Green water

OK, here goes. All my parameters check out good, but I can't seem to shake this greenish tint to my water. Every week I'm doing 23-50% water changes and it will clear up a bit, but gradually turn green again. It's a 20 gal. tank, 20+lbs lr, 20 lbs ls, added a skimmer two weeks ago, put in a newer bigger power filter yesterday. Lighting is (2) 10,000K bulbs and (1) 6500K actinic, no more than 12 hours a day. Also have a small brown diatom issue going that doesn't seem to want to go away. Tank is about two+ months old. All help is greatly apreciated!

 

Could try a black out for a few days. Turn off lights for a few days and some people wrap their tank up in black bags or something to ensure no light penetrates.

 

Yep, been reading through the forum and it seems it's a phyto bloom and a black out is going to be the best option. Only question is how is that going to affect my livestock? Did it once for a couple days without covering, just lights out, and the coral didn't seem to happy about it, though it came right back.

 

You could try cutting back on the water changes as well. Sometimes you get a decent bloom from all the fresh nutrients.

 

The purpose of water changes is to export nutrients; there should be zero nutrients in the make-up water, providing the OP is using RO/DI water and a decent brand of salt mix

You might also try shorter photo-period. I only run my lights for 8 hours per day.

 

Coral and live stock will be fine. Just make sure to not turn off any power heads, pumps, skimmer, etc. Ive done black outs before for 2-3 days with no ill effect to my coral or fish. Actually the coral looked better after.

 

Cool, I apreciate the help! I'll get started covering.

 

I too think 12hours is way too much.

One standard is, acitnics for 10, whites and actinics for 8.

 

I ran carbon through my reactor and my phytobloom cured itself overnight.

 

+1 to Mr. Bill