90% water change

[Brandon42]

my tank has been set up for about 2 months now and is going through a horrible algae bloom. iv ran carbon, phosgard, left the lights off and nothing will rid me of this bloom. my po4 is down and i have a good amount of fresh carbon and phosgard in the sump. i may need to upgrade my pump the impeller was broken which is how i got in this mess but even with the replacemnt parts i cant get the green out of my water. my diatoms have gone away at this point but the tank water is completly green and now i seem to be having little white spots on my glass instead of the diatoms.
125 gallon 4x2x2
30 gallon sump
750gph return pump
2x 1300 gph hydror powerheads

so my questions are
1. should this be enough flow for my tank?
2. i dont have enough storage to make all the water at once will i have to re-cycle the tank if it takes a couple days to re fill it?

 

[AlexStinson]

I think you could always use more flow, but a lot of that depends on your rockwork etc. If your water is green you should try a UV sterilizer, or wait for it to work itself out. You probably have a TON of po4 in the tank, it is just locked up in the algae.
You might have to 'recycle' the tank depending on how you do the water change. What I might do in your situation is drain your water into enough buckets to hold all your rock while you refill your tank, that should prevent any major cycling issues.
You should see if someone local has some brute trashcans or a 55gal sitting around to help you out.

 

[FL_Reefer]

Add a clean up crew, welcome to the algea stage of the cycle. Start getting your Po4 down, ad a clean up crew and you could do a water change too. Do you have any fish?

 

[brandon429]

It doesn't have to recycle because yours rocks can fit into five gallon paint buckets with air stones and heaters if needed. The extra gallonage of the tank doesn't factor, the minimum holdover sustenance for your rock and sand and corals and fish does

You could even have lfs acclimate, hold, then give back in a week your fish. Putting them in safe place out of the way if you are going to be down 3 days is wise. Regarding the water change / thorough action you are considering here's the certain science

It's ideal. And dangerous if done out of order. If done in order it's a guaranteed no recycle and you eliminate your full nutrient stores with this kind of effort, a full water change. Anything shy of what you are considering is designed to save work, it cannot provide a better outcome. The most beneficial and dangerous thing you can do with this eutrophication is to rip clean the system. To pico reefers, even those with sps and clams, legit like the big tanks, that's a normal Tuesday

We have guys parting their whole reefs out on a counter, not even the courtesy of submersion. Your bacteria never ever die

You account for detritus fully, you get a perfectly clean tank with preserved bio filter, no recycle, brand new but ready for your fish back

Miss account for detritus, get a cycle and some stuff dies. My own reef is ten years old, I once left it parted out in the air for half an hour to the point I was worried

Nope, continues. Yours would be hospital careful kid gloves and buckets and hard work for you but easy to pull off from this end. Wanna rip clean your whole tank I could use an example from a larger tank for once.

Don't let the novelty of this rinky dink vase cause distraction from pure rip cleaning documentation, only it's the 200th time I just barely started taking pics of it. You are considering doing it once.

If you change mind I don't blame you, an entire industry of partial actions exists to prevent 100+ gallon water change work that more than a six pack, that's a dedication run.

 

[FL_Reefer]

Any pics?

 

[brandon429]

Here's mine

http://reef2reef.com/threads/lets-d...ndefinite-reef-life-span.222105/#post-2558471


Brandon42 post what you are working with man lets see the suspect at large

 

[brandon429]

don't let the novelty of these tanks make this look like a toy poodle run this is science gold

We are keeping the same corals regardless of tank volume ergo these models in action are your tanks, minus a giant extra amount of work, heavy lifting and overall risk. Lucky for large tankers the biology scales just like if we were working with architectural models instead.

mini models $ on the line, rapid death upon mistake, to tell you exactly without fail what big cumbersome reefs will do upon rip cleaning

Pico reefers have it worse than you for margins of error -->

No dilution

Vastly higher coral biomass to unit of support fluid measure no room for error

Roland here has my respect. called him on the clam with friendly challenge. Not only was he not joking in his assembly of small gear his tank looks way better than mine and it's smaller too

This is likely the smallest currently running sps reef that has some age validation with it, the clam aspect it is the first. It's not enough to make a small tank, they have to have age validation to be legit

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/355416-another-07-pico/

A rip clean is wonderfully pictured there, clams do not allow multiple runs of these as documented unless the biology is spot repeatable.


Before you set the new tank back up its best to rinse that sandbed 100% free of clouding ability, not 99% that won't do.

 

[brandon429]

This mans opinion relates to your question within 5%
https://reefbuilders.com/2013/05/21/fix-fish-tank-reef-aquarium-problems-95-water/

 

[Brandon42]

Iv only have 1 small candy cane coral,2 emerald crabs, 3 turbo snails, 3 damsels and a clown fish. I figure I can get another 30 gallon bucket so I can do 60 gallons and I have a small tank I could move my livestock too but if I leave like 5% water in there they should be fine once I get the 60 I can make in there. My rock is fairly large though if I wrap the parts exposed will it be okay for a day until I can get the next 2 buckets?

 

[brandon429]

Are you saying some of the rock would be out in the air for a while?

 

[FL_Reefer]

I would buy about a 100 or so more snails for that size tank. . Start some gfo and do some water changes (nothing to drastic, maybe 20% a week) you have a very small bio load for the size tank. its just part of the process and will go away eventually.

 

[Lenny_S]

Are you saying the water itself is green or the surfaces? It would help to post your nitrate and phosphate measurements. Are you dosing anything in the tank and if so what?
A clean up crew will only help if the algae is on the surfaces, if it's the water itself then a 100 micron filter sock and a UV sterilizer will help but you would need to fix the source.

 

[Brandon42]

last time i took my water to the lfs they said my po4 was at 0.04. at first i had algae everywhere but it has sense started dying off the rock. most of the rock doesnt have any on it any more, its just the water thats green and no amount of filtration seems to be getting it out. last i checked my nitrate was at 10ppm but i have sense done 3 water changes so im sure that numbers lower now. im most likely going to just do a major water change and see where that gets me. but a filter sock will help get this out? cant afford a uv sterilizer atm? iv also heard there are chems to bind the algae up so its easir to pick up in the filter but im not sure which ones??? it seems the water change will be the easiest fix but iv changed out close to 90 gallons this week with no change.

 

[Brandon42]

Are you saying some of the rock would be out in the air for a while?

yes some would. i have 30lbs of pukani all in 3 rocks so if i do 60 gallons at one time the next 60 maybe be close to 24 hours. if i leave them in the tank do you think wet newspaper will keep it alive for that long? i could get buckets to hold the rock but it will be much easier if i can keep them in the tank.

 

[brandon429]

youd be better off not using blast lighting, and going with low to no bright light requiring corals at this point, place them up high to get what light they can. your algae issues have a light component and a nutrient component its easy to alter the light one. its also important planning to know what w be done differently before you do the big work

or in two mos its back to the same. to truly tune and make predictions we should see a current tank shot

 

[Brandon42]

 

[Brandon42]

Iv been keeping the lights off as much as possible just enough for my candy cane to get some light in the morning. Mainly just keeping The moon light led's on through the day. And a towel to block the natural sunlight. But there have been days where I left it on for the full 10 hour because I went to work and forgot to change the timer.

 

[Wilsoni]

Wow HAPPY ST PATRICKS DAY!!! It's a sign (;

 

[brandon429]

yes the light is probably your top easiest adjusted causative, this tanks unique algae angle is not within a tank full of corals, awesome, I cant see a need for any lighting for a while actually other than passive room light. until we verify no input source water issues, no rock po4 retention issues and no nitrate feeding detritus, it shouldn't be full on production lighting.

any rip cleaning should be set back up in a different way for a different outcome, two of these big changes would make you hate reefing

 

[donnievaz]

Bottle it up and start a little phytoplankton business...