GREEN WATER BLUES

[veron]

Well, I'm now officailly frustrated. I have a 125g reef tank that I setup this summer.
After about 3 weeks I started to have a ''phyto bloom''. This coincided with a bunch
of live rock I purchased. I have a NAC 7 skimmer going, carbon and have done
MULTIPLE water changes for the past 2 months up to the tune of 300g. It just keeps coming back.
I do have more than 12 years experience and have had this happen on a tank
10 years ago. It went away after 4 to 6 weeks.
I'm starting to question that possible the live rock was sitting in shipping/box
plane or boat for way to long and was possible very dead! This would make total sence as to why
my skimmer keeps pulling out tons of crap. I have a very very small bioload and use
a very high end RO/DI unit.  Anyone with ideas?? anyone purchase rock and have
similiar blooms?

[Papou]

Don't shoot me but have you used a product to remove phosphate i used the product phoslock by pura
For three months,now i have no algae at all 1 year and going.

[xenon]

Damn, that sucks. You may need to "cook" your LR (darkness for 6 weeks @ 85F+ with weekly water changes) to get all the junk out.

This is the main reason why I like the idea of using base rock for the majority of filtration and seed it with 10% LR. It's cheaper and saves a ton of headaches.

[veron]

I could try Phoslock and the only reason I haven't is I'm afraid I'd go thru
a ton of the stuff at a big $$$$$.  I'm just kicking myself for taking that ''great''
deal on liverock. Not such a great deal now is  it.

[HappyGuppy]

I know that this may be controvertial (some people will strongly agree, and some will claim it's stupid), but what I found helpful to me in the past was cleaner clams.  I had a SW tank right next to a window getting a few hours of direct sun which was great for the macros I was growing at the time.  However I got a greenwater bloom.  I put in about a dollar's worth of cleaner clams along with an oyster and they filter fed my water clean quite fast.  Later I removed a few of the clams otherwise they'd die from starvation.  Later my tank grew out plenty of featherdusters & other filter feeders, and I never experienced that problem again.

BTW save a jar of that greenwater for a culture which is great to feed a number of things.  I used to deliberately culture greenwater for years for freshwater tanks and also to feed my corals which I could see they liked.  Great for fish QT & hospital tanks, and for raising fry (if you ever happen to get clowns to lay eggs put the rocks into a small tank that's pea-soup green).

Green water is very beneficial, but a nuisance if it takes over your display tank (indicative of other problems).  I consider myself to be a greenwater master, particularly on the freshwater side.

Google "greenwater miracle"

[veron]

Thanks Happy for the reply. I had to restart the tank and ''cook'' my rock.
It was leaching phosphates like mad because it basically was uncured
or sat to long in shipping. Also, something I didn't know was the dry rock should be
cured of phosphates as well because it will leach phosphates like mad.

[HappyGuppy]

Sigh, I'm sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience with those rocks.  Believe me, I understand the pain of things going seriously wrong in an (expensive) SW tank.  I hope it'll all work out for you and that you'll continue on with better luck.

[veron]

it was a fairly new setup so not much corals so no worries.

[xenon]

What are your nutrient levels? NO3/PO4?

[veron]

I never bothered to purchase a test kit. I removed the rock today from there dark
sleep and cannot believe how much crud was left behind. Multiple water changes
and total darkness for 5 days seems to have really helped. One interesting thing
was I kept the sump going with the green water and all. Once the rock was removed the water went crystal clear in 10 hours!! Imagine.  I have a feeling
from my research that it was more than likely the dry rock releasing p04.
Especially the Pukani branch stuff.

[HappyGuppy]

What I have done in the past, based on something I read long ago online (don't ask for a link), with the base rock I leeched in the following manner.  I took a plastic bin, placed in the base rock, and filled with plain tap water.  Every once in a while, like every several days, I would dump out the water and refill with plain tap water + conditioner + pinch of sugar.  The water would leech out the nutrients, and by adding in the sugar it would cause a bacterial bloom that rapidly absorbes nitrates and phosphates, just like carbon dosing a SW tank does, except done in plain old fresh water.  The cost is negligible (almost free) because you're not using salt.  If for some reason you're concerned about leeching out calcium from the rocks then just add in some baking soda and some calcium chloride (mixed in water separately!) to the freshwater changes, but this isn't something I've done.  A couple months of leeching the base rocks with the freshwater should get rid of practically all, and again, the cost of this is practically nothing.

[xenon]

I can't imagine running a successful reef tank without a nitrate and phosphate test kit.

I test for PO4/NO3 almost as often as I test for Alkalinity.

I bet if you setup a GFO reactor started carbon dosing, and got your PO4 levels down bellow 0.03 your problems would be solved.

[veron]

I've ran successful tanks for 12 years and counting Yes on the reactor but
with bad rock I'd be going thru TONS of media just trying to get rid of po4.
I've just mostly tested for ALK,MAG,CAL and even then I never ''chased'' numbers to much.   Just very interesting to see that we need to ''cure'' dead rock. But its true.
Anyways, everything is looking better now.