Jeremy H
New Member
Hi all,
I've had my reef tank up for a little over a year and a half. I have learned a lot in that time, specifically that keeping a reef is much more intense than I originally thought coming from the freshwater side of the hobby. Before I decided to jump in to reef keeping, I thought all the gear available made it easy but quickly discovered that only experience and knowledge make it "easier". Since then I have been consumed by this hobby, just ask my wife. With all that being said, I've definitely had my ups and downs and I'm currently having a big down.
For the past couple months I've been unable to keep nitrates at detectable levels but phosphates are reading at or slightly above acceptable levels. I began dosing some nitrates but they never seemed to stay at readable levels with my Salifert nitrate test kit. I recently identified green cyano growing on my sandbed after believing for a week or so it was some type of turf algae. It was getting a little out of control (but not growing on my rocks assuming because they are covered in coralline algae) and after doing some research decided to go the easy route and treat with Chemiclean (I did three days of treatment instead of two). The Chemiclean was working to eliminate the cyano. I tested by phosphates during the treatment and noticed them dropping very low using the Hanna ultra low phosphorus test. Yet, I had continued to feed my normal amount, maybe even more. My refugium was only growing some nuisance algae because the chaeto had melted after thriving for months prior. Before the treatment was done, dinos began popping up. I'm 48 hours removed from the Chemiclean treatment and, yep, they are definitely dinos.
I would not say they are out of control yet but there are a little basically everywhere. I've been blowing them off of the rocks with a filter sock in the sump. They also don't seem to care what they grow on as i found them growing right the tissue of on my otherwise healthy raspberry acro and copper pavona. Thinking I may have thrown off the bacterial balance in my tank, I just dosed Dr. Tim's One and Only. Per bottle instructions, I currently also have my skimmer off (also to help get nutrients up). I also turned off my refugium light and will only perform water changes for now. I'm hoping to avoid the three day blackout if possible because my acros have been doing really well lately, but am prepared to do it. Also, I haven't seen any other types of algae in my display for a few months after battling some bryopsis and hair algae.
Anyone know why my phosphates would decrease while using Chemiclean or could it be throwing off the testing by the Hanna checker? Anyone had experience with dinos popping up so quickly during the Chemiclean treatment? Also, what other steps besides increasing nutrients and dosing competing bacteria could I do before resorting to the blackout?
Any advice would be appreciated,
Jeremy
I've had my reef tank up for a little over a year and a half. I have learned a lot in that time, specifically that keeping a reef is much more intense than I originally thought coming from the freshwater side of the hobby. Before I decided to jump in to reef keeping, I thought all the gear available made it easy but quickly discovered that only experience and knowledge make it "easier". Since then I have been consumed by this hobby, just ask my wife. With all that being said, I've definitely had my ups and downs and I'm currently having a big down.
For the past couple months I've been unable to keep nitrates at detectable levels but phosphates are reading at or slightly above acceptable levels. I began dosing some nitrates but they never seemed to stay at readable levels with my Salifert nitrate test kit. I recently identified green cyano growing on my sandbed after believing for a week or so it was some type of turf algae. It was getting a little out of control (but not growing on my rocks assuming because they are covered in coralline algae) and after doing some research decided to go the easy route and treat with Chemiclean (I did three days of treatment instead of two). The Chemiclean was working to eliminate the cyano. I tested by phosphates during the treatment and noticed them dropping very low using the Hanna ultra low phosphorus test. Yet, I had continued to feed my normal amount, maybe even more. My refugium was only growing some nuisance algae because the chaeto had melted after thriving for months prior. Before the treatment was done, dinos began popping up. I'm 48 hours removed from the Chemiclean treatment and, yep, they are definitely dinos.
I would not say they are out of control yet but there are a little basically everywhere. I've been blowing them off of the rocks with a filter sock in the sump. They also don't seem to care what they grow on as i found them growing right the tissue of on my otherwise healthy raspberry acro and copper pavona. Thinking I may have thrown off the bacterial balance in my tank, I just dosed Dr. Tim's One and Only. Per bottle instructions, I currently also have my skimmer off (also to help get nutrients up). I also turned off my refugium light and will only perform water changes for now. I'm hoping to avoid the three day blackout if possible because my acros have been doing really well lately, but am prepared to do it. Also, I haven't seen any other types of algae in my display for a few months after battling some bryopsis and hair algae.
Anyone know why my phosphates would decrease while using Chemiclean or could it be throwing off the testing by the Hanna checker? Anyone had experience with dinos popping up so quickly during the Chemiclean treatment? Also, what other steps besides increasing nutrients and dosing competing bacteria could I do before resorting to the blackout?
Any advice would be appreciated,
Jeremy
