Advice please! Woke up to a very cloudy tank!!

[Quartapound]

Morning guys,

My tank is about 3 months old, woke up this morning to see this

http://i.imgur.com/1aakt.jpg

I perform a 5 gallon water change once weekly, one had been performed monday night. when i found the tank in this condition I immediately tested the ammonia and nitrates, which are both 0

I recently (on Saturday) picked up some macro algae from the LFS. I believe it's Caulerpa.

I've been turning the lights off for 6 hours at night in my fuge,

it's not lit very well either... it has an old daylight spectrum CFL bulb for the sump (i'm working on it)


after a frenzied search at 5am for the cause, I believe that it went sexual.

but it never turned white... heres a picture of what I removed

http://i.imgur.com/Q5FBt.jpg


there doesnt seem to be anything in the tank that's dead, I removed the caulerpa immediately after reading that this might have been what caused it.


I'm at work now but will be home in a few more hours and would like to put a plan in motion for damage control.


Is there anything else I should do, or be checking to ensure I get things back to the way they should be?

I still have a large clump of Chaeto that was in the sump beside the Caulerpa... it's been there for a month, growing nicely...

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[fishgate]

I think it is either a bacteria or algea bloom. Neither should be a particular problem. I had an algea bloom so bad once that only a UV filter could get rid of it.

[Sugar Magnolia]

Run some carbon. It'll help clear the water.

[thegrun]

On a side note, I would use cheato not caulerpa as a macroalgae. It's also a good idea to have the "lights out" in the refugium during the main tanks highest light photoperiod; this will help stabilize your Ph swings. I agree the cloud is probably a bacteria bloom and not the caulerpa, but it can go asexual and spread. Caulerpa is very difficult to remove once it gets into your DT.

[Quartapound]

Thanks for the input guys, puts me at ease somewhat.

My Skimmer is going crazy too.



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[Sugar Magnolia]

For future reference - http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/nftt/index.php