vortex XL diatom on a 90 gallon results :)
- Thread starter tcarswell
- Start date
send me a PMtcarswell;3854408; said:
thanks for the quick reply. I believe the issue I am having is more along the lines of a diatom problem, the water gets more brownish than green and I think it is suspended diatoms/particulates in the water. when it is bad water changes don't do anything to clear it up.
i recently tried using "Algae Fix" which cleaned up the water, but it knocked out some of my BB colonies and then I had to deal with an ammonia spike, and since then the diatoms have come back ten fold. i have left my tank light off completely for over 2 weeks straight thinking it might stop the diatoms/brown algae from growing but as they settle out of the water it leaves almost a blanket of brown "powder" on the bottom. i syphon it out every couple of days because i know it adds to the ammonia levels and silicates in the water which will never allow the diatom problem to get itself under control. I am thinking that i need to extract the suspended diatoms out of the water in order for the cycle to regulate itself again.
the tank is a 150gal filtered by two Eheim Pro II 2028 filters which I removed the filter floss from because it was cloggin up too quickly and killing the flow rate. i may need to put some back in and see if that helps at all. the current stock is a 10" tiger oscar and two 4" clown loaches (lost 2 loaches from the ammo spike). i do weekly 50% water changes and nitrates never get above 10ppm, usually closer to 5ppm.
do you think the XL diatom filter will fix this issue if I run it for a couple hours each week after doing the water change?
omg, the website you bought from when i click on their "contact us/ location" they are in "[FONT=arial, helvetica]Malvern" that happens to be where i live street name in canada, sorry for out of topic, but i had to say something about their address! what a coincidence!
my friend has a D-1, first version, so is not as good as XL, but he has a 270G 220G 155G 435G, and he would just use it for 2 -3 hours on each tank, once a month, and is clean as it can be! nothing in the water!
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my friend has a D-1, first version, so is not as good as XL, but he has a 270G 220G 155G 435G, and he would just use it for 2 -3 hours on each tank, once a month, and is clean as it can be! nothing in the water!
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Wow that is one hell of a weird problem to have with such a light stock and excellent maintenance. How often and how much are you feeding ?jbarbaresi;3855937; said:
I honestly cant give you a 100% sure answer because one thing is you have a lot of suspended debris it sounds like as you have your filter floss clogging so frequently. Id say a Diatom would definitely clear up your water however im not sure if its a permanent solution.
A UV would be great for suspended algae however it would not particularly take care of the mechanical filtration problem you seem to be having.
Have you tested your phosphates ? A reactor might be a good solution though I can't personally vouch for them.
Sounds like a tough issue let me know any way I can help.
tcarswell;3857707; said:
never checked for phosphates just stick with the big three, maybe that's something I should do. up till about a month ago I had another 10" oscar and a 5" oscar in there as well along with the 2 extra clown loaches. the water wouldn't always be cloudy, but it would go in cycles and now that i'm thinking back its been more consistently cloudy since i removed the filter floss a couple months back. i ordered some replacement polishing pads so that will be a good place to start. as far as feeding goes the oscar gets 2 nightcrawlers, 5-6 pieces of freeze dried krill, or around 10 ex large NLS pellets on a rotational basis each night. that's one of those three not all in one night. the loaches pretty much pick up the debris but every once in a while i'll sprinkle a pinch of sinking NLS pellets for them. i don't think over feeding is an issue and like I said, before I got this recent ammonia spike the nitrates stayed between 5-10ppm.
my other thought is that maybe the city water I use from the tap has high levels of silicates which is adding to the diatom problem. maybe doing 50% water changes weekly is doing more harm than good? my only peace of mind is that none of the fish seem to be distressed, its more of an aesthetic thing because the water looks dingy despite my maintenance efforts. the weird thing is the "brown algae" doesn't grow on the glass or anything, the only time you can see it is when suspended in the water or when it settles down to the bottom and even then it just picks right up with the syphon. its never attached or growing on any surfaces but more like a "dust" sitting on the bottom.
the fine polishing pads should be here next week so i'll give those a try for a while and see how it works out. unfortunately the vortex XLs are sold out everywhere and on back order until May or so. i tried ordering from aquariumguys.com today and even though their website says in stock they don't have any left.
