I’d guess diatoms but.
Isn't that a lot more work?
- Thread starter Dustin07
- Start date
I know, I was spoiled for a while with a 5 year established system that ran so easily. Gotta rebuild
added more nassarius last week, and my local dealer/grower is bringing me a CUC order of aquilonastra, micro brittles, chitons, stomatellas, and collonistas today. I also have some chemi clean that is supposed to be out for delivery today from Amazon that I may or may not use once I get the enhanced CUC in there...
Do they have a website? I typically look at reefcleaners for CUC.
yes, her and her partner are wonderful and incredibly intelligent. she's HUGE on natural approaches and her specimens are always the healthiest I can procure. Coral | K & P Aquaculture
OK so let me think. Thursday, I added that CUC order of aquilonastra, micro brittles, chitons, stomatellas, and collonistas. The micro brittles are so cool, if they weren't so expensive I'd buy more. although my provider says don't worry, they'll reproduce...
that night I added a dose of chemi clean. Saturday night would have been 24hrs but I waited till Sunday morning to do a 20% WC. the chemi clean helped, but didn't do "everything. so I did my water change, and added anoter dose of chemiclean (I read it was OK to run another one). I vaccumed the sand, cleaned, etc, dosed. went to the gym. came back a few hours later and the sand was already rusty again.
I took my nero power heads and blew off all the rock work, the detritus around my zoas etc. I felt like such a moron for not having done that earlier!! it kicked up a heck of a mess so I did 1/3, let the water clear, did another 1/3, etc. almost immediately the zoas, duncans, and gorgonians started opening up. I have no idea why I didn't do that the first time. I need to be better about that!
that night I added a dose of chemi clean. Saturday night would have been 24hrs but I waited till Sunday morning to do a 20% WC. the chemi clean helped, but didn't do "everything. so I did my water change, and added anoter dose of chemiclean (I read it was OK to run another one). I vaccumed the sand, cleaned, etc, dosed. went to the gym. came back a few hours later and the sand was already rusty again.
I took my nero power heads and blew off all the rock work, the detritus around my zoas etc. I felt like such a moron for not having done that earlier!! it kicked up a heck of a mess so I did 1/3, let the water clear, did another 1/3, etc. almost immediately the zoas, duncans, and gorgonians started opening up. I have no idea why I didn't do that the first time. I need to be better about that!
I've been doing 10-20g water changes after 48hr chemiclean doses. I've been blowing the rocks off with the power heads, I get a lot of debris up, I moved the power heads a little lower in the water column to help blow debris upwards so that it hits the overflow and then into the socks/sump.
But it only takes a couple hrs for the sand to start turning red again after a vacuum and water change.
I thought today that it was in better shape but I can blow these rocks completely clean and a few hrs later they look like this.
Any ideas/thoughts?
But it only takes a couple hrs for the sand to start turning red again after a vacuum and water change.
I thought today that it was in better shape but I can blow these rocks completely clean and a few hrs later they look like this.
Any ideas/thoughts?
yesterday, blew off the rocks, vaccumed the sand, did the WC... went to the gym. came back, tank looked worse than it did before the WC. so I turned off the lights entirely. i'm at a loss for how to beat this one. between manual cleaning, WC, chemi clean, I've thrown every hack I've learned over the past half decade at it.
Well one day with the lights off, I get home and the water is entirely rust colored but the sand and rocks are clean! Fish seem ok. I turned lights on for 20 minutes to do another ten gallons wc and then flipped them back off. Maybe this is the ticket ...
this morning I ran my flashlight through the tanks before work and the big tank looks much cleaner. we'll see how it looks when I get home but now I'm wishing I had done a black out period when this all first started.
I don't know if I had mentioned it but that acro that we think may have struggled from AEFW's was showing a bad white spot again so this time I dipped it, then fragged the heck out of it. I ended up with 4 or 5 frags and threw away the white portion. all my frags are doing well and 2 of them which are only about an inch tall I located in my little 4g nano frag tank. those two frags already show growth and fantastic polyp extension that I could NEVER get out of this acro in my big tank.
Funny thing is my 4g nano gets zero water changes, a couple top offs per day, and is filled essentially only with some zoas, a lot of pods, few snails and an urchin, no fish. but something in that little ecosystem is thriving to keep the corals so happy.
I don't know if I had mentioned it but that acro that we think may have struggled from AEFW's was showing a bad white spot again so this time I dipped it, then fragged the heck out of it. I ended up with 4 or 5 frags and threw away the white portion. all my frags are doing well and 2 of them which are only about an inch tall I located in my little 4g nano frag tank. those two frags already show growth and fantastic polyp extension that I could NEVER get out of this acro in my big tank.
Funny thing is my 4g nano gets zero water changes, a couple top offs per day, and is filled essentially only with some zoas, a lot of pods, few snails and an urchin, no fish. but something in that little ecosystem is thriving to keep the corals so happy.
I should have taken a picture of the progress yesterday. Got home around 5pm and turned the lights on. The rocks and sand are 90% clean so as an experiment and to give the corals a little life boosting, I left the lights on until the normal evening mode around 8pm then shut them off entirely again so that the tank sits largely blacked out again today. I think tonight I'll turn them on to start normal on Thursday (tomorrow) and let it live normal for a few days and see if we have beat this thing finally.
All the fish seem to be fine. I lost a torch due to the cyano but my other corals all appear ok with the exception of one me that decided to go for a walk, so we will see what he decides.
I will do a water test but I assume nitrates are again low. I fed minimally yesterday and the day before to give the fish a little sustenance but minimize how much excess nutrients we had in the tank....
All the fish seem to be fine. I lost a torch due to the cyano but my other corals all appear ok with the exception of one me that decided to go for a walk, so we will see what he decides.
I will do a water test but I assume nitrates are again low. I fed minimally yesterday and the day before to give the fish a little sustenance but minimize how much excess nutrients we had in the tank....
yeah, not quite there yet... got home and there was a fair amount of resurgance in the, what I believe is, cyano. so I fed the fish and shut off the lights again.... this weekend I'll hit it hard with another cleaning of the rocks (with the nero) and a small WC, maybe 10 gallons worth.
OK so running lights at about 1/2 schedule, I haven't had any zoas melt, they're just pissed off. the cyano seems to have been beaten, or at least been beaten back. any opinions on boosting nitrates? I'm hesitant to use a product like AB+ or overfeed on this endeavor since it seems to cause outbreaks. admittedly this entire system is only a couple months old so its clear we're not near finished cycling yet. Maybe using Dr. Tims slowed the process down rather than sped it up in some ways.
I use ESB B-Ionic Nitrate to maintain my nitrate levels.
