Well, once again i’ve probably done something stupid but not sure what. I got up today to the good acro frag tank looking like a white bacteria cloud.and getting thicker. cant see to the back of the tank. The fish seem ok, and corals too. so heres what ive done the past few days.
On tuesday night i decided to do a Chemiclean treatment for a little cyano prevention/cleanup and it seems to help digest crud in the sand to starve out a little hair algae too. so i didd the correct dose, and let it run for 48 hours and did a 40% water change thursday night. and added the usual booster shot of live bacteria for the new salt water. friday night it started getting hazy and today very cloudy and getting thicker.
What didn’t do is remove the bag of GFO and Purigen that has been running in the filter for a while when i added the Chemiclean. and the big change was i started up a bio pellet reactor just about 2 weeks ago with about a cup of pellets in it for the 70 gallon system. I didn’t turn that off or remove it during the treatment.
Im wondereing if the cloud is just the pellets kicking in with the load of nitrates and stuff the chmiclean probably kicks out of the sand , or may the chemiclean digests the biopellets, like waste, and that is feeding the bloom.
Has anyone had a clouding from just starting up a fully loaded biopellet reactor before? or what do you think.
It’s always sumthing.
If its not one thing it’s another huh Ken. When I first hook up my bioplastics reactor I did get a small haze in my tank, but it only lasted 2-3 days then it cleared up. I did continue to dose the bacteria and the haze never show up again. I’m not sure what’s going on in your tank, but that may be the case. The bioplastics my need the catch up. Good luck and keep us posted.
I probably over did it by putting a full load of pellets in to start, rather than adding a little each week to get to full load like you did. impatient. I scooped a bunch of slimy foam from the fuge, and an over flow fine fabric bag, and the overflow filter sock. so i can keep removing it. the protein skimmer is all foamy inside but not sending any foam up the tube yet. i suppose when the bacteria eats up all the goodies and dies off the skimmer and floss will collect it. my two clown fish look like they are getting ready to spawn again. so it doesnt bother them. I’ll give it a couple days to clear, maybe another water change too. I want the tank cleaned up/.
I treated the small frag tank, 35 gallon system, at the same time too. but its crystal clear after the water change. but no biopellets running on that one.
You put a full cup in for a 70g tank right away with bio pellets?
If you full dose the bio pellets it will turn your tank white from adding t much. They advise you to dose about half the amount for your tank when starting biopellets. From what I have read online about biopellets the white happens fairly fast if you add that much. So that is odd it took 2 weeks to give the bacteria bloom. there is something with the biopellets reacting to the bacteria booster you added. Read up on that I know I have seen something that references doing that.
I started off with 100ml in my 75g and after about 6 weeks I went to 200-300ml with no problems at all.
Yup, that’s what i did alright. the tank looks like i just mixed a batch of kalwasser. so i just did another big water change. cleared it up a little until it grows back. the skimmer got a full cup of snot over night. and the sponge filter too.
i still think what started the bloom was the chemiclean treatment. im pretty sure it breaks down a lot of crud in the sand bed like nitrates and phosphates and puts them in the water. thats why you have to do a big water change 2 days after the treatment. that nutrient burst would feed the pellet bacteria coating. and it all starts rubbing off the bouncing pellets and goes water bourne. so eventually i’ll get the crud exported from the tank by skimming the bacteria. overnight i turned the flow thru the pellet reactor down from 350 gph to a trickle. just enough to keep it alive. see if that slows the bloom down and lets the skimmer catch up.
I would not slow down the bio pellets. They have to be tumbling to work properly.
i just just opened the flow valve full again. nice and cloudy now.
I can not find the article on the bio pellets that stated start it at a half dose instead of full dose but if you look on the back of the bio pellets bag it says to keep high flow in the reactor as to prevent production of hydrogen sulfide gas.
You might be able to take some out and let it stabilize then add more later or just wait it out to clear up. I have read some people it took a couple of weeks for the cloudiness to go away…
Read the fine print? i better find my glasses. well i did the water change this morning, but the cloud returned just as strong. I had the reactor flow turned way down to slow down its feeding. but enough to keep it aerobic. then tonight i removed about 2/3 of the pellets, put them in a media bag, and rinsed to dry for later. the cloud grows… i added more good bacteria and now it looks like a wonderful blizzard with waves and streaks of bacteria swirling through the water. very opaque. the fish think its great. the corals look bright and the skimmer and floss are collecting lots of gouey snot.
Here is a good how to and trouble shooting piece on using bio pellets. I think it covers a lot of the issues.
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so, im doing a few of their solutions. I’ll keep you posted.
Good find Ken. Hope it works out for you.
I still believe heterotrophic bacteria are a great way to maintain a low nutrient system, but a bad way to obtain one. If you have high nutrients and add a fuel source for bacteria the result will often not be desirable.
Ken loves to demonstrate what happens with a dab of this and a pinch of that ignoring the directions and anyone else’s experience. Can’t argue with the end results(Ken has some sweet looking frag tanks 95% of the time), but man Ken you sure love to reinvent the wheel, lol.
Keep the skimmer running and tweak it is as much as possible to pull out as much as possible(even if you have to add a couple of gallons of saltwater per day. Make sure you have plenty of surface agitation so the tank has plenty of gas exchange. Hope it all works out in the end.
The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round the wheels on the bus go round and round…
Hahahahaha Sorry but I got an urge and could not help myself with that.
Yeah, the older i get the less time i have to be patient. so I’m a dumper. just dump it in. see what happens. i had been dosing vodka and vinegar heavily be for that, then quit because it wasnt doing anything. no cloud. but still had algae and slime growing i didnt want. so i tried a dump of bio pellets, but im still thinking it was the chemiclean treatment that sparked the cloud. started the next day. the pellets had been running for 12 days already with no change. the whoosh!! a blizzard white out.
so a couple hours ago i took the rest of the pellets out. the cloud is starting to congeal. get thicker in streaks. the skimmer will get it. I’ll do a reset. when it clears, i can try the small dose of pellets. it quite impressive, the bacteria bloom. i can only see about 4-5 inches into the tank.
Ken… have you dumped a pinch o’ “Spa cleaner” or a squirt of “pig de-wormer” in there ?
you might as well throw everything you got at the dreaded cloud
:
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anyway… could the chemiclean have damaged the bio pellets? or the purigen?
never heard of it, but then again all that stuff usually gets taken off line during treatment…
maybe some new pellets if they keep clouding ???
That was my original question John. but since i removed all pellets yesterday, the water hAS cleared a lot. i can see most of the way to the back now. and the skimmer is kicking. the cup fills a couple times a day with slimey snot. so i think the chemiclean just kicked a bunch of nutrients out of the sand bed and the pellets provided the carbon to grow the bacteria bloom. up too the day a added chemiclean, the pellets had done nothing or little. the water was crystal clear. or it killed off cyano in the sand and that released nutrients that fed the bloom. dont know. but after it clears again, i can reload a little bit of pellets and try again.
[quote=“saltcreep, post:14, topic:5721”]
Ken… have you dumped a pinch o’ “Spa cleaner” or a squirt of “pig de-wormer” in there ?
you might as well throw everything you got at the dreaded cloud
::
anyway… could the chemiclean have damaged the bio pellets? or the purigen?
never heard of it, but then again all that stuff usually gets taken off line during treatment…
maybe some new pellets if they keep clouding ???[/quote]
I did not even catch on to this. The pellets were online before and during the treatment.
[quote=“kaptken, post:15, topic:5721”]
so i think the chemiclean just kicked a bunch of nutrients out of the sand bed and the pellets provided the carbon to grow the bacteria bloom.[/quote]
Sounds right to me. Pretty sure you don’t have damaged pellets that need replacing.
[quote=“kaptken, post:15, topic:5721”]
but after it clears again, i can reload a little bit of pellets and try again. [/quote]
May want to do several water changes first. If you have a high nutrient system and bacteria present that will take advantage of organic carbon you will have a bloom again. Again, in my opinion organic carbon dosing can be a great way to maintain low nutrients, but a not such a good way to attempt to reach one.
Your logic in the first part makes sense, but follow through to the end. If a release in nutrients and the present of organic carbon caused the bloom. Removing the organic carbon stopped the bloom. Adding the organic carbon again before lowering the nutrients will likely restart “the cloud” again.
The bacteria that likely caused the bloom needs Nitrates, Phosphates, and organic carbon. While phosphates are likely leached into the rocks, Nitrates could be quickly lowered with water changes.
Thats about it. a 3 part solution. thats why we dose carbon to reduce nitrates and phosphates. Carbon is the missing link to build proteins for bacteria. So its day two since i removed the pellets, and proud to say, my little seaclone skimmer has been kickin bacteria and the tank is now crystal clear. cloud all gone. 4 days in the cloudy gray dark, and some colors look a little washed out, some bright. and a couple burnt tips. and a couple white frags,hmmm?? i did two 40% water changes over the 4 days. I’ll give it a couple days dosing extra sea chem Reef Plus and stuff, until everything gets nice and fuzzy again. but its amazing, the carbon is like an on off switch. with a lag.
Then i can put some pelllets back in and start a little slower next time. i think the bacteria chewed up most of the crud. And good ole SeaClone spit it out.