I’m Lost! HELP

smd189 · Jul 11, 2022

I am feeling a little lost. My tank is almost 2 years old. It is 80 gal total so probably 65 gal actual water. I have 2 clowns, 1 flame angel, 1 wrasp, and 1 rabbit.
My nutrients were just about zero die to dealing with GHA. The GHA is gone but the sand turned brown. I assumed dinos so started to increase nutrients. My NO3 has been at 10-12 and PO4 at .02-.04 for the last 5-6 weeks. I have a 25 watt UV online, been changing socks constantly, cleaning sand daily, dosing H202 twice daily and the sand is still brown. It gets worse during the day and better at night. No bubbles on it. I have tried low and high flow with no difference. All snails/inverts are fine. Everything seems very happy. Any suggestions? Could this be something else? Thank you.

reefz · Jul 11, 2022

Interesting. Following

FIN&BONEZ · Jul 11, 2022

Thats weird for such a mature system. Is it like a mat or will it break up easily when hit with flow?

gbru316 · Jul 11, 2022

Positive ID is going to require a microscope.

Cali Reef Life · Jul 11, 2022

Have you ever Vacuumed cleaned or simply moved the crush coral/ substrate? I have a year and half old tank and get small patches of dinos and algae on rocks but manage it so it never takes over. I also have a clean up crew and added some copepods to help eat the dinos. When I preformed WC I started Vacuuming the substrate in small sections and turning over the sand. I still get small patches here and there but never grows out of control. I'm slowly getting all the algae out by adding a competitor or predator that competes with the problem.

Had a minor tank crash due to a mistake last year and its taken me a few months to get it under control. Make sure to clean your sump or dead spots as well worked for me. This is not an over night fix but can be managed. Another thing you can try is lowering the reds and greens on the LED light.

Dburr1014 · Jul 11, 2022

smd189 said:
I am feeling a little lost. My tank is almost 2 years old. It is 80 gal total so probably 65 gal actual water. I have 2 clowns, 1 flame angel, 1 wrasp, and 1 rabbit.
My nutrients were just about zero die to dealing with GHA. The GHA is gone but the sand turned brown. I assumed dinos so started to increase nutrients. My NO3 has been at 10-12 and PO4 at .02-.04 for the last 5-6 weeks. I have a 25 watt UV online, been changing socks constantly, cleaning sand daily, dosing H202 twice daily and the sand is still brown. It gets worse during the day and better at night. No bubbles on it. I have tried low and high flow with no difference. All snails/inverts are fine. Everything seems very happy. Any suggestions? Could this be something else? Thank you.

Need a microscope to be sure it's dinos.
Can you raise po4 to 0.1? Better beating dinos.
How old is your bulb? Should be less than 1 year old for it to be any good.
Don't clean the sand.
Dose h2o2 at night when Dino is in the water column. Dose a bacteria each morning.
Going on the column at night is probably dinos but, again, need microscope to be sure.
No bubbles is odd? Is it a mat form or dusty form?

Sambengle · Jul 11, 2022

smd189 said:
I am feeling a little lost. My tank is almost 2 years old. It is 80 gal total so probably 65 gal actual water. I have 2 clowns, 1 flame angel, 1 wrasp, and 1 rabbit.
My nutrients were just about zero die to dealing with GHA. The GHA is gone but the sand turned brown. I assumed dinos so started to increase nutrients. My NO3 has been at 10-12 and PO4 at .02-.04 for the last 5-6 weeks. I have a 25 watt UV online, been changing socks constantly, cleaning sand daily, dosing H202 twice daily and the sand is still brown. It gets worse during the day and better at night. No bubbles on it. I have tried low and high flow with no difference. All snails/inverts are fine. Everything seems very happy. Any suggestions? Could this be something else? Thank you.

If you don't have enough flow it can make algae spread like crazy that's what happened in my tank