Bad algae bloom, need advice on blackout.

Hey all, been awhile since I posted tank has been running smoothly currently have my 90 gallon DT with my 20 gallon sump. In the tank I have a bicolor foxface, domino damsel, ocellaris clown, and a diamond watchman goby, along with a couple red leg hermits and turbo snails. My water parameters are all zero with nitrate at around 5ppm. Basically the problem is that my water is a green cloudy color that I'm going to blame on overfeeding which I admit i wrongly did because of a problem I had which has since been fixed, or could be from some macro I added which I have removed out of suspicion. What I wanna do and hope for results is a total blackout but I am unsure of how to go about doing this, is turning the lights off enough? or can I cover the tank with a garbage bag or something to block out all the light my only concern here is that it will harm the fish. I already know they can go 3 days without food no problem but will 3 days in pitch dark harm them?

 

Here is a picture of the tank, hard to actually see how it is but looks much worse than the picture

 

It's a baterial bloom, not algae in the water column. Unless you had a macro which went sexual.

 

I was under the impression that a bacteria bloom resulted in milky water not green, it may look like the green is on the glass in the picture but the glass is clean and it is in the water column. The macro I had in the tank was caulerpa.

 

I wouldn't recommend covering the tank and especially leaving it unobserved. Algae won't grow with room lighting, as long as the tank is not receiving direct sunlight. Without corals or anemones, you could just run lights at feeding time and while observing/admiring your tank; fish, hermits, snails, etc do not require supplemental lighting.

A filter sock on your drain or a HOB or canister filter with pads would help remove the excess suspended algae. Water changes will also reduce the nutrients to help starve it out.

Hope this helps.

 

You can kill the lighting and it will help, but the problem will immediately resurface unless you take care of the root causes.
First thing I noticed is the lack of any rock in the tank. Looks like just two or three medium sized rocks?
Rock will be your #1 filtration source. For fish only you should have around 90+ pounds in there, for a reed around 120. What is in there now is not adequate.
What is the flow situation like? Just that one powerhead stuck to the side? That's not gonna cut it and isn't helping either
What are you using for mechanical filtration?
Also, you have the clean up crew for a 5 gallon nano, not a 90.
Give us all the details of the entire system so we can make suggestions to help the issues you are having.

 

Hey thanks for the reply I am planning on getting rock today not 90 lbs or anything but closer to 40 for today, there are two powerheads in there one in the back corner facing a bit forward and one that you can see along with the sump which is running around 400gph is memory serves clear. I understand I don't have enough clean up crew but in my area there is literally one saltwater fish store on my entire province and hes had very low stock for pretty much the entire summer he only had the 5 hermits and 6 snails. Also he doesn't order in any base rock and he sells live rock at 12$/lbs but luckily on my classifieds last night some guy is taking down his tank and selling everything off so I am going later to get rock off him and for mechanical I am using floss on the end of my outflows and cleaning them everyday. Hope this helps

 

Reefcleaners.org
This will be your best friend
John over there sells very nice base rock and can custom tailor a clean up crew for your needs. Even with the shipping it will be much cheaper than any lfs with the cleaning crew.
And they have a sale going with their rock right now. I just got 30 pounds shipped for $35
6-8 weeks later it will blend in and look just like your live rock, with none of the risk of nuisance algae or hitch hikers.

 

Large CUC's are not needed and counter productive IMO.I have run my 90 gallon aquarium with 4 nassarius snails,3 Limpets and a few Emerald crabs for years with no problems and I have never believed in huge CUC's in any of my tanks over the years.CUC's will not eat free floating algaes.Also the ammount of rock you need will depend on the ammount of fish/inverts you have and the ammounts you are feeding.The size of the tank is not important but bioload is.It all comes down to how often/much you feed and how many fish/inverts you have.The bacteria needed to convert Nitrates and Ammonia live in the biofilm which in the absence of rock will grow on any hard surfaces including the glass and sand.With that being said I would definitely add more rock to help make the fish you do have feel more comfortable and to give more room for the biofilm without fear of them being accidentally disturbed and killed off the glass or sand during maintenace.The latter is really the reason people prefer more LR in the tank then you have presently. I would definitely turn the lights off and use Mechanical filtration. Just be sure to clean it often.

 

Hey thanks for the advice, I went and got 20 lbs or rock today and plan on getting 40 lbs next week when I get paid again ( university student problems lol) The tank itself looks better with rock and I was waiting to find some half cheap 12.99/lb plus tax is a bit ridiculous and even to get regular old dry rock cost 5/lbs roughly marcorocks works out to be $200 for a 50 lbs box. I shall leave the lights off for a couple days just to let the algae die out and then the rock should be able to keep things in check. As for the clean up crew as far as I can tell you can't ship live animals across the border, either that or no company is willing to go through the hassle of securing the permits and personally I don't blame them. The same thing goes for even live rock and clean up crews, so i'm stuck either getting them from my one and only lfs or buying them from the couple fish sellers online and even then the shipping is quite out of my price range. So until then I am forced to pay around 4$/snail and crab.