Blackout turned water cloudy brown

[underwaterjr]

Hey,
My tank is about 8 months old. Started with dry rock and dry sand and the uglies finally hit like a hammer. I’ve champ and diatoms completely covering the rocks and sand. I’ve been dosing phosphate and nitrate to get levels above zero since this mess started and been doing daily mb7. Raised levels to .01 PO4 and 8 NO3. But dosing daily to keep it there. So any way I decided to do a black out to try and get things back under control so not even 24 hours lights out and the tank water is really cloudy brown and the room smells. Should I stay the course? Anybody come across this before? I only have one piece of coral as a trial so not gonna lose a whole tank of coral with extended blackout.

 

[TheDuude]

Any livestock missing?

 

[underwaterjr]

Not that I can tell, but it’s dark so they are hiding like it’s night. The water was crystal clear yesterday. Should I check ammonia? I should clarify the smell is not like rotting animal but it smells like algae, if you have ever had a bad cyano and diatom infestation and cleaned a bunch out. It just has a certain smell and now the whole room smells like it

 

[TheDuude]

I would.. any nems in tank?

 

[underwaterjr]

Nope no nems. Not in a hurry and tank imo is not stable enough for much more than what I have thrown at it. Last tank I did was about 15 years ago and it was live rock from the ocean and live sand so I never had these problems so in new territory here.