Help!
Our saltwater aquarium is filled with suspended algea... it is so green that you cannot see the live rock or the back wall.
We set up our Aquarium in early March, starting with a base of crushed coral (2" thick), 5 lbs of LR and started cycling it with 6 damsels... 2 survived. We added some more live rock (fragments) during the cycling. After everything test correctly, except for the Nitrates, we did a partial water change bringing everything down to zero. The tank was crystal clear but did have some algea forming on the glass which was easily cleaned and we had grass growing in the crushed coral. There was also some hair like algea growing on the LR.
We added a blond tang, royal gramma, goby cleaner and an urchin. We were feeding 2x (am and pm) flakes in the am and 1/3 frozen brine shrimp in the pm. The Tang was eating all the grass and we gave him dried sea weed.
Everything seemed to be going great until a week ago. On Friday 4/22 we added about 5 gals of water due to evaporation and went away for the weekend with someone checking in on the fish.
By Sunday afternoon when we returned you could not see to the back of the tank!!!! The lights were not on all the time.
So far we have:
dripped in Kalkwasser
tested Phosphates (0%)
added charcoal to the Eheim cannister filter - we had taken out the original charcoal pad about two weeks before the algea bloom
cleaned the filter- rinsing out the pads and rocks
performed a 50% water change
added a 2nd smaller Eheim cannister filter
siphoned the rocks in the front... afraid to siphon where we can't see
Cleaned everything we could take out of the Aquarium
reduced feeding to 1x per day
turned off lights except for a few hours in the pm
Visited 3 LFS for advice... all of which we have implemented (listed above).
The tank is still green..... what else can we do?!?!
Our saltwater aquarium is filled with suspended algea... it is so green that you cannot see the live rock or the back wall.
We set up our Aquarium in early March, starting with a base of crushed coral (2" thick), 5 lbs of LR and started cycling it with 6 damsels... 2 survived. We added some more live rock (fragments) during the cycling. After everything test correctly, except for the Nitrates, we did a partial water change bringing everything down to zero. The tank was crystal clear but did have some algea forming on the glass which was easily cleaned and we had grass growing in the crushed coral. There was also some hair like algea growing on the LR.
We added a blond tang, royal gramma, goby cleaner and an urchin. We were feeding 2x (am and pm) flakes in the am and 1/3 frozen brine shrimp in the pm. The Tang was eating all the grass and we gave him dried sea weed.
Everything seemed to be going great until a week ago. On Friday 4/22 we added about 5 gals of water due to evaporation and went away for the weekend with someone checking in on the fish.
By Sunday afternoon when we returned you could not see to the back of the tank!!!! The lights were not on all the time.
So far we have:
dripped in Kalkwasser
tested Phosphates (0%)
added charcoal to the Eheim cannister filter - we had taken out the original charcoal pad about two weeks before the algea bloom
cleaned the filter- rinsing out the pads and rocks
performed a 50% water change
added a 2nd smaller Eheim cannister filter
siphoned the rocks in the front... afraid to siphon where we can't see
Cleaned everything we could take out of the Aquarium
reduced feeding to 1x per day
turned off lights except for a few hours in the pm
Visited 3 LFS for advice... all of which we have implemented (listed above).
The tank is still green..... what else can we do?!?!
