New tank theory with corals.
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Thor2j
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I've had it for 4 months. No hair from it or anything I could grab. Not a skin. Simply Brown "dust" . If I vacuum it out it is back next day. It is much less in the morning then at end of light cycle. I've tried letting it go for a week and it gets pretty ugly. Clean glass on tank every 3 days or so. Never too bad on glass. Have all kinds of snails but not helping much. Not sure what to do.
Brew12
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Sounds like diatoms.... never heard of anyone having them for that long.
Do you use RODI water?
And wow, that tank looks great!
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Thor2j
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Yes, use rodi water and test for 0 TDS every 7 gallon batch I make.
Driving me crazy.
When I started my tank lfs screwed up my live sand order so water got added first. They didn't rinse my sand. Don't know if that has anything to do with it. Drives me nuts cause everything else looks so good.
Brew12
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I didn't rinse my live sand (80 pounds) and my diatoms came and went in under a week. I can see why it is driving you crazy!
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UV would be a handy cheat I'm not saying it's only way
If that tank was mine I'd not change much and cheat by uv, then not cheat by uv when that time came by unplugging the uv
I'd watch endless chemistry detailing online for mos in most setups who only want that way...but secretly be invader free the whole time and having to chip out corals because I'd be target feeding each coral with the days feed vs broadcast feeding, and I'd have uv inline, and hand siphon out your invader till you find the preventative
nothing else is wrong with that setup. Pics beat test readings
If that tank was mine I'd not change much and cheat by uv, then not cheat by uv when that time came by unplugging the uv
I'd watch endless chemistry detailing online for mos in most setups who only want that way...but secretly be invader free the whole time and having to chip out corals because I'd be target feeding each coral with the days feed vs broadcast feeding, and I'd have uv inline, and hand siphon out your invader till you find the preventative
nothing else is wrong with that setup. Pics beat test readings
Brew12
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Wish I did. Never heard of anyone with a diatom problem that used RODI water and ran a skimmer.
jsker
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I will be hitting the two year mark in February with my current system and I am still dealing with algae blooms and whatever else comes along. all the past posts are some good advice. I like @Tahoe61 the best. "all of our systems are unique and different things happen with them. I do not chase numbers I go by the look of my corals. Most of my corals are also from @WWC and out of the 55 I have now, I have lost about 20. I call that a learning curve. 
You are doing really well with your system and make slow change if you do.
I run the Balling Method to keep my parameters steady and try to keep my nutrients under control.
You are doing really well with your system and make slow change if you do. I run the Balling Method to keep my parameters steady and try to keep my nutrients under control.
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UV is so controversial
But for the years I burnt free a seventy five gallon tank, it had a pond sterilizer from grandmother's koi pond commandeered. Ten thousand gallon rated, one of those array tubes (multi) and I just pumped random amount of water through it
To buy the correct size of uv would be a risk of undersizing, biggest I could go was what was used.
Once online I ordered an air pump and hooked it up, and it was weaker than I'd guessed it would be. Within user terms of the gigantic site I'd bought from, I packed it back up and got money back. Would have kept it if the flow was better for my application
UV can be evaluated for efficacy as well. You won't be returning the good one and you certainly don't have to run it 24x7 it's for cheeting
But for the years I burnt free a seventy five gallon tank, it had a pond sterilizer from grandmother's koi pond commandeered. Ten thousand gallon rated, one of those array tubes (multi) and I just pumped random amount of water through it
To buy the correct size of uv would be a risk of undersizing, biggest I could go was what was used.
Once online I ordered an air pump and hooked it up, and it was weaker than I'd guessed it would be. Within user terms of the gigantic site I'd bought from, I packed it back up and got money back. Would have kept it if the flow was better for my application
UV can be evaluated for efficacy as well. You won't be returning the good one and you certainly don't have to run it 24x7 it's for cheeting
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Oceansize
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Like so many others, my tank really started to get a lot easier after the 1-yr mark. It is extremely low-maintenance now, in fact I only need to scrape my glass about every two weeks when it used to be every other day. For my own sanity, I stopped trying to figure out why, I'm just happy that it looks great and things don't die anymore.
Having said that, despite all this talk of low-maintenance, I can still get the brown dust you refer to, and yes most people seem to think it's diatoms. In my case I have found the perfect solution: a diamond goby. As long as my goby is alive, the sand is white. That's how I know if my goby has died: the sand isn't bright white any more. I'll admit I've lost a few gobies. In hindsight, I'm fairly certain I've been underfeeding them as the food I've been feeding the tank is not the sinking kind, and gobies have an awfully big appetite to simply subside on diatoms and the food scraps that the other fish don't catch.
Oceansize
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I also can't say enough good things about UV, definitely makes a difference in my case. Like Brandon says, go as big as is financially practical, as there's no such thing as too much, but there is such a thing as not enough. ESPECIALLY with salt water. My experience indicates that UV doesn't work as well in salt water and therefore recommended wattages for a given tank volume might not be sufficient, as if they were recommended by freshwater users.
I'm not sure I'd call it cheating. I'd call it an effective way of having water that is both "dirty" enough for zoas but clean enough for SPS. Having elevated nutrients that are then knocked down (by UV or other methods) might be better for a mixed reef than having super-clean water that never had elevated nutrients to begin with. Come to think of it, this is also my assumption as to why older tanks are more stable than newer ones.
I'm not sure I'd call it cheating. I'd call it an effective way of having water that is both "dirty" enough for zoas but clean enough for SPS. Having elevated nutrients that are then knocked down (by UV or other methods) might be better for a mixed reef than having super-clean water that never had elevated nutrients to begin with. Come to think of it, this is also my assumption as to why older tanks are more stable than newer ones.
Sm51498
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Age of a system can matter. The critters reach an equilibrium with your inputs and exports after some time and there is a mature population of every kind of critter that can live in your tank, hopefully a wide variety. You will notice that if something gets out of line, that balance changes and different critters will start to dominate in order to hit that equilibrium. This effectively allows your system to adjust and level off parameter shifts more quickly.
For your diatoms issue, I would not recommend a UV. You will need a big one for one thing and for another it will likely not address the problem, just mask it. There is an underlying reason for your diatoms. I could only speculate as to what. However, it is likely nutrient or mineral based and the diatoms are exploiting some imbalance in the overall system. You can try to address it without throwing money at it by stopping water changes for now, cutting your display tank lighting and feeding back for now and maybe increasing your fuge lighting. The idea is you let the imbalance burn itself out by cutting your inputs that might fuel it and encourage the stabilizing elements you want to have (macro, ats... etc). Then, when the diatoms stop you can slowly increase the food and light to normal levels.
For your diatoms issue, I would not recommend a UV. You will need a big one for one thing and for another it will likely not address the problem, just mask it. There is an underlying reason for your diatoms. I could only speculate as to what. However, it is likely nutrient or mineral based and the diatoms are exploiting some imbalance in the overall system. You can try to address it without throwing money at it by stopping water changes for now, cutting your display tank lighting and feeding back for now and maybe increasing your fuge lighting. The idea is you let the imbalance burn itself out by cutting your inputs that might fuel it and encourage the stabilizing elements you want to have (macro, ats... etc). Then, when the diatoms stop you can slowly increase the food and light to normal levels.
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Thor2j
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I did most of that for 2 weeks. Reduced light schedule, limited feeding and went from 25% water change to 10% every 2 weeks. Nothing changed. I'm at a loss as I've tried every suggestion people have had. Everything in the tank is really good except the diatoms.
Sm51498
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Well, my next step would be no waterchanges at all for a while and a black out for a time while continuing to run my fuge light. I normally do a week for a black out and then no water changes for a month and cut feeding back to like one a week, which is not an option for everyone. It's pretty drastic but it has worked on other things like cyanobacteria and Dinoflagellates in the past.
I wonder if you're missing an organism that eats diatoms? In my experience, diatoms only initially bloom on new clean surfaces and then disappear. Vexing problem for sure.
I wonder if you're missing an organism that eats diatoms? In my experience, diatoms only initially bloom on new clean surfaces and then disappear. Vexing problem for sure.
