Whats going wrong....

[mattb2989]

Hey all. Hope your all well. Having a few issues with my dd1200. Tank has been running for over 14 months now. I had to go fallow nearly straight away due to velvet/ich. First fish went back in to dt in may 22. Then during the summer i had a lyngbya. Tank was ok for a month or so then from around september ive had red cyano. Never grew on the sand just on the rocks but seemed to grow bigger and more on the rocks that were getting hid hardest by flow. No3 was always 10-14 and po4 0.06 - 0.1. As of yesterday no3 6.0, po4 0.06. I turned my gfo reactor off just before xmas as po4 seemed to be stable with exhausted gfo. Po4 didnt really rise but after 3 days the sand started getting dirty. Has been id has proro dinos. No idea how as nutrients been kept up. Im currently dosing water glass to promote a diatom bloom to outcompete. I seem to get specs of coraline on the back wall but that seems to just turn green after a few weeks. I started the tank with life rock and carib sea live sand. Have 2kg of maxspect bio balls in the sump. Lps and sps are growing. Icps have shown nothing untoward just a few traces low which were corrected after each icp. Dosing pods regularly and live phyto daily. I noticed some fuzzy growths in my mg container which i found out had a sugar/glucose in it making these growths. Have attached pics for this. I have recently changed my reef wave 25s for 2 nero 5s and 2 nero 3s to try and create a more thorough random flow all the way around the tank. Any advice welcome as im slowly falling out with this hobby will be greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Any advice welcome as im slowly falling out with this hobby will be greatly appreciated. Thank you

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Why do you let it go for so long? If you look at the tank everyday, and you notice the start of cyano remove it then. Suck out that top layer of sand which is easier when it's the first small spot. If it's on the rocks I'n front of the powerheads that wont blow away with a baster which is known to happen, you can scrub it with a toothbrush and suck it out.

When you let things go it effects everything putting you in a bad cycle, you need to brake that bad cycle and manually remove anything trying to live in your tank, any algae or cyano in that case, everything can be removed or irritated into non existence.

That's a nice looking tank, and I can tell despite the cyano allot of those corals look happy, so I wouldn't say it's time to throw in the towel, it just needs some proper maintenance and possibly done in smaller daily regiments.

You only mention nutrients, so I assume the big three are in order. I think it still just needs time in fact it's probably just around the corner from blossoming.

I would remove cyano and keep ontop of new growth removal, continuing what your doing otherwise, and I would try and get some new cheap or free frags or rock from another healthy system to try and boost bacteria a little, (not bottle bact.) and give it some time, other than seeing red on the sand, the tank looks great!

 

[mattb2989]

@thatmanMIKEson hi buddy. Thanks. Last year i was scrubbing and syphoning every couple of days. And it was receding. The redness on the sand is all dinos. Checked on the scope. All the cyano is on the rocks. The red cyano is starting to come back. I can say my tank is parasite free as after a tank wipe out i went through a very strict qt so im a bit apprehensive of adding stuff from other peoples tanks incase encrusted parasites on the plugs etc if you get my point. Sorry yes my testes yesterday were no3 6.0, po4 0.06, alk 8.0, ca 430, mg 1350