It's funny how just looking of pics of your GHA gives me PTDS.At the cycles 1.5 month mark the ugly phase is going strong and old man live rock has a new fuzzy head of hair.
I may have let the cycle go for a little to long without adding a cleanup crew as the hair algae phase came on very strong once the ammonia disappeared. And once the nitrite finally disappeared the nitrate jumped all the way to 50ppm. The Microbacter7 dosing continued, a 40% water change was done, the @reefcleaners order was on its way, and everything was still progressing fine.
So much hair algae, on the bright side at least there is finally some movement in this tank!
Hooray ?!?
I ordered a mix of 30 Turbos, nassarius, trochus, and a couple other small snails to start. I also added about 10 scarlet hermits to round out the early cleanup crew. It's pretty interesting how different snails/crabs are in such a big tank, they disappear very quickly and are seen far less often then in the Biocube.
They are also very impressive and made short work of the superficial hair algae barely clinging to the dry rock.
And after about two to three weeks the algae was gone and the ugly phase was a wrap.
I do believe it is time to sit back, relax, and dream about the RSM S-500 first fish...
More fun, more challenges, more mistakes, and more life incoming.
Later days,
B-Kind
Also....