Is this the nasty phase everyone is talking about?

Butuz · Oct 11, 2018

guys, cycling finished a few weeks ago. Now, this brown stuff is all over the place. Literally, exploded overnight. I have some green algea that has popped up, but brown is on rocks, sand (pic below does not do it justice, its worse). Also, everything is covered in a carpet of micro bubbles. They are being constantly released into the water column. Kind of cool to watch.

Question: ride it out or do something about it?

I have tone of marine pure and pond matrix plus rocks, so nutrienets are either super low or non existent. I also seeded 10,000 copepods a few days ago, dont see a single one, wonder if they are all dead because of this brown bloom. I have been dding phyto every day and ghost feeding (no fish yet).

Thanks for your guidance.

ihavecrabs · Oct 11, 2018

I say let it ride.. It gets worse before it gets better

Things will stabilize though, just give it time. I would say it may be a little early for pods, but you may see them bounce back.

Go slow and add a very small CUC (clean up crew). A few snails that eat Cyano, like the banded trochus snail, would be a good addition. I would avoid a big CUC kit though as there will not be enough food for them all and once they starve, they add a bunch of nutrients back into the system which causes more algae issues!

landlubber · Oct 11, 2018

the "ugly phase" is more of a figure of speech than a box on the checklist to a successful tank. I had hair algae out the hoohaa for the better part of a year before things tamed down.
also... IMO no nutrients is worse than elevated nutrients in a reef system. the goal is to balance them as eventually when you do have corals that is for the most part what they're going to feed on.
buy test kits, use them weekly and learn how much of that marine pure and pond matrix is actually going to be necessary because if it was just as easy as filling a sump with it everyone would do it that way.