how can I get rid of my pea soup?!?
 

My reef aquarium is only about 3.5 months established and in it I have 3 chromis, a clown fish, a blue velvet damsel, a hermit crab, a few small pieces of live rock, and a plant of which I do not know the name. Up until about 3 weeks ago things seemed great then one day the water became cloudy, a day later the entire tank(50 gal) was completely green, I could not see anything. Unfortunately the local pet store advised me to do a water change, saying they had never heard of green water in a marine tank. After the partial water change things seemed worse, and now after having done some investigation I know that I should not have done this. I have called around, read through the posts here and realized I should check my phosphates, they were sky high, so I got some greenx and put that in my filter. Things have begun to clear up a little, however as you can see by my pic, things are still pretty bad. My question is, is there any way to get get the algae out of the water? I'm dying to look into my aquarium again, haven't seen my live rock for three weeks.
http://www.winningwebworks.com/peasoup.jpg[/img]

You have an algae bloom... basicly. you need to turn off your lights for a bit.. this happens occasionaly in my FW tank when I get lazy (atleast I admit it ) .. and things get out of wack.. Do some water changes with good RO/DI water. and cut down on the lights.. or better yet. cover the tank with a dark material so no light gets in. Another thing that works, (not sure if this is available for marine tanks) but it clumps particals together. that way your mechanical filter will take this stuff out. I've used it in my FW so I didn't have to darken the tank. But definately do water changes.

P/S if the water change made it worse.. I think you may have a poor water supply. High phosphates or nitrates.. go to a local super market and get some RO water.

Chad

The unknown Plant may be the cause as it could have gone sexual. I don't really know much about plants and there cycles but thought I'd make a sugestion and see if anyone can add the facts


J

I don't know much about that. too me its a typical algae bloom. I've seen it lots in FW.. but this is the first I've seen in SW but I think that is because when it comes to SW we are much more sensitive to water conditions and don't usualy let it get to this point.

Chad

Cut back your photoperiod, take out the caulerpa, borrow or buy a UV sterilizer, run a phosphate sponge in a canister filter, and some carbon and floss. Skim hard. And call Jayson at SWC for some clams. :biggrin:

You likely have had phosphates building up, and now they've caused this. I had green water like yours in a 90g for almost two months, but it cleared up when I took the steps listed above.

Chin up; you'll see your LR again!

(PS- watch your fish for signs of stress. My tang suffered, clownfish did not.)

UV works great if you can get your hands on one.. Its not hard to get rid of at all if you follow the above steps even without the UV sterilizer.

Chad

Caulerpa? Is this the unknown plant? Boo Hoo, it was doing so well, growing all kinds of new roots, (probably because of the phosphates eh?) I am planning on setting up a hospital tank, can I move it to there?

I bought a pack of three greenx phosphate remover filter packs and have put two into my filter....is this what you mean?

I also added a second carbon bag.

I don't have, and admitedly know much about protein skimmers (I assume thats what you mean) however I will do some reading.

Clams???? Will they help with the algae, and as far as I have read they tend to be difficult to keep, and as you can tell, I am a novice. Is there a website, or where is this dude Jayson's number????

borrowing is out of the question, I know no-one around here who reef's, or even has much interest in any sort of aquarium. But I will look into buying one........is there any hope of clearing it up without one????

:)

I think the phosphates might be your biggest concern right now. And caulerpa is cool at first because it grows so well, but that stuff is the *&%$#@ you hear people swearing about, when it takes over their beautiful tanks and live rock. Read some of the threads regarding removing every rock and picking them clean by hand. :eek:

Get it out now, and you'll be thankful later. If you want to keep some later (it apparently does have benefits, but I think it's more trouble than it's worth) you can let it go wild in a sump or refugium.

Clams are risky if you and your tank are still new - but they did seem to help my situation. SaltWater Connection is listed at the right.

A UV isn't a necessity (ask Chad), but again it sure helped me out.

A good skimmer is as close to a necessity as anything, for overall long-term water quality.

Caulerpa is an algae and therefore doesn't have roots (I think, dammit Bones, I'm a psych major not a biologist!). But yeah looks nice until you're Tony. :evil: :mrgreen:

Ha! Ouch.. :lol:

It does have these sort of tendril things that attach/anchor the branches (or whatever they're called) into sand or rock or whatever. I have no idea what they're called but they could be maybe described as "root-like." I think maybe the term is "holdfast" ??

Yah, they look like roots but they aren't.

I went through the "remove 150lbs of LR and scrub with toothbrush phase".. and it's not cool :rolleyes: I think Steve is still battling his.

Take it out while you can!

Rhizomes would be the proper term for the root like holdfasts.

Steve

reffering to the caleurpa. I have done some searching and don't think what I have is caleurpa. I will try to post a pic today, I'd rather not get rid of it as the chromis love to hide in it.

There are many different species of caulerpa and even the same species of caulerpa can have many different forms. To me it looks like you have razor caulerpa. Yes it can be cool stuff, it is awesome habitat for microfauna. But it has a trade-off in that it: 1) tends to grow very quickly and if you have other things they can be choked out by it (like any kind of weed to non-weed relationship) and 2) it can sporulate or "go sexual" which is a sort of algae explosion which makes your tank cloudy and smelly for a day or two. So it does need to be pruned regularly if you intend to keep it.

If it's plant-like and in seawater, then it's either: algae, macro-algae (ie. seaweed), or one of a very few select species of saltwater tolerant plants. (There aren't many, seagrass/eelgrass/turtle-grass and mangrove trees come to mind).

Steve/StirCrazy: I didn't think they were called rhizomes. .. ?? To me a "rhizome" is a rootstalk ... a stem from which the plant stalks and roots come out of. I was referring to just the the holdfast part. There is a (what I thought was the) rhizome which is the tube-like stalk from which these tendrils come out of, as well as the leaf node things.

here is a pic of the mystery plant. razor caulerpa? perhaps. the name would be appropriate.

it has gone sexual once on me, it all went kinda brownish, then the water went cloudy for a day or two, but it seemed to clear up on its own. i am a plant person and like the idea of having plants in my tank, the local pet guy told me this was a marine plant, one of theonly ones able to be kept in marine tank.

here is the pic........

http://www.winningwebworks.com/caleurpa.jpg

it hasn't seemed to take over, i'd like to keep it, but admittedly am a novice......perhaps it should go til i have more experience?

Most definitely razor caulerpa.

Beyond caulerpa some other cool algaes are Halimeda (which is calcareous) and sargassum (or "kelp").

I'm not an opponent of keeping caulerpas (or other macros) but it does require careful management. Ideally you want the stuff in a lit sump or a refugium of sorts where it doesn't matter if the stuff totally takes over. In the main display tank there will likely come a day where you don't really care for it up there, and sometimes you may find it may have been better to never let it get up there in the first place, rather than try to remove it after the fact. But that's not say we should never keep any: that's up to the individual tank keeper. If you're having fun then have fun with it.

But be aware there are downsides. 1) it does have a total weed mentality 2) sporulation can be hard on a tank if it happens often or if it happens in a big way 3) macros are known to have allelopathic behaviours (which is a case of being able to produce chemicals which interfere with or inhibit the growth of other species). So even if you choose to keep it, being strict about regular pruning would probably be quite prudent.

thanks tony!

i have been doing some reading this morning and have read basically what you just said. i hadn't even heard of refugiums......i would like to do some more research on refugiums, and hopefully set one up. for now i will cut it back hard, and look in uv sterilizers.

and are there any creatures that eat the algae that is in the water?

Well to continue poking fun at Tony, you could purchase a skittish tang, but there is no guarantee he will eat caulerpa. Similarly, rabbitfish are supposedly big algae fans. My tang is also too good for algae, although my problem is Dictyota sp. and Sargassum sp., not Caulerpa sp. Blennies, sea urchins would also be something to research.

Personally I just pull algae by hand and I am slowly gaining the edge. Although the other night I let too much go down my overflow, thereby plugging it, and it was a problem when I realized that more water was coming up my return than was going down the overflow...