Dirty tank!!

[saltyfilmfolks]

Now before anyone says I stocked too much too soon,

Nope. good timing IMO. quite slow really.

The glass and sandbed are filthy.

maybe vaccume time.

If a real cycle never occurred the addition of fish and such will end up creating a new Cycle I'm pretty sure.

nope. the bacteria was cycling from the start. most call the ugly part the cycle. imo not true. Ive had tanks that visually did nothing and then I put fish and corals in. that was freaky for me the first time.

also my first year in my biocube looked way worse! keep at it.

+1000000000000000

Your right but I did ghost feed the tank a few times and got slight amounts of ammonia and went away. Never gained any nitrates though.

perfectly smooth cycle start w bacteria.

I may have them on too long.

My blue light is on from 9am-9pm
White is on from 11am-7pm
Moonlight is on from 9pm-12am
Lights out from 12am-9am

My lights come on at 6am and go off at 10 pm. the full intensity is only 8 hours.

Yea. tank looks great. make sure the back chambers arent gunky. add some aggressive bacteria to compete w the cyano (i do all year, im a nut too and use fiji mud for the same reason), buy some more coral to compete with the cyano for No and Po, and keep doing what your doing.

 

[aythatguy26]

Only thing in the back chambers is a tad bit of sand. Water is clear and nothing more then the little white spots on the sides

 

[aythatguy26]

And what exactly is aggressive bacteria?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

And what exactly is aggressive bacteria?

Probidio, Tr tims one and only. Prime and stability would be my "daily driver" after wc cleaning ect, id put Bio spira there too.

In my JBJ cube(gone now) It would trap stuff in the back big time. conversely as I thing the returns were a bit to powerfull, (MJ1200gph) , the front of the tank would be the first spots to get cyano as Im pretty sure it was blowing into the tank from the returns. So keeping the back clean AND trying to trap as much in the first chamber w floss was the only thing I could do keep detritus down in the system. But it sounds like your ahead of the game there.

 

[aythatguy26]

The water from the first chamber goes completely through the floss before going into the second.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

The water from the first chamber goes completely through the floss before going into the second.

cool. Prob another reason why the DT looks clean.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Are you running chemical filtration? Id bet your No and Po are quite low. are you testing those parameters?

 

[aythatguy26]

I run chemipure elite below the floss and purigen below that in my diy media rack

 

[aythatguy26]

And also where the return pump is flowing the sand is clean but around the sides of the rock and center of the "cove" the sand is covered in ugly-ness

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I run chemipure elite below the floss and purigen below that in my diy media rack

yea, how bad is the cyano? I can tell from your xenia the nutrient numbers are pretty low. So test before you do probidio or Mb7, you dont want to totally sink the nutrients.
if the cyano hangs on for another month or so with no respite you may want to go the chemiclean route. or in a couple weeks go with peroxide dosing for a bit.
you def will want to have sligtly higher numbers later on for coral but yea kick the cyano out first.
def start with a nutrient test.

 

[TheAsian0328]

Any carbon or gfo? I got a lot of cyano in my tank around the 3 month mark. I started with live rock and it helped but I still needed more bio filtration. Started dosing microbacter7 and it helped a lot! If you can, try getting a conch snail or two to move the sand around. That will help keep the cyano off the sand.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

And also where the return pump is flowing the sand is clean but around the sides of the rock and center of the "cove" the sand is covered in ugly-ness

hmm got enough turbulace there? it sounds like particles settling, thats just gonna happen(peroxide or vac for cleanup). how's your CUC?

 

[aythatguy26]

I have not tested for anything other then the basics. I mean I think the cyano is bad but I also am wanting a clean sandbed pretty bad. And what do you mean about the Xenia? Idk if it's what your referring to but I had just fed the tank and the shrimp goes crazy and walks all over the coral and they all pretty much close up. But I have noticed at times it won't be open then the next day it will be. And a small piece has detached and attached itself to a nearby rock by itself and it has been slightly open for a few days now.

 

[aythatguy26]

My blue legged hermets and snails is all I have as far as cuc

And I have moved the power head and the return numerous times to try to help with flow or dead spots.

 

[aythatguy26]

So conch snail or two and dosing peroxide

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

My blue legged hermets and snails is all I have as far as cuc

And I have moved the power head and the return numerous times to try to help with flow or dead spots.

perfect.

I have not tested for anything other then the basics. I mean I think the cyano is bad but I also am wanting a clean sandbed pretty bad. And what do you mean about the Xenia? Idk if it's what your referring to but I had just fed the tank and the shrimp goes crazy and walks all over the coral and they all pretty much close up. But I have noticed at times it won't be open then the next day it will be. And a small piece has detached and attached itself to a nearby rock by itself and it has been slightly open for a few days now.

A xenia can tell you what your nutrient leves are. flow too. Big fat thick stalks mean high numbers. that same xenai you have under high numbers will be fat and probaly longer too. same heads.
so the dissolved nutrins are very important to it. It absorbs nitrates and phosphates out of the water VERY efficiently. not generally solid or semi dissolved food solids so.if there's none in the water. it shrinks. like my beer belly.

 

[TheAsian0328]

Peroxide would be measured to 1 ml per 20 gal. Be careful though with the soft corals. They might suck in for a while when dosing it.

 

[aythatguy26]

How do I dose with peroxide?

And what kind of peroxide

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

So conch snail or two and dosing peroxide

or chemiclean. follow the instructions closely on both. I can tag Twillard or you can look up his instructions.
I would hinge each on the actual No and Po numbers though. you can actually clean stuff to death.

 

[aythatguy26]

Lol so what do I need to do?