green tint in water

[Shinte305]

My tank is almost 4 months old I started it on December 28th. Everything is looking good I got 2 clown fish 3 snails and 3 peppermint shrimp. Oh and 2 mitrax crabs. It's a 55 gallon tank with 30 gallon refugium where I'm growing cheato. And 30 pounds of live rock.But my water in the past few days has started to turn GREEN I'm assuming it's an algae bloom of some sort but I have 0 phosphate... I've tested it in 2 different places. Water parameters are perfect and I mean spot on. 8.2ph 0 nitrate 0 nitrite 0 ammonia 0 phosphate. Ive done water changes and it looks like it gets better than the next day I wake up and it's just as green..... help lol

[pyithar]

chaeto won't go sexual. are you using ro/di? is the tank getting direct sunlight?

if it's algae bloom, i believe the solution is the uv sterilizer. i would also run carbon.

[Shinte305]

Yes I'm using reverse osmosis water I make it myself. I tested it and the tap water is 97 ppm and I bring it down to 1-2 ppm with my reverse osmosis filter, it's a slight green tint it's very noticeable when looking across the tank. With the lights on the water looks crystal clear. But this green tint is new just happen within the last 2-3 days

[Shinte305]

Hmmmmm so carbon. If running carbon will clear this up I'll look into it. Should I do like a reactor thing or just get a carbon filter and cut it to fit my trickle system

[pyithar]

i just throw a bag of carbon in a high flow area of the sump. are the glass/acrylic free of film algae btw? maybe a thin layer of green film algae is making the tank looks a bit green?

[Shinte305]

Actually I put my finger inside and yes the glass has a thin algae layer I just cleaned it but there is still some green in the water. And yeah I do have a high flow area in my sump. Where the water flows in first it's empty than a baffle than the cheats than a baffle than return pump

[scooter31707]

maybe another option will be to run a GFO reactor. you can find them pretty cheap now.

[Mythicalelf]

I would throw in some chemipure elite, it has some gfo and carbon in it.

[gone fishin]

Does the tank get any direct sunlight? If so try to limit that. I had a similar thing happen many years ago. As the seasons changed I slowly started getting more sunlight into the tank for longer amounts of time.

[Reef Frog]

Conventional tanks have a green tint of course that is more noticable at certain times of day depending on the ambient light in the room. If you drain your change water into a white bucket, does the water have a greenish or yellow hue?

If it does then your water has some disolved organics. You may want to evaluate your skimmer's operation, feeding etc. And adding carbon is likely to be helpful as noted above. You have a young tank and things may return to normal on their own as well.

[wnehez]

+1 run carbon. Reactor would be best, but high flow area will work also. If its making a thin film on the glass, I would clean the glass every day also to try and keep as much of it in the water volume to get removed by carbon.

[Captain smoke]

I noticed this too, watching to see what others say

[coralsnaked]

carbon is good for removing a yellow tint from the water but if an algae bloom it would take a UV sterilizer to remove the algae

[Reef Frog]

^ Yes. Lots of micro algae could clog up and render your carbon useless very quickly. A very fine filter floss or sock might help clean up the water.

But a minor bloom is no big deal - buying a UV at this point just for this outbreak is not necessary unless you were going to buy one anyway. Blooms are common in new tanks and will go away on their own in almost all cases. In a stable tank with good husbandry, they are unlikely to be a problem in the future.

[Sk8r]

GFO.. You have quite a lot of spare phosphate that needs removal.

[kmbyrnes]

My tank was definitely green from the 4 - 6 month mark. Nothing I did made much impact. Carbon, GFO, water changes did not help. Then after about 7 months it cleared up on its own and has been clear ever since. Like everything else in this hobby, time is your friend.

[BigCountry74]

if your doing waster changes and its coming back that fast something is leaching. carbon and a good micron filter thru a high powered canister will help polish the water but try to find the source.

[pinnatus]

I had a green water problem. I changed 99% of the water, several times and it came right back. Did everything else I could think of, with no luck. The green was so bad that my corals and anemone were not getting enough light. Lights out did not do anything to it either. Finally got a UV, and it was gone days later.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o195/garrettjrkp/Fish/0306122016a.jpg (http://s120.photobucket.com/user/garrettjrkp/media/Fish/0306122016a.jpg.html)

Got UV

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o195/garrettjrkp/Fish/0418120632a.jpg (http://s120.photobucket.com/user/garrettjrkp/media/Fish/0418120632a.jpg.html)
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o195/garrettjrkp/Fish/0422122049a.jpg (http://s120.photobucket.com/user/garrettjrkp/media/Fish/0422122049a.jpg.html)
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o195/garrettjrkp/Fish/0430122030a.jpg (http://s120.photobucket.com/user/garrettjrkp/media/Fish/0430122030a.jpg.html)

[Shinte305]

Holy crap!!now that's greeeen!! Lol mine is a very light green tint and I got carbon and placed it in the sump and after a day it was crystal clear thank you all for the help!!! I'm looking into a reactor for carbón now

[thejuggernaut]

Holy crap!!now that's greeeen!! Lol mine is a very light green tint and I got carbon and placed it in the sump and after a day it was crystal clear thank you all for the help!!! I'm looking into a reactor for carbón now

Which unit did you get. I'm having the same problem in my QT tank. But don't really want to spend $100s on one. But I guess it would be a nice thing to have on a QT tank anyways.

[Dundermifflin]

A carbon and GFO reactor will work well on DT, but you don't need that for a QT. You can try the Chemi-pure elite bags for about $7 (sm) and $13 (lg). Put this in your filter and it should clear things up.

[bambam918]

TDS needs to read 0