria bloom which should go away in a couple of days. It has now been three weeks. Any ideas or alternatively, is anyone interested a full 45 gal setup with tank, ATS, lights, etc.?

  2. #2
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    Anything living in the tank? Are you feeding? Size of screen, lighting, photoperiod, etc? Pics? Need more info....

  3. #3

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    One Coral banded shrimp...crush a few pellets of dry food once a week for it. Otherwise a small umbrella leather that succumbed after two weeks of the cloudy warter. No rock, all in rehab upstairs. Just shrimp, water and ATS. Running one Coralife 50/50 96W compact flourescent about 6 hours per day while there is nothing in the tank. Replace the bulb every 6 month

    45 gal tank; ATS - 2 x 23W compact florescents replaced every 3 months, flow according to instructions (measured, but do not have the numbers in front of me), 7 x 11 inch screen roughed and with "Seeded" screen attached to it. Lights on 18 hours per day.

    Setup with one light removed for pic -



    Front view -



    Side view -


  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by IM4DHERD View Post
    ...crush a few pellets of dry food once a week for it.
    45 gal tank
    ATS - 2 x 23W CFL
    7 x 11 inch screen
    Lights on 18 hours per day.
    Screen is sized for tank (old method) vs feeding (new method). Actually it's more like 1.5x the tank volume. If you are only feeding a few pieces of crushed pellets once a week, you probably need like 1 square inch of screen with 0.5 watt on each side. Not kidding. The feeding guideline is 12 sq in (3"x4") with 12w split between both sides (6W per side) per full cube of food per day. You are literally 1/100th of that. The screen won't grow without food. Your screen would need 11x7=77/12=6 cubes of food per day to reach capacity. Plus with 46W total lighting, you're under-lit as well. Probably would be good for 4 cubes/day, but unless you're feeding at least half of that, it won't grow right.

    Bottom line is no food, no rock, no urea being produced, no growth. I have no idea what your white bloom is but it seems to me like it is a serious imbalance of some kind. Further testing might help, you need to know if you have ammonia, nitrite, nitrate...could it be microbubbles? Something churning up and spitting out those?

    If it were me, I would forget trying to diagnose the issue with the water in your tank now. I would put the shrimp in a temp tank (10g w/heater) throw out the water, mix up a new batch of SW and fill it, put the LR back in, give it a couple days to mix, the re-acclimate the shrimp, size your scrubber for 1 cube/day and get some fish that you can feed at least 1/2 cube of food per day so that your screen can grow correctly and outcompete the algae on the rocks.

  5. #5
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    pH and alc ?

  6. #6
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    Even with no feeding, the tank has lots of nutrients to support a larger screen for a few weeks. Something is stopping it from growing.

    How about a pic of everything in place.

    Hours 18?

  7. #7

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    (frustration showing) I hadn't kept up with it...Thought the "old method"was the be all and end all. Will take some measurements to get current data and take some more pics and share soon. Thanks to all for the help.

  8. #8

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    Hydrometer - 1.024

    Phosphate 0
    Nitrate 0

    Temp 79.2

    ATS lights on 18 hours per day, bulbs changed every 90 days; Not feeding much because there is nothing to feed other than an attempt to grow the algae on the ATS.

    Have to run...Will test pH and Alk tomorrow and post ... Thanks again to all.


    Here's another pic:


  9. #9
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    SM there are no rocks in the tank, he has them in a separate container cooking them. So there is zero food source, essentially. I stand by my statement of new tank water, put rocks back in, reduce screen to match feeding, put in fish that pump out waste.

  10. #10
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    Probably right. Nothing is in there. Could turn off one bulb and it would grow twice as thick on the other side. Also could cut the screen in half vertically and tape the slot off. And could bend the reflector to match the smaller screen.

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