Got it. Glad I asked before switching. Seems the consensus here is that the issue is probably the bacteria. I'll add the carbon, keep up with 10% water changes. Should I get a cheap UV sterilizer then? Are the expensive ones worth the price, or are they functionally the same?
Yes understood, but now it’s in bad health.. move it to lower light and flow..
I’d leave uv sterilizer out.. I don’t think most do much unless you spend money on the real deal good ones - and those are super expensive. Just relax, I know it’s hard to in situations like these but right now you need to think things out and move slow.. any sudden changes now can cause more damage than good. Just my advice if I was in your shoes. Also stop dosing bacteria, your tank show have enough if you cycled properly.. let me know if you got any other questions..
My only concern here is that this is going to put me back to where I was at before. If the best course of action is to truly do nothing, that's fine with my, but I'm at the point where I feel I need to take some sort of action. I know the bloom will probably go away in time, but if I let things get worse I feel like I'm going to lose some of these corals while I wait.
That's a huge difference. Was it an expensive UV sterilizer? Which model was it?
Been there I cleaned my sand bed a too much while back several months and almost crashed my tank.. had 2 pieces go downhill fast mainly lps, one is recovering but my cynarina died.. zoas, leathers and shrooms were upset but bounced back really fast the only ones that lost color and have been recovering were my Palys and they almost getting back to they’re glory lol like 3 months from white to color and they still need maybe 1-2 months more... patience, as they say anything fast in this usually is bad.. sucks but that’s how the cookie crumble.. stay calm and ride the wave let us know how things progress.. good luck
Sandbeds can have pockets of detritus and ammonia buildup or different organic compounds that can be harmful to the tank. If you just stir the sandbed for the first time in a long time without siphoning the water out (water changes) ammonia or other unwanted compounds can be released into the water column causing issues. I'm not 100% sure this is what is causing your issue though
Disturbed sand bed causes a cycle to occur could be bad or in some cases - total crash of system. What saved me was the amount of macro algae and real aged live rock! Now days I do the front one week, and the following week I do the sides. I leave the back as is.. so other critters can eat off that junk! Now that you mention it, it could have been just that - from aggressive sand bed cleaning.. things to keep in mind for future reference! Also careful with sand gobies for those out there I added one to a small system once and he practical crashed that tank.. they move lotta sand and the sand bed being dirty nuked that set up. Not a fish I recommend unless you got one heck of a big system and making sure you regularly clean sand bed before you added him.. some lessons less obvious during my time in the hobby 10+ years even though I’m new here
Hmm, very interesting. My only sand sifters are a conch and two nassarius snails. And I guess the lawnmower blenny eats sand sometimes. Most of the sand sifting was done by me. I think I did the front and back two water changes in a row. I should measure for nitrates again today. Maybe a bunch of ammonia was released and nitrates increased again.
Yeh those critters you mention won’t cause that - they actually help stir it! But, yeh check your ammonia.. and that water change with sand bed cleaning probably is what caused the issues.. just my opinion and my guess. Cheers
What a difference Man, my tank water never been that yellow.. Jesus! It’s like a fresh water tank with drift wood leaking tannins
