Yellow Green Tinted Reef

[carter92]

Ok, here goes....The reefer who can answer this question will win a big prize......LOL..Ok, my new 225 gallon reef has been set up for 6 months now....My problem is the tank has a yellow/greenish tint to it while the lights are on...It has 4 250watt AB 10,000K and 4 96watt Power Compacts 2 white actinics and 2 blue actinics..I bought the 2 blues to wash out the yellowing effect....to no avail...still looks the same...Even when running the power compact without the MH's the tint is still there..I originally thought the MH's needed more blue...I have kept reefs for over a decade and never had this problem...This tank does have something my other tanks did not...(The Culprit) a 75 gallon Refugium/Mud Filter loaded with lots of green caulerpa...Could the refugium be leaching some by products of the caulerpa....it looks like only the rock is actually absorb the color..I have several wht pieces of pvc that shows no color change and the sand seem to be nice and bright white....I do have some picture on this forum of my new tank ...you can see what I am talking about in them...Any help will be greatly appreciated....Thanks Dennis

 

[Len]

Have you tried a good portion of activated carbon? Mud and caulerpa will release humic and tannic substances which yellows the water pretty quickly. Carbon usually does the trick. Polyfilters is another option. Skimmers obviously work, as does ozone, but I'm not sure if you want to use the latter two.

 

[carter92]

Thanx for the reply Len, Over the past month I ran a Magnum 330 with all carbon and several piece of Poly Filters to no avail....I will try to repost that pic of my entire tank showing the color change....In that pic you can see 2 wht pvc elbows that look pure white but the rock seems to be absorbing this ylw tint more than anything else....maybe its my eyes are playing trick on me, but several other people made note of the tint in my pics and I must agree that I noticed that while lookin at my tank also...not just in the pictures.....Thanks

 

[danmhippo]

Normally I do not recommend a UV sterilizer. But if you have what I think you have, phyto bloom, the UV sterilizer may help.

The trick is to get one large enough and you run water through it slow enough. If the manual says minimum flow through rate to be 300GPH, you put on a 150GPH pump to it. You have to allow enough UV contact time with the organism's cell for UV to alter the DNA structure.

However, the root of the cause, IMHO, is still the excess nutrient in the water. MM has lots of nutrient in it and it's not uncommon to have algae bloom for the first few months.

 

[Mogo]

Save some $$. Try the carbon first.