Help with bacteria bloom!!

[Treebeard_48]

Fellow reefers,

I have a 20 gallon Innovative Marine tank. It has been established for over 6 months all testing is 0 (phosphates, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia.) However I've been struggling with a horrible algae bloom that causes my tank to cloud up. My tank is set up with miracle mud instead of sand and dragons breath. The idea was to create a system that was self-sufficient in terms of minimal water changes.

I've tried cycling my lights 2 days on, 2 days off.
I've tried 2 essentially 100% water changes.
I've tried dosing seed to create bacteria competition.

Nothing I do has helped and I fear for my fish and coral. Any advice on how to tackle this would be much appreciated.

I will post a picture as soon as possible.

 

[alpburakozbay]

Fellow reefers,

I have a 20 gallon Innovative Marine tank. It has been established for over 6 months all testing is 0 (phosphates, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia.) However I've been struggling with a horrible algae bloom that causes my tank to cloud up. My tank is set up with miracle mud instead of sand and dragons breath. The idea was to create a system that was self-sufficient in terms of minimal water changes.

I've tried cycling my lights 2 days on, 2 days off.
I've tried 2 essentially 100% water changes.
I've tried dosing seed to create bacteria competition.

Nothing I do has helped and I fear for my fish and coral. Any advice on how to tackle this would be much appreciated.

I will post a picture as soon as possible.

Which fresh water do you use? (RODI water, fountain or distilled?). What is your lighting?
It is very strange that it repeats even though you make 100% water change twice.... Is the reason miracle mud?

 

[Treebeard_48]

Which fresh water do you use? (RODI water, fountain or distilled?). What is your lighting?
It is very strange that it repeats even though you make 100% water change twice.... Is the reason miracle mud?

We always top off with RODI water.

I have a PRIME 16 HD. I can get the specific settings when I return home and post them.

Sorry currently on travel for work.

 

[Chewbacca]

Put the mud in sump , sand in tank, diatom filter one week no water changes 6 months but keep up on filter cleaning is what I would do. GOOD LUCK

 

[Chewbacca]

I have a 150 gallon set up 240 lbs rock, 100 lbs sand, led lighting ,40 gallon sump duel socks, poly fiber before return pump, wave makers, 100 lbs rock in sump and sand. From day one no water changes no skimmers no reactor no off the wall chems or additive only basic traces as needed. This is what works for me for over 2 years on all of my setups

 

[Treebeard_48]

I have a 150 gallon set up 240 lbs rock, 100 lbs sand, led lighting ,40 gallon sump duel socks, poly fiber before return pump, wave makers, 100 lbs rock in sump and sand. From day one no water changes no skimmers no reactor no off the wall chems or additive only basic traces as needed. This is what works for me for over 2 years on all of my setups

I would but it's a micro tank. 20 gallon Innovative Marine, there is no sump.

 

[Chewbacca]

Here is my 150

 

[Chewbacca]

Sorry I didn’t realize it was a 20 gallon. Smaller tank are hard to control the parameters. The slightest adjustment causes a big swing

 

[Treebeard_48]

Sorry I didn’t realize it was a 20 gallon. Smaller tank are hard to control the parameters. The slightest adjustment causes a big swing

Yep! To that's why I did mud as substrate instead of sand. Since I can't line my sump with it.

As I said it and the macro algae are doing their job... 0 everything across the board. Just fear that may be leading to the bacteria bloom

 

[Henryb9]

This is a common issue if you have everything on “0” you need to have some kind of nitrate and phosphates! Been there, used to have the same issue and that’s when those two were zeros..

 

[Treebeard_48]

This is a common issue if you have everything on “0” you need to have some kind of nitrate and phosphates! Been there, used to have the same issue and that’s when those two were zeros..

So how did you resolve it? I fear it'll kill my fish and coral.

 

[Henryb9]

I started feeding to raise it up.. for example I started putting 2 cubes of mysis a day and cut back to 1 after it settled down, might take couple of days. How many hours do you run your sump light on the algae ?

 

[Treebeard_48]

I started feeding to raise it up.. for example I started putting 2 cubes of mysis a day and cut back to 1 after it settled down, might take couple of days. How many hours do you run your sump light on the algae ?

No sump because it's a 20 gallon. The algae is growing in the display with the Prime HD

 

[Henryb9]

I think you just start feeding more, what do you feed and how much a day?

 

[Treebeard_48]

I think you just start feeding more, what do you feed and how much a day?

A fourth of a cube of frozen brine every other day

 

[Henryb9]

Try feeding one cube a day, let me know if that fixes it.. I use to run a very large custom algae scrubber and I had the same issue, everything was 0 and than I cut back on the hours from 16 to 12 and it went away.. you just have to find your adjustment.

 

[Treebeard_48]

Try feeding one cube a day, let me know if that fixes it.. I use to run a very large custom algae scrubber and I had the same issue, everything was 0 and than I cut back on the hours from 16 to 12 and it went away.. you just have to find your adjustment.

Thanks will try! Here's a picture as an idea of how bad the bloom is