Defective_Weeble
Salty
Hey y'all. Warning, long post follows.
First off thanks to Dowdy for helping me get these pellets up and running. I've bombarded him with a thousand questions so I figured I'd save his Facebook inbox this time and take it to the forums instead.
I'm 23 days in to running pellets. I started with about 1/2 of the recommended dose. I only had 3 fish in the tank until yesterday so when the pellets kicked in they stripped the water out way too fast. I started feeding heavier to dirty up the water and keep the LPS happy. SPS all seem perfectly fine. Over the past couple of weeks I've been dealing with what appears to be an algae outbreak and I can't seem to get it going in the right direction. Obviously I raised my phosphates some by overfeeding. I'm well aware of that. I'm pretty sure that's what started this but today things got funky. Let's start with parameters:
Tank is about 4 months old, though I had some of the rock running for about 6 months total. I run a 4-bulb T5 using ATI bulbs that I bought new about 2 months ago. I've been running 2 bulbs for an hour, all 4 for 8 hours then 2 again for 2 hours. I've recently cut this down to kill all lights at 10 hours.
PH: 8.2
Temp: 79-80
Calcium: 440 (on last check, but my kit seems to have taken a crap on me)
Mag: 1500
Phosphate: 0.04
Nitrate: 0.25
KH: 9.8
I changed 10 gallons of water yesterday (50 gallons system total) using Red Sea (not coral pro) salt and RODI. I had been using Coral Pro but switched to the regular to lower KH below 9 (which apparently didn't work just yet...) Though I'm not running true ULNS, I don't want to take a risk of burning acros. Water is perfectly clear. Absolutely gorgeous. But I'm still having algae forming. Here are some pictures:
The first picture shows the thick, dark brown algae that's on some of the rocks.
Second shot shows what my normal rock looks like, though that one is not directly under the T5s
Third shot is an area of my overflow that I can't reach to clean. It gives a good example of what's building up in the tank.
Fourth shot is that same algae on a piece of shelf rock.
Final shot shows a piece of that same "white" rock that you see in shot 2, but that one sits right under the T5s and up higher. You can also see more buildup on the shelf rock. You can also see an area on the back glass that I've not been able to reach for a couple of weeks. Note all the bubbles.
Parts of the rock are clean because I've been scrubbing them off every few days in hopes of getting this to skim away. Today I've noticed what appears to be dinos coming off of the frag rock that you see in the last picture. There are only 2 strands, but they're definitely long and stringy with an air bubble at the end like dinos.
I added 5 chromis yesterday to dirty up the water without having to overfeed. I also started dosing Microbe-Lift Special Blend a couple weeks back on Dowdy's suggestion. I did a first dose of 90 mL, then 2 subsequent doses of 60 mL each, according to the instructions.
So here's my question: Obviously there's an imbalance somewhere. Do I just need to wait this out? The brown color makes me think that this isn't cyano, but it also doesn't blow off like a diatom would. What kind of algae am I dealing with here? Could the whole thing be an outbreak of dinos?
Appreciate any thoughts or feedback.
First off thanks to Dowdy for helping me get these pellets up and running. I've bombarded him with a thousand questions so I figured I'd save his Facebook inbox this time and take it to the forums instead.
I'm 23 days in to running pellets. I started with about 1/2 of the recommended dose. I only had 3 fish in the tank until yesterday so when the pellets kicked in they stripped the water out way too fast. I started feeding heavier to dirty up the water and keep the LPS happy. SPS all seem perfectly fine. Over the past couple of weeks I've been dealing with what appears to be an algae outbreak and I can't seem to get it going in the right direction. Obviously I raised my phosphates some by overfeeding. I'm well aware of that. I'm pretty sure that's what started this but today things got funky. Let's start with parameters:
Tank is about 4 months old, though I had some of the rock running for about 6 months total. I run a 4-bulb T5 using ATI bulbs that I bought new about 2 months ago. I've been running 2 bulbs for an hour, all 4 for 8 hours then 2 again for 2 hours. I've recently cut this down to kill all lights at 10 hours.
PH: 8.2
Temp: 79-80
Calcium: 440 (on last check, but my kit seems to have taken a crap on me)
Mag: 1500
Phosphate: 0.04
Nitrate: 0.25
KH: 9.8
I changed 10 gallons of water yesterday (50 gallons system total) using Red Sea (not coral pro) salt and RODI. I had been using Coral Pro but switched to the regular to lower KH below 9 (which apparently didn't work just yet...) Though I'm not running true ULNS, I don't want to take a risk of burning acros. Water is perfectly clear. Absolutely gorgeous. But I'm still having algae forming. Here are some pictures:
The first picture shows the thick, dark brown algae that's on some of the rocks.
Second shot shows what my normal rock looks like, though that one is not directly under the T5s
Third shot is an area of my overflow that I can't reach to clean. It gives a good example of what's building up in the tank.
Fourth shot is that same algae on a piece of shelf rock.
Final shot shows a piece of that same "white" rock that you see in shot 2, but that one sits right under the T5s and up higher. You can also see more buildup on the shelf rock. You can also see an area on the back glass that I've not been able to reach for a couple of weeks. Note all the bubbles.
Parts of the rock are clean because I've been scrubbing them off every few days in hopes of getting this to skim away. Today I've noticed what appears to be dinos coming off of the frag rock that you see in the last picture. There are only 2 strands, but they're definitely long and stringy with an air bubble at the end like dinos.
I added 5 chromis yesterday to dirty up the water without having to overfeed. I also started dosing Microbe-Lift Special Blend a couple weeks back on Dowdy's suggestion. I did a first dose of 90 mL, then 2 subsequent doses of 60 mL each, according to the instructions.
So here's my question: Obviously there's an imbalance somewhere. Do I just need to wait this out? The brown color makes me think that this isn't cyano, but it also doesn't blow off like a diatom would. What kind of algae am I dealing with here? Could the whole thing be an outbreak of dinos?
Appreciate any thoughts or feedback.
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