Need advise on cloudy tank

[Oropher]

hi folks,

my tank is 3m 26d old, 30 US gallon size.
i seeded the tank with brightwell aquatics microbacter starter XLM and drop some ammonia to get 2 ppm for cycle to start.
then after 4 days ammonia was 0, nitrite rose up to 3.3 ppm, then after 22 days, ammo = 0, nitrite = 0, but I got nitrate = 0 also.

Filtration are filter sock, skimmer, ecobioblocks, chaeto.
Dosing : Reef Energy AB+ 1ml/day, NoPoX 1 ml/day; Big3 (http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html).

i'm going to maintain the sailinity at 33 ppt

big 3 are not stable yet

for the last 2 weeks, i dose KNO3; afraid of dino

as of now, tank looks cloudy because of bha everywhere.

i think SPS frags are not going to make it, and so are the torches below.
There are only 2 fishes : scopas tang and lawnmower blenny.

Why bha grows so much even though NO3 and PO4 are low.
What to do?

Thanks folks.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Maybe just go to the basics and feed the fish and don’t dose anything. There should be no need for dosing Red Sea or nitrate or nopox. Let the tank stabilize with the food you feed the fish, this is all you need to have a nice tank. If you only dosed ammonia once to start the cycle then the cycle is not finished. The ammonia should be dosed daily until fish are added imo.

 

[ahiggins]

Agreed. I don’t run anything until the tank “needs” it. Like a skimmer or carbon. Hell I have a 2 year old tank that just has filter floss because the nitrates never take off.
It looks like you did a lot in a very short amount of time.

 

[Oropher]

Maybe just go to the basics and feed the fish and don’t dose anything. There should be no need for dosing Red Sea or nitrate or nopox. Let the tank stabilize with the food you feed the fish, this is all you need to have a nice tank. If you only dosed ammonia once to start the cycle then the cycle is not finished. The ammonia should be dosed daily until fish are added imo.

ahh, i understand, so the tank is not yet cycled, and i'll take it slowly...
no fancy dosing and let the bacteria grow naturally...

 

[Oropher]

Agreed. I don’t run anything until the tank “needs” it. Like a skimmer or carbon. Hell I have a 2 year old tank that just has filter floss because the nitrates never take off.
It looks like you did a lot in a very short amount of time.

hmm... i'll think about the skimmer... but maybe one at a time, at the moment stop fancy dosing and continue monitoring the system. thanks.

 

[Oropher]

Maybe just go to the basics and feed the fish and don’t dose anything. There should be no need for dosing Red Sea or nitrate or nopox. Let the tank stabilize with the food you feed the fish, this is all you need to have a nice tank. If you only dosed ammonia once to start the cycle then the cycle is not finished. The ammonia should be dosed daily until fish are added imo.

I think tank is cycled. However it is not mature, therefore it is still experiencing ugly phases.

How does bha grow in low nitrate and low phosphate; is it because not enuf physical removal?

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Manually remove any algae until clean up crews can manage it and the tank balances out. What is bha?

 

[Cory]

Why bha grows so much even though NO3 and PO4 are low.
What to do?

Its a mini ecosystem and the algae is using no3 and po4 to grow. On the reef there are something like 3-5 sea urchins per square meter that deal with it.

 

[Oropher]

Manually remove any algae until clean up crews can manage it and the tank balances out. What is bha?

brown hair algae.
at the moment, i'm just watching algae growth, not scrubbing the glass or manually removing algae... just monitoring water parameter and stabilize the basics: salinity, temperature, big 3; and feeding the fishes. no amino, no coral food, no nopox.
my blenny just laid eggs, ... but after few days all eggs were eaten by tang :-(

 

[Oropher]

Its a mini ecosystem and the algae is using no3 and po4 to grow. On the reef there are something like 3-5 sea urchins per square meter that deal with it.

i only have 5 astrea snails, 4 thor shrimps and 1 Lysmata kuekenthali shrimp in there.
maybe it's the longer road... however it's better now than later after stocking corals & more fishes.

 

[Cory]

i only have 5 astrea snails, 4 thor shrimps and 1 Lysmata kuekenthali shrimp in there.
maybe it's the longer road... however it's better now than later after stocking corals & more fishes.

If you tank isnt covered by coral on every inch of surface, algae will take its place. Urchins are your answer imo. Tangs work good too.

 

[Oropher]

Sorry, that comment is for inverts. But I do have 2 fishes : a yellow tang and a lawnmower blenny in there.