Everything's Brown

[gcrawford]

I'm having an issue that crept up in the past couple of days. I've got cloudy water and evidence of brownish sponges here and there, brown stuff settling on the sand, mud like skimmate in the skimmer cup and my GFO reactor sponge totally clogged with brown goo. All corals are open and happy, fish all swimming normally.
Changes over the past week: one of my fuge lights died and I replaced it today, changed my hydor pumps and controller to a wp-40, did not dose kalk/vinager 3 days in a row this week, upped my lighting 10% (reef breeders led) last weekend.

I had a huge ball of chaeto in the fuge which I pruned today..

I'm sure the question will come about water parameters, but I'll not have time to check until this weekend.

Any ideas?

 

[gcrawford]

On the other hand, my Benny seems to be enjoying the buffet!

 

[gcrawford]

Note the small brown sponge looking growths. These have multiplied over the past few days.

 

[deboy69]

If what your talking about in the bottom left of the second pic looks like pineapple sponges to me

KCCO

 

[gcrawford]

Any harm with those?

 

[deboy69]

Nope they come and go.

KCCO

 

[deboy69]

Nutrients are probably a little high if they are growing

KCCO

 

[gcrawford]

Ok, thanks. The brown stuff seems like some sort of algae bloom. Diatoms? Being a year in, I thought I was past that, but maybe not.

 

[deboy69]

Ya can't see what your talking about in those pics about the brown stuff.

KCCO

 

[gcrawford]

maybe hard to see.....

 

[navila06]

I have been dealing with something like this for the past couple weeks, difference is mine is more like a spider web type growth, looks brown and stringy, my skimmer is skimming like you said yours is and I have to clean the sponges in my reactors almost daily. It is starting to clear up now, after feeding less, water change, gfo and carbon change, and I started to drip kalk again, to raise PH.

I'm having an issue that crept up in the past couple of days. I've got cloudy water and evidence of brownish sponges here and there, brown stuff settling on the sand, mud like skimmate in the skimmer cup and my GFO reactor sponge totally clogged with brown goo. All corals are open and happy, fish all swimming normally.
Changes over the past week: one of my fuge lights died and I replaced it today, changed my hydor pumps and controller to a wp-40, did not dose kalk/vinager 3 days in a row this week, upped my lighting 10% (reef breeders led) last weekend.

I had a huge ball of chaeto in the fuge which I pruned today..

I'm sure the question will come about water parameters, but I'll not have time to check until this weekend.

Any ideas?

 

[Chameleon]

sounds like a bacterial bloom. when I have gotten the symptoms you have mentioned in the past it accompanied vodka dosing due to the extra available carbon. I now keep things simpler and just do more water changes if nutrients rise, but haven't had a problem with nitrates in a long time. maybe do several water changes but my guess is they will subside on their own and are just part of the aquarium trying to balance itself out naturally

 

[Chameleon]

oh I also had a similar problem with rocks that were leaching phosphates...so something to think about too

 

[gcrawford]

sounds like a bacterial bloom. when I have gotten the symptoms you have mentioned in the past it accompanied vodka dosing due to the extra available carbon. I now keep things simpler and just do more water changes if nutrients rise, but haven't had a problem with nitrates in a long time. maybe do several water changes but my guess is they will subside on their own and are just part of the aquarium trying to balance itself out naturally

Thanks so much. I think I'm going to back off the vinegar mixed with kalk and see what happens. I'll make a new batch of kalk this weekend without using the vinegar. Probably too much carbon.....My rocks all came from BRS and should be of high quality, so I don't think i've got a phosphate issue - at least not from the rocks.

I'll not make any more huge changes until this subsides. Thanks again!

-g

 

[gcrawford]

I have been dealing with something like this for the past couple weeks, difference is mine is more like a spider web type growth, looks brown and stringy, my skimmer is skimming like you said yours is and I have to clean the sponges in my reactors almost daily. It is starting to clear up now, after feeding less, water change, gfo and carbon change, and I started to drip kalk again, to raise PH.

Interesting....Let me know how it goes. I think my issue is too much carbon from the vinegar - we'll see.

-g

 

[twelvefive]

How much vinegar are you dosing and how big is your tank?

 

[gcrawford]

How much vinegar are you dosing and how big is your tank?

My recipe is two ounces of white distilled vinegar to 3 tsp of kalk in one gallon of ro water. I don't drip that much to keep up with the calcium demand - about 6 oz per day total of the solution. I've not found many people around here that prefer this method, and this issue may be the reason.

 

[gcrawford]

How much vinegar are you dosing and how big is your tank?

And it's a 120 gallon tank with a 40 breeder sump.

 

[twelvefive]

I'm not familiar with vinegar dosing like I am with vodka dosing, but I only dose 10ml/day of vodka in my 125/40sump. You're setup is dosing roughly 20ml/day. Might want to either manually dose or cut back the vinegar.

disclaimer: I'm terrible at math so my calculations might be off.

 

[gcrawford]

I'm not familiar with vinegar dosing like I am with vodka dosing, but I only dose 10ml/day of vodka in my 125/40sump. You're setup is dosing roughly 20ml/day. Might want to either manually dose or cut back the vinegar.

disclaimer: I'm terrible at math so my calculations might be off.

Thanks for the help. Checked everything at lunch today and the skimmer has collected nothing since I cleaned it last night. I'll cut back on the vinegar and keep a watchful eye.

-g