Tea colored water + brown alge. MY TANK IS UGLY- HELP ME!!!

r4esh · 03-16-2005, 07:15 PM

It's a 29g tank with one bubble tipped anemone, 2 perucals, and one brown heniochus, a few turbo snails, and like 10 or so blue legged hermits, one arrow crab, and one emrald crab. It has a standard POS hang on back filter. Oh and about 15- 18 pounds of LR plus 2x65w Power Compact lighting. My tank was doing just dandy until it started to develop a lot of brown alge. idk if it was diatoms or what, but my tank very quickly became infested and covered in brown. I could no longer see my LR's natural purple, all i could see was brown crap. I asked many LFS and they all told me that it would naturally go away and its just part of the tank's cycling and that I should just keep doing a frequent water change ever other day. Well I did that and did about 10% every other day and the stuff kept coming. its been there for about 2-3 weeks. I'm using tap water, and someone said I should switch to RO to get rid of the diatoms, phosphate, and silicates which is what i'm going to do. I'm going to preform a 50% water change to RO and get some more blue legged hermits and such. But is there any other easy way out of this, such as an addictive that I can put in the water that will kill it off? My second problem is the fact that my water was changed to a tea color and I was instructed to add activated carbon to clear it up. So i did, I made an activated carbon filter that was soo big it barly fit in my filter and left it there for 24 hours without seeing the slightest bit of change. You can imagine my frustration. My tank still looks horrible, and i'm headed off to the LFS right now to get like 20g of RO water, do a 50% water change, and idk maybe grab some hermits. ANY other advice that you can offer would be splended. Thank you for your time.

icebear · 03-16-2005, 07:18 PM

Cycling?

and they sold you fish already?

sorry, i'm not going to be helpful by ranting

sit tight, someone else will have a better response

motorslave · 03-16-2005, 07:25 PM

First, I would suggest a skimmer! But how old is the tank? If its still young you may be a bit heavy on the fish load considering you only have a "POS" filter! How long is the lighting on? How much and how often do you feed? Is there any kind of flow to help keep the detritus in suspension so the filter can at least take a crack at it? More snails might help with the algae but that is just a band-aid. Do you blast the rocks with a turkey baster? (this helps in romoving the detritus) What kind of maint schedule do you have?
Fill us in on all this stuff and everyone should be able to come up with some kind of solution! Oh and addatives are widely considered a band-aid also.
Let us know all the particulars and more will chime in!

Robert

tims · 03-16-2005, 08:40 PM

the not using Tap water is very right. sounds like diatoms to me..the tap is helpping it to feed.
having fish in there while it is still cyclking .. very bad..
do you have any green algae starting yet? or is it still the brown?
please if you can give us a full list of your tank.
also if you stuff the carbon too much you restrict the flow to /thru it.. can not really do it's job right..

Geoff · 03-16-2005, 09:16 PM

you need to get a good skimmer. a nice Ramora or a Bakpak would be helpfull. how long has the tank been setup. i had diatoms for a couple of months when i started up my tank. ooooh, another reason to not have a DSB.

all those silicates in the sand, sorry straying a little here. diatoms are fueled by silicates. these can be intruced through tap water and through a substrate.

sounds like you are moving a little to fast here. there are not any fast fixes in this hobby.

G~

rachyl756 · 03-16-2005, 09:29 PM

I brought my tank most of the way from algea/slime evil place by cutting back day (I had corals so I couldn't go total dark, but as little light as possible) and using the Rowa stuff and frequant water changes (high quality water) and removing the water using a big stick, with airline tubbing and a tooth brush, no water left without having some algea or slime go with it, scrub scrub scrub

Don't know how much of this is useful to you

Rachel

r4esh · 03-16-2005, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by icebear

Cycling?
and they sold you fish already?
sorry, i'm not going to be helpful by ranting
sit tight, someone else will have a better response

Huh? No I'm finished with the cycling of my tank. I went a month without putting any fish in.

r4esh · 03-16-2005, 09:50 PM

I leave the lighting on for about 9-10 hours a day, because I am trying it cut it down a little. The alge at the moment isn't my biggest concer, because i'm getting my protien skimmer (red sea prism deluxe) very soon. But I'm more worried about this tea colored water. I can't see through the tank and it is VERY unpleasant. As far as what i'm going to do, I plan on doing a SERIOUS clean up job, along with a 50% water change and the new water that is going in will be RO water. Oh and the tank is only 2 months old.

drsyme · 03-16-2005, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by r4esh

Huh? No I'm finished with the cycling of my tank. I went a month without putting any fish in.

You may not be finished with cycling. It could take longer than that. And even so, you have to go slow on the fish load.

Your LR is on the low side, probably need to at least double that.

Sorry to sound dumb but what is a POS filter? Piece of (crap)? In the long run probably the best setup is 1 to 1.75 lbs LR per gallon, a good protein skimmer, and good flow.

I cannot emphasize enough that as bad as your tank looks now, if you start to use good husbandry now, RO/DI water, protein skimmer, more LR, eventually all of this stuff will go away, and everything will be ok.

drsyme · 03-16-2005, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by r4esh

I leave the lighting on for about 9-10 hours a day, because I am trying it cut it down a little. The alge at the moment isn't my biggest concer, because i'm getting my protien skimmer (red sea prism deluxe) very soon. But I'm more worried about this tea colored water. I can't see through the tank and it is VERY unpleasant. As far as what i'm going to do, I plan on doing a SERIOUS clean up job, along with a 50% water change and the new water that is going in will be RO water. Oh and the tank is only 2 months old.

When you get the new skimmer, it has a chamber to hold the carbon. So, just wait until you get it, put some carbon in that chamber, (the outflow), and change it every two weeks. With skimming, and some water changes you will be fine.

rachyl756 · 03-16-2005, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by r4esh

I leave the lighting on for about 9-10 hours a day, because I am trying it cut it down a little. The alge at the moment isn't my biggest concer, because i'm getting my protien skimmer (red sea prism deluxe) very soon. But I'm more worried about this tea colored water. I can't see through the tank and it is VERY unpleasant. As far as what i'm going to do, I plan on doing a SERIOUS clean up job, along with a 50% water change and the new water that is going in will be RO water. Oh and the tank is only 2 months old.

My thought is whatever is tinting the water is some sort of photosynthetic thing. Either that or pure crud that will be fixed with the RO water. With my tank, we cycled it for 4 months in the dark, so with such a young tank its not completely cycled more than likely, especially with an intense bioload like that.

Increasing the LR like previously stated by someone will help and skimming the you know what out of that water too

Rachel

Geoff · 03-16-2005, 10:01 PM

i think an AquaC Ramora skimmer would be a better choice. it is a more powerfull skimmer. running the skimmer will help a lot in cleaning up the water. you will need to run it wet for a while. so you will need a lot of replacement water and watch the salinity closely. what is your salinity? i have found that to get brown water the salinity tends to be low.

G~

tdwyatt · 03-16-2005, 11:11 PM

tagging along

DAC · 03-17-2005, 01:07 AM

me tooo

LISound · 03-17-2005, 01:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geoff

you will need to run it wet for a while. so you will need a lot of replacement water and watch the salinity closely. what is your salinity? i have found that to get brown water the salinity tends to be low.

G~

why salinity?
and brown water---What's the relation.
just wondering.