silver

i have been reading some of your posted threads today and belive i have what you refure to as algae bloom ?

let me give you all the run down
29 gal acrylic
air bubble under gravel filter
whisper power filter(it claims its for 30to 60 gal tanks)
i now have ten fish in the tank
1black ghost
1red tail shark
3 glass cat-fish
2 I dont know ,there where purchased to start up the tank
1gromie
1 yellow snake looking thing LOL he is about a 1-1/2 long
and 1 small cat fish

the tank has been running for three months

this is the problem

i cycled the tank by running it a week then adding two small fish and a very small red tail shark
two weeks later and the tank is clear as a bell and the only thind bad is the ph,running at about 7.8 to 8.0.so i did a small water change with distilled water to help bing down the ph and that helped bring it down and stable to 7.2
now all sounds good and the tank looks good so i add 3 more fish than a week or so later a few more.

now about six weeks into it i noticed a slight cloudness so i do a small water change to the tune of three gallons test the water and all the test come out good but with in a week the water turn brown and brown algae all over so i do a six gallon water change last weekend again distilled water,vacuum the gravel,cleaned all the plants and glass.

so now the brown is replaced by the old milky white,i expedited this,but two days ago whent to green? mmmmm so here i am reading you forum and come across the black out deal.
one of my questions is should i do a nothe water change before or after i try this?
allso and you must understand i have had fish tanks for over 15 years,many diffrent sizes shapes and forms
but i have never had this problem so what could it be

the light is only on for 4 or 5 hours a day and she is close to some windows but i have shades on them and i dont get a lot of sun light in that corner

my ph is 7.2
amon 0.
ni. 0.
na 1.

i feed them once a day a small pinch of flakes nothing else
the only chemical i ever use is amquell but so far have not used it

after reading some of your other threads am i missing some thing?

Loman

Silver.
Welcome to the forum

The picture you posted waas fairly small so I had some difficulty looking at it. But if the brown algea is on things I would probably do water change before a blackout (72 hours) and then repeat it afterwards. The numbers you claim all look really good. In fact the Nitrates look a bit too good. The second avenue to consider is validating the test results by getting a friend or the LFS to repeat them.

__________________
Loman

24 Gallon Saltwater Aquapod
1 Royal Gramma
1 Blue Devil
1 Bicolor Chromis Lyretail
1 Scooter Blenny
1 Chocolate Chip Star Fish
Crabs and Snails

20 Gallon Freshwater
Swords, Zebra Danio, Neon Tetras, Albino Cat Fish, Plecostomus, snails

10 Gallon QT Saltwater
10 Gallon QT Freshwater (Divided)

silver

thanks for the reply
ill get better pictures for you in about a hour when i get home
as in the test i had the fish place check it for me also and he had the same nubers i have come up with

LFS ????

Loman

It surprises me that with a Nitrate reading of 1 you have a serious algae issue. I wonder where the phosphate level is? I would suggest following the course you had picked up in the other threads. I would do a reasonably large water change and then black out the tank completely for 72 hours (do not peek and let light in). A garbage back works well for this but just place it loosely around the tank and operating equipment such as HOB filters etc. I would then do a second water change when I removed the blackout. If it is algae this should produce a significant improvement.

__________________
Loman

24 Gallon Saltwater Aquapod
1 Royal Gramma
1 Blue Devil
1 Bicolor Chromis Lyretail
1 Scooter Blenny
1 Chocolate Chip Star Fish
Crabs and Snails

20 Gallon Freshwater
Swords, Zebra Danio, Neon Tetras, Albino Cat Fish, Plecostomus, snails

10 Gallon QT Saltwater
10 Gallon QT Freshwater (Divided)

silver

those are from 4 weeks ago now this is where its at





i just did a test and this is what i got
ph= 7.2
ammonia=0
nitrite(no2)=0
nitrate(no3)=0

like i said i have never had a tank act this way and im lost to why

Tommy Gun

Welcome to the forum silver!

Certainly looks like an algae bloom to me. Are you using test strips or liquid test kits? I ask because a nitrate level of 1 is odd, but 0 should be unheard of in a tank with fish in it.

I think you may also have to account for the amount of light that the tank gets from the light in the room. From all of your pictures, it looks like that corner of the house is well lit and bright. I realize that it may just be the pictures or you just turned all the lights on becuase you wanted good pictures, but something is obviously allowing photosynthesis to occur and I would think that if the tank only recieved four hours of light, the algae would not be that big of an issue.

This is generally a common problem, especially with new tanks, and it may just be that you have been lucky up to this point. Like Loman points out, I also wonder what the phosphate levels in your tank are. You can purchase phosphate tests and that may give you a lot of insight into what is happening here. If you can lower phosphates or nutrients in the tank, you should be able to slow this down. Otherwise, a black out may be the easiest and most economical solution right now. Just to be sure, a blackout does include covering the tank completely so absolutely no light gets in. You can skip feeding the fish for that 72 hours, they will certainly make it, and that will also help stop the addition of new nutrients and hinder the algae as well. Once your tank is more established, meaning the ecosystem you are trying to recreate has balanced itself, this should not be a very large concern for you at all, or at least not something you have little to no control over as you do with a new tank anyways.

silver

no its liquid test kit im running but thats why i had them test it as well
as in the pictures its the camera that makes it look brighter than it really is
finally as in the phosphate test thats one i have not done and will check into
so far this is my plan
water change tomorrow feed the fish,i kinda of feal sorry for them and do a black out for three days and do a water change again
does that sound correct
i dont wont to lose some of them or at least the ones i like lol

Tommy Gun

I think it is a good plan. I honestly do not think you will lose any fish because you dont feed them...but of course, you could lose some from other reasons not related to starvation or the black out (legal disclaimer).

I still think there is something wrong with a tank that has no nitrates...or at least a cycled tank with no nitrates. You should certainly see some nitrates after the blackout, right before your next water change. Otherwise I would suspect the tests or something. Even if those are all real plants in the tank, I dont think they would be enough to keep nitrate at 0 like that.

silver

there all plastic plant

like i said i have had tank almost my hole life and this one has me boggled

and for the test i dont know

BJP

I think we're missing the obvious here. If the nitrate wasn't that far out of hand and now an algae bloom is showing up significant enough to turn the water green, then it's very likely the algae itself is consuming the nitrate.

Once you start your blackout and start killing the algae off, it's very possible your numbers for ammonia, nitrite and nitratre will spike. If you're lucky only the nitrate will spike by the time the tank clears. Either way I would monitor all three during the blackout to be sure and be prepared to take corrective steps if needed.

Long term you need to find the light source responsible. If the tank lights really not on all that much then the culprit may very well be the room lighting or window lighting even if it has to bounce off something to get to the tank. If you don't find it, this whole problem could repeat once the blackouts over.

With window lighting in particular it can turn into a seasonal problem that only occurs for a month or so once a year, the same month over and over again as the angle and duration of the sunlight is only just right for that month. I had that happen to me when I set the store tanks up. At about a 2 to 3 week interval, each tank in the row would turn cloudy then onto lime green no matter how many water changes I did. The problem worked its way down the row as the suns angle changed throughout the year. I added a UV setup to chase it around but eventually when it started back at the beginning the next year I gave up and moved the entire section of tanks. Funny thing is all my store windows faced North and the only light I got came from bouncing off the windows of the stores across the street.

I had customer running an Italian restaurant who insisted on keeping a 35 gallon hex by the door. Every March it started to cloud, every april it went bright green, by May it was clear again. Year after year after year. I never could talk him into moving the tank or buying a UV. I gave up my cleaning contracts in 98.

I had another customer who searched endlessly, tried blackouts and only solved the problem eventually by spray painting his HOB black. That one drove us crazy for a while. Apparently enough light was hitting the filter to cause the problem.

Cloudy is a fairly normal cycling/new tank problem. Lime green is a lighting issue. Find the light, block it, change the bulb or whatever and you resolve the issue. If it goes away by itself in a few weeks, it may be back next year.