Live rocks "died"?!

Fab The Fish

New member
Hi I am pretty new to the hobby. I have got a 14g biocube to start off. I got everything set up for 2 months now, I have 1 clownfish, a coral frag and a anemone. I added dry rock to my tank but put live rock in my filter and I put some stuff in the tank to make it live. After 3 weeks the rocks started doing good and turning brownish with stuff for my crabs and snails to eat etc. but then it stopped, the rock went back to whiteish color and my live rocks did too! What happened?? Did I do something that made it all stop growing or is this normal? Plz help me!

Thanks Fab :)
 
100% Normal..
The brown is "diatoms" which are very common in a new tank and will disappear fairly quickly as the excessive silicates are consumed by the diatoms..
Once the silicates are gone the diatoms have no food and as such die out..

Typically then you will start to get green film/hair algae.. then even some cyano bacteria..
Its all normal as the tank is "maturing" and provided you keep nutrients (nitrates/phosphates) low they will go away too..
 
Set your parameters to what I have in my sig line and hold them there 24/7. It will make things a lot easier.
 
When it comes to your CUC I would add slowly so the food source is not depleted. For example a lot of the suggestions are 1 hermit per gallon...this is maybe true for an established tank but not a new one. Otherwise you will quickly notice a lot of empty shells.
 
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