Brown Smear Algae on Glass only?

[AUSTZEOHEAD]

Can any one explain why since using zeovit i seem to get smear algae on the glass? My nutrient levels are NO3 - nil (salifert), PO4 0.03 PPM and stready (Hanna colour meter). I can't seem to lower this reading at the moment?

I cycle my zeo reactor on / off every 3 hours.

I have tried cuting my dosing levels to 1 drop of food / bac once a week and still no diff. The net water volume of the tank is approx 125g.

The smear algae seems to appear during hours of darkness. Any idea why this is. My PH remains 7.85 (low) and 8.25 (high).

Cheers
Che

[Orion76]

The "algae" may not be algae but a bacteria film, possibly due to overdosing of one or more of the additives.

If this is not the case then it may be diatom algae. Check your source water for silicates. If you are using RO and / or DI then your membranes / resins may be exhausted / saturated.

[Aged Salt]

Hi Austzeohead, as Timon mentioned your product water maybe a cause of brown diatomaceous film. I experienced this very thing with a faulty RODI unit which I recently replaced. A Si test would be helpful in this case.This film also occurs with excess in dosing the basic four, including zeolites, or pushing them past the exhaustion point, & in overdosing of AAHC for your system. Also some salts maybe higher in Si content. Bob

[mesocosm]

Greetings All !

I've experienced the same thing at different times ... I was doing one of these things:

(1) Too much ZEOvit ... 1 L for a ~64G system. 1/2 L works fine now.
(2) Overdosed AAHC.
(3) Overdosed ZeoBak.

The smear algae seems to appear during hours of darkness.

This is a strong indication that what you're looking at is either a bacterial and/or a diatom/dinoflagellate bloom.

HTH

[G.Alexander]

Che, I agree with the other posts. First I would make sure the RO unit is working. Second I would lower the dosage of the products Gary has listed.

In my experience it can take up to three weeks until you see a different if you have cut down the dosage

G.Alexander

[AUSTZEOHEAD]

Many thanks for all your feed back.

I would not think it was my levels of the bac / food as i'm only dosing minimal (1 drop a week of each) on a 125G tank? Also i'm only using 1L of zeovit media for 500L of water.

Maybe Silicates from my RO water. Could make sense why the build up is slow, from my top up water. I will run test on the water and in particular Silicate as i have never tested for this before. I may also put a DI unit in line with the unit.

Cheers
Che