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My water looks like Mountain Dew!!

earthboy17

earthboy17

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Hey everyone.

So, as the subject line says, my water looks like Mountain Dew.

I was out of town for the long weekend, and came back and probably over-fed a little bit (I say this up front as it is the only idea I have for what could be wrong). My NaCLH20 is from Aquarium Concepts NSW, and my top-off is RO from AAF.

So I overfed a little on Friday and then again on Monday (but not ridiculously over).
But I noticed on Tuesday morning that my water looked cloudy. I had a yellowish buildup on the glass that I guessed to be some kind of algae? It looked like sulfur.

I got back from work on Tuesday night and the water still had that cloudy look. I shined a flashlight down from the top and you could tell there's some kind of particulate in the water--it's not just on the glass.

I scrubbed the glass and did a ~25% water change.
This morning it looks the same and I did another ~25% water change.

The water in the bucket looks like it would look if you had a 5g bucket of flat Mountain Dew. It's really really yellow. Weird!

I did tests and found the following:
PH ~8.0
Ammonia 0? (Less than .25)
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5-10

All in all I think those numbers are okay, maybe not perfect, but not way way off.
Furthermore, the corals & anemone seem to look okay (not stressed anyway), so... what the heck is going on? Anyone seen this "Mountain-Dew-itis" before? Some kind of algae outbreak? A "Yellow-tide"? (which does sound like a new mountain dew flavor...)

Thanks for the help!
Tom
 
do you run a fuge? If so what is in it? Does the macro look fine? Sounds like either a phyto bloom (high nutrients) or your macro is spitting out soe nasties.
 
UV Sterilizer works
Rotifers work
both will require you to get the nutrients under control yourself though.

Carbon will help :) (not remove phyto, but will remove other junk)
 
Hmm, don't people want phyto? [I hear there are some people who make a nice living bottling it and selling it :) ]
Should I just buy a couple clams to eat it all?
(that's partly in jest)

I have some older filter floss that is due to be rotated out. That should help as well.

So if it is phyto, that isn't harmful in itself, right? Will it just run its course?
Am I risking low-oxygenation while it's around?
 
earthboy17 said:
Hmm, don't people want phyto? [I hear there are some people who make a nice living bottling it and selling it :) ]
Click to expand...

You heard wrong then :) I eat Ramon 24/7, live in a van down by the river and do the old "spare change" thing on the weekends just to get gas money.

It will drop your DO, and your PH will go wild. It can hit 10 in our cultures and that's with a snot load of CO2 being injected to keep it lower.
 
At the Monterey Bay Aquarium they have an exhibit that shows that green water is a sign of water filled with organisms like phytoplankton.
 
Oh yeah. I'm currently running a UV sterilizer, but I could slow the water flow through it to make it more effective.
And no, no fuge.

I am including several drops of Roti-Feast... but it's not like there's live phyto in that.
They also get a cube of 'coral food' (green cubes from A.Concepts), but that's frozen and dead.
Is phyto just in the water, and if conditions are right, they bloom?
 
GreshamH said:
earthboy17 said:
Hmm, don't people want phyto? [I hear there are some people who make a nice living bottling it and selling it :) ]
Click to expand...

You heard wrong then :) I eat Ramon 24/7, live in a van down by the river and do the old "spare change" thing on the weekends just to get gas money.

It will drop your DO, and your PH will go wild. It can hit 10 in our cultures and that's with a snot load of CO2 being injected to keep it lower.
Click to expand...

Ramon? You mean Ramen? :D
 
nudibranch said:
At the Monterey Bay Aquarium they have an exhibit that shows that green water is a sign of water filled with organisms like phytoplankton.
Click to expand...

more to the point, the green color comes from the green phytoplankton :) There are various colors of phytoplankton (red, orange, yellow, green, brown, blue/green, etc)

That does not mean if the water is clear, there is no phyto present.
 
earthboy17 said:
Oh yeah. I'm currently running a UV sterilizer, but I could slow the water flow through it to make it more effective.
And no, no fuge.
Click to expand...

Interesting IME UVs are awesome when it comes to killing suspended Phyto, you sure it's working?

GreshamH said:
That does not mean if the water is clear, there is no phyto present.
Click to expand...

Very good point, "red tides" are not always red, in fact they can be all kinds of colors, transparent even.
 
Yes, but I think the flow through it is on the high side. I'll scale it back when I get home.

Important questions though:
What immediate risks am I facing for my tank?
(eventually the PH can get high, but right now it seems to be slightly low: 8.0-8.1)

What should I do?
(Besides reduce nutrient import, remove old filter floss; Are water changes good or bad?)

Thanks guys. As always, I'm very appreciative of your expert opinions and insights!!!
 
Do a decent sized water change and lay off the feeding for a couple of days, if it's a phyto bloom turning the lights off isn't a bad idea either.
 
Carbon, GFO, wetter skimmate are also recommended :) no nutrients = no phyto
 
Good tips Gresh. I came home from vacation many years ago and pretty much lost all my fish. The water was completely green. I think I was just starting out so no skimmer just one return pump for water movement. DO was pretty much non-existant
 
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