ugly stage

I'm just past my second month with my 15 gallon cube and getting through the uglies right now with some bryopsis and gha on my rockwork and diatoms on the sand bed. To help clean up the uglies, I stocked my tank with 5-6 blue leg hermits (hard to tell what's an empty shell and a tiny hermit...

Hello everyone! I thing I'm going through the ugly stage, my tank is 1ish month old, but I'm confused ! Can someone confirm me this algea is indeed diatom and not Dino or cynao ?! The microbubbles on it make me doubt a little bit ! First appears of this brown algea was 2 days ago! Not really...

So I had dinos for the last month. At one point about a week ago they were so bad they started covering my corals!! my zoas wouldn't open, it looked HORRIBLE. I caused the dinos because i over filtered. I have filter socks, a small refugium, and a skimmer. I was trying to avoid No3 and PO4...

Well, my tank is officially 30 days old..! Happy birthday to me. :). Over the past 2 days I have been given a great birthday surprise. This ugly brownish/reddish algae that might either be a regular diatom bloom (I think) or possibly something else. I find all of this algae stuff pretty...

I’m starting a knew tank as my old one has quite literally fallen to pieces, no leaks but it was close. I’m going from a 90l cube to a 180l reefsys. My question is will my ugly stage go faster in the new tank? I will be starting with new sand and adding some new dry rock aswell as...

Mods please delete

Hello! This is my first post and my first reef tank. my tank is 2-3 months old and I have diatoms all over the tank sand. When I siphoned it during my last WC, it came right back. Most likely it’s just the ugly phase however I’m wondering if there’s any possibility it could be my water. The...

Hello Fellow Reefers! I setup this tank about 4 months ago. I used all dry rock and dry sand. I went through the ammonia cycle within the first month. Since then I have been battling what I believe to be Diatoms, I am unsure what it is for sure. I knew i'd hit the ugly stage but this blew me out...

Over the last few days my dry rock has started turning brown and the sand bed is getting patches of brown.

Anybody know what this snow is? (And what may have caused this?) What changed around the time the snow appeared? (about a week ago) Lights? (bleaching the algae?) I've had an old 2 bulb T5 fixture, but just added a neptune sky 12 inches up only at 25% (afraid of the ugly stage). Salt? I've...

Hello all, just want to know a couple of things. How long does the ugly stage last? I know there's now miracle product to skip the whole ugly stage but is there something to help speed it up or make it less ugly or troublesome? Should I clean all the algae that my tank is producing during...

I just transferred my livestock from a 90 gallon to a 120 gallon. I'm using the same sand, plus a bag of dry sand that I rinsed, the same rock, and most of the same bio media in the sump. I did add some dr Tim's as a precaution once the fish went in. Should I be anticipating unstable parameters...