Cooking Rock Question

[FlaEagleFan]

I have about 250lbs of LR in a large trashcan outside my house with a power head in it for circulation. I noticed the other day that the water is almost black looking with lots of cyano looking algea and surface gunk. Is this normal?!? Could it be a biproduct of the high heat outside? Just trying to make sure im not hurting anything

[tims]

time to do a full water change and scrub the the rock

[Fly Guy]

do you have an airline hooked up to that powerhead?? If not you need one. circulation is not enough to keep water in a tub aerated, it either needs a venturi hook up or a seperate air pump with an airstone hooked up to it.

When i have cooked larger batches such as it sounds you are I prefer to use a mag 12 or 24 for ciruclation, and on the output side i attach a fitting that i can stick an airhose in creating a massive venturi whcih does a great job at keeping the water circulated and aerated

[Mizer67]

It may also be getting too hot, especially if the trash can is black or dark green. JMO.

[Geoff]

the higher the temp the higher the metabolism of the bacteria in the tub. also depending on the amount of die off on the LR there could be plenty of excess nutrients that the cyano could be feeding on.

i would remove all of the LR and do a 100% water change. making sure to remove all detritus at the bottom of the tub.

G~

[bosscrab]

Originally Posted by Geoff

the higher the temp the higher the metabolism of the bacteria in the tub. also depending on the amount of die off on the LR there could be plenty of excess nutrients that the cyano could be feeding on.

i would remove all of the LR and do a 100% water change. making sure to remove all detritus at the bottom of the tub.

G~

Hey its Geoff! I thought you went AWOL.

[Geoff]

Originally Posted by bosscrab

Hey its Geoff! I thought you went AWOL.

sorry, did not mean to be so elusive the past couple of months. been super busy with bicycle riging, getting a new sailboat and just hanging with the fam.

G~