[bongobrian]

Hey guys- quick question. I set my girlfriends 29 gallon reef tank about a month ago. We let the tank cycle for about 3 weeks (shorter than normal because I gave her some stuff from my tank to help it cycle). Anyway, since then she has added 2 ocellaris clowns and about 30 or 40 lbs of live rock. She keeps getting these outbreaks of a brownish green film on the glass. I think it's just diatoms, but theres a bunch of stuff stuck to it like really short strings and bubbles. For filtration, I have her set up with an aquac remora hang-on skimmer and an ecosystem hang-on refugium. Everything in the tank seems to be thriving.. I'm just wondering what we should be doing about these diatom outbreaks. I'm assuming once the biological filter kicks in more, it will take care of the problem.

 

[bongobrian]

I should also add that all the live rock was cured previous to putting it in the tank. I know someone is going to ask that question. We added about 20 more lbs yesterday in addition to about 10 lbs that was already in there. The outbreaks started happening about a week after adding the fish and the first batch of live rock.

 

[reef120]

bongobrian,

What are you using as far a water changes go? RO or Tap? If tap test the water quality and if using RO or RO/DI check to make sure the filters are still good. Crank up the skimmer.

 

[hjmtv]

What kind of water did you set her up with? What does she use for top-off? What is her feeding schedule? It all sounds like excess nutrients in the water. RO/DI water would help (if your not there already) and I think we all can feed less. Once the refugium is up and growing that should help pull some of the algae fertilizer out as well. Being only a month into the tank though, I would just be patient. (and be ready to clean your glass every 3~4 days)[D]

 

[bongobrian]

Well she lives out in the country, so they have well water. Don't worry I'm not that stupid to use that. She has been using distilled water from the grocery store. We set up the tank originally with all distilled and her top-off is distilled. So far we've only done 1 water change of 5 gallons. She feeds once a day... a small pinch of flake food. I know that the biological filter probably needs more time to build, so hopefully the diatoms will taper off after a while.

 

[Will C]

test that distilled water. it probably has stuff in it still. a ro/di unit will be your best investment, kent make a very nice model. the tank is still young and it will take 6mo's or so for the alfea blooms to go away. my 125 is only 4 mo's old and i scrape algea every day. it will go away my reef that has been set up for 4 years now has absolutely no algea at all. i scrape the glass once a month to get the coriline off it. just be patient and scrape it off good when you do changes. do small once a week changes say 2-4 gal and get most of the algea out that you can. if you leave any it will just spread more.

 

[Rook]

I agree with the others. The tank is still building its biological filration and it will take time for the bacteria to attack the added nutrients. Also, you just added quite a lot of liverock and you may be having a small cycle from that.

Are you testing for ammonia/trates/trites? If it were me, I would not do too many water changes unless the am/trates/trites were out of control, until the bacteria has a chance to build up.