going through a bit of a set back right now, a massive diatom or Dino bloom is underway, I've lost all fish except for 2 remaining molly's. This brown scunge is growing on everything! Rocks, sand and plants, I am trying not to jump the gun as I have dealt with this kind of thing before in prior systems and have always been able to bring it back in check.
Here are the steps I'm working on now
1. Feeding the fish no more than a quarter cube of food every other day
2. cut lighting intensity back to 40% on both whites and blues
3. every other day I siphon out as much of the brown junk as I can, including the sandbed, the sand is then rinsed clean and added back in.
4. Added some Phosphate/Silicate remover, only enough for a 60 gallon tank, not enough to bring it down to 0 but enough to make a difference
5. My Macros are still growing, including the new caulerpa I added (Prolifora and sertulariodes) along with the racemosa I already had. Several varieties of red are still holding on.
I am hoping that by reducing feeding, manually removing as much of the brown sludge as possible and encouraging the macro's I can swing the tide in their favor.
One thing I have not been able to do is determine EXACTLY what I am dealing with, Its brown and blows off rocks pretty easily so i suspect Diatoms but am not sure. Hoping its not Dino's as those are reportedly much harder to get rid of.
Send some good thoughts my way cause I am going to get through this!
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