Please help me identify the culprit!

Jeana · Sep 26, 2015

I would be very grateful if someone would help me figure out what is going on with my tank. From what I can tell, there are at least 3 things going on (see attached photos). I think I have cyano (maroonish), hair algae (green), and diatoms (brownish) maybe? Is this correct? How can I get rid of it? I have had a reef aquarium for about 5 years and didn't have this problem until we moved and the aquarium sprung a leak. We had everything buckets, etc until we could get a new tank. That happened about 6 months ago. I'm guessing that my issues may have something to do with my make up water. I use an ro/di filtration system from Lowe's.

Any help would be appreciated!

ritter6788 · Sep 26, 2015

Probably your makeup water for sure. Do you have a DI canister? The filters from lowes are for drinking water and don't get the source water pure enough for reefs. You could have all kinds of undesirable contaminants getting through.

Jeana · Sep 26, 2015

Yes we have a DI canister. I think we ordered that on amazon. It contains a resin that has to be changed periodically. Can you recommend a filtration system?