Bacterial bloom explained?

[nothingfishy]

Can someone tell
Me the logic or reasoning behind a bloom? Or maybe what it means as far as a sign?

I am on day 8 of vinegar dosing a 150 fowlr, and last couple days have had a bloom. I have had much worse in the past using pellets, but would like to know the scientific reasoning behind it.

I have ramped up to 60 ml vinegar a day, .4 ml per gal). My nitrates are around 100, no idea about po4.

Can I keep dos in free same amount, and bloom will adjust, or does it mean I am using too much, and I have to cut back?

I always thought it meant the water column bacteria (bloom, rapidly multiply) were growing because the surface bacteria couldn't grow fast enough to compete with the bloom.

Any help in understanding , and what it means to my dosage amount would be great. Thanks

[Deinonych]

Tagging along, as I'm curious about this as well. I'm slowly ramping up dosing of NOPOX and get small blooms a few days into a higher dosage (or at least I assume it's a bloom - cloudy water). They usually go away after 24-48 hours with no change in dosage. Wondering if the cloudiness is actually algae die-off, or a result of it.

[FraggledRock]

why are you dosing vinegar?

[bertoni]

Bacterial blooms can cause problems by depleting the oxygen in the tank, and might be capable of causing other problems, so we generally recommend backing off on the dose if they show up. That said, the tank might be perfectly safe as is. You could siphon out the slime to remove some nutrients, and see what happens, but I'd back off on the dose.

As far as why the blooms occur, that's probably going to be a complicated question to answer, but the hope is that they are a response to a higher carbon dose than the skimmer and other mechanisms can export. There's no hard data to support that, but it seems to be true often enough to be a useful guideline.

[nothingfishy]

Ok. Part of me says back off and lose ground, the other part of me says stick with the dose and eventually the benthic surface bacteria will catch up.

I can also zap my uv light in which will help clear bacteria out, but will also kill "necessary"? Bacteria from water column. Guess I'm lookin for a road map to see where I am and which direction I need to go.
Thank you

[bertoni]

It's not clear how much of the total bacterial mass in our tanks is in the water column, but it seems to be fairly small. I don't think a UV unit would hurt anything, and it can clear up hazy water fairly quickly in some cases. For slimy growths on surfaces, the UV won't do much, if anything.

[nothingfishy]

Understood jon, but let me ask, is the bacteria which I
Am trying to grow with vinegar, supposed to grow on surface areas in display, sump (hopefully) or could it take place and consume nitrates in water column. I guess my question is now that I have a bloom, is it more beneficial to let it run, or kill it via uv lamp?

If there is no need for it, I will turn light on.

The other day I asked about it, randy basocally said he would rather leave it off and let coral consume food (bacteria) but in my case, I have no coral.

[bertoni]

I'd guess most of the bacteria that consume the carbon dose are on the substrate in most of our tanks. If there's not enough substrate space, then I'd expect a higher probability of a water column bloom, but that's just a guess.

Since the tank is having a water column bloom, I'd run the UV, personally, out of concern for oxygen problems.