Hi all,
I'm a first-time poster here. I had a small 20 gallon tank with a handful of fish several years ago, but am just now getting into the hobby with both feet.
This weekend, I purchased a used 75 gallon system locally. Everything is in excellent condition, except the previous owner had some pretty good algae growth going on when I inspected it at his house. "No problem," I thought. I was going to give it a thorough cleaning anyway, which I did.
After a couple hours of elbow grease, I filled the tank to begin the cycling process. (I think) I knew it was important to establish the tank bacteria using his old filter media, so I left everything as-is and got 'er going. IT WAS LIKE AN ALGAE BOMB. As soon as that filter started pumping, my clean and clear new tank turned into a green cloud with about 6 inches of visibility.
Here's my question: What, if anything, do I need to do about the algae? I will be doing frequent water changes, but now that so much algae has been introduced into the tank, do I need to drain it and start over? I will eventually put in new/cleaned filter media, but what at this point? Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience!
TL;DR: I installed a used canister filter and it pumped more algae into my new tank than I thought was possible. What do I do, if anything?
I'm a first-time poster here. I had a small 20 gallon tank with a handful of fish several years ago, but am just now getting into the hobby with both feet.
This weekend, I purchased a used 75 gallon system locally. Everything is in excellent condition, except the previous owner had some pretty good algae growth going on when I inspected it at his house. "No problem," I thought. I was going to give it a thorough cleaning anyway, which I did.
After a couple hours of elbow grease, I filled the tank to begin the cycling process. (I think) I knew it was important to establish the tank bacteria using his old filter media, so I left everything as-is and got 'er going. IT WAS LIKE AN ALGAE BOMB. As soon as that filter started pumping, my clean and clear new tank turned into a green cloud with about 6 inches of visibility.
Here's my question: What, if anything, do I need to do about the algae? I will be doing frequent water changes, but now that so much algae has been introduced into the tank, do I need to drain it and start over? I will eventually put in new/cleaned filter media, but what at this point? Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience!
TL;DR: I installed a used canister filter and it pumped more algae into my new tank than I thought was possible. What do I do, if anything?