how can I get rid of my pea soup?!?

[kootenayreefer]

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.
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[Chad]

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

[Jason McK]

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

[Chad]

Originally Posted by jakets

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

[AJ_77]

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.

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.)

[Chad]

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

[kootenayreefer]

take out the caulerpa

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?

run a phosphate sponge in a canister filter

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.

Skim hard. And call Jayson at SWC for some clams.

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????

borrow or buy a UV sterilizer

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????

[AJ_77]

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.

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.

[Quinn]

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.

[Delphinus]

Ha! Ouch..

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" ??