SloppyJ
Well-Known Member
Been running successful nano tanks for 3 years then I moved up. I built this 93g cube from scratch as a graduation present for myself.
I used dry Caribsea south seas Rock, pink Fiji sand, 30g trigger systems sump, RLSS R6i skimmer, 2- MP 40s, waveline 6000 for return, and a jaebo 3000 pump for my reactors which are both next reef. MR1 with 1.8 cups of BRS gfo and a Next Reef SMR1 with 500ml of vertex pellets. All of this is lit by a Radion G3 pro. I'm running a herbie drain system as well although I think that doesn't matter. All together, while running I assume it's close to 100g. I have all of this set up on a reef keeper controller running the tank at 80 degrees F.
Before adding sand and rock I washed them. I didn't use muratic acid however.
I tried something different this time for cycling. I used straight ammonia. Brought it to 2ppm and then waited for things to settle. I had my skimmer running the entire time to get it broke in. I documented the entire process while testing parameters. I let it cycle for 8 weeks. At that time I had a huge diatom situation over all of my sand and rocks. So far so good.
I did a 50% water change and added my cleanup crew. I used reef cleaners and all of my nerites crawled out and died. I added new Trochus and turbos along with some scarlet reef crabs. Clean up crew is great. They got rid of all of the algae on the sandbed, only thing left was the rocks.
After two weeks, I fired up the GFO and the pellets. I followed the pellet instructions and started at half dose. Waiting a month or so to put the complete volume in.
I started the tank in May of 2014. Although it's getting better, im still battling it now. All of my coral and fish are doing great I just have this nasty algae on my rocks. It's almost like its cyano but it's not as stringy. It comes off in chunks.
Here is what I have done to try and help. I slowed down my pellet reactor. Incase it was blowing all of the effluent out too fast for my skimmer. The outlet is right by my skimmer inlet.
I moved to more frequent smaller water changes.
I started blowing it off before I siphon out my water for the changes.
I replace my GFO every month to help incase it's a phosphate problem. I'm not detecting and nitrates.
Here's a picture. Any help would be appreciated.
At the begining
After cycling
It's came a long way. Here is a shot from today and a close up of the algae.
Sorry for the long post, just wanted to lay it all out there and see if anyone had some suggestions. A local friend mentioned I should look into raising my Mg to around 1700. Haven't done much research but I'm to the point where I'll try anything that won't harm any of my livestock.
I used dry Caribsea south seas Rock, pink Fiji sand, 30g trigger systems sump, RLSS R6i skimmer, 2- MP 40s, waveline 6000 for return, and a jaebo 3000 pump for my reactors which are both next reef. MR1 with 1.8 cups of BRS gfo and a Next Reef SMR1 with 500ml of vertex pellets. All of this is lit by a Radion G3 pro. I'm running a herbie drain system as well although I think that doesn't matter. All together, while running I assume it's close to 100g. I have all of this set up on a reef keeper controller running the tank at 80 degrees F.
Before adding sand and rock I washed them. I didn't use muratic acid however.
I tried something different this time for cycling. I used straight ammonia. Brought it to 2ppm and then waited for things to settle. I had my skimmer running the entire time to get it broke in. I documented the entire process while testing parameters. I let it cycle for 8 weeks. At that time I had a huge diatom situation over all of my sand and rocks. So far so good.
I did a 50% water change and added my cleanup crew. I used reef cleaners and all of my nerites crawled out and died. I added new Trochus and turbos along with some scarlet reef crabs. Clean up crew is great. They got rid of all of the algae on the sandbed, only thing left was the rocks.
After two weeks, I fired up the GFO and the pellets. I followed the pellet instructions and started at half dose. Waiting a month or so to put the complete volume in.
I started the tank in May of 2014. Although it's getting better, im still battling it now. All of my coral and fish are doing great I just have this nasty algae on my rocks. It's almost like its cyano but it's not as stringy. It comes off in chunks.
Here is what I have done to try and help. I slowed down my pellet reactor. Incase it was blowing all of the effluent out too fast for my skimmer. The outlet is right by my skimmer inlet.
I moved to more frequent smaller water changes.
I started blowing it off before I siphon out my water for the changes.
I replace my GFO every month to help incase it's a phosphate problem. I'm not detecting and nitrates.
Here's a picture. Any help would be appreciated.
At the begining
After cycling
It's came a long way. Here is a shot from today and a close up of the algae.
Sorry for the long post, just wanted to lay it all out there and see if anyone had some suggestions. A local friend mentioned I should look into raising my Mg to around 1700. Haven't done much research but I'm to the point where I'll try anything that won't harm any of my livestock.
