But seriously, if you can increase a live food component instead, you should consider that.
No. I wouldn't do another lights out. If there is a small amount, typically, snails will take care of it.
I would not do another lights out. I would try hard to stabilize the system now.....no more new stuff or significant changes if you can help it. This will help establish the new norm without chrysophytes.
Try to stabilize the amount of food going into the system....pick either 3 or 5, whichever is more correct for your fish, and stick with it. (Probably more vs fewer, but you would know best.)
(See next comments too)
I'd suggest all of you consider an Eheim auto-feeder to get a really regular addition of food going into the system. Dry foods should not be your staple food item, but they are definitely useful in their place.
I plan to do the same.
Start with a small addition to your normal routine so there's no spike in nutrients.....the idea is to smooth out the peaks and valleys of your normal feeding routine.
I'm curious if the GFO was even effective? If it's purpose was served correctly, the impact would have been noticeable. At least in reference to alkalinity. I'm not super familiar with reactors because I've never used one. However, I do know flow rate can be adjusted?
I'm curious if the GFO was even effective? If it's purpose was served correctly, the impact would have been noticeable. At least in reference to alkalinity. I'm not super familiar with reactors because I've never used one. However, I do know flow rate can be adjusted?
I wonder if just using a bag of gfo in a filter sock or overflow would achieve better results? If taken into consideration, I would revert back to the first plan but only doing one round. So preparing another water change should be in order.
First though, I would like to see a pic of the regrowth to confirm. Sorry this isn't going well
So far you are on the right path. Seems you've kept stress levels at a minimum as well. I think a deep cleaning or rock cleaning followed by a 3 days lights out will a proper procedure. I would stop dosing. The residual effects from lights out won't cause too many issues. Just adjust lighting to a 4 hour period and then slowly increase back to normal.
Yeah all the livestock seems to be thriving which is great. Yesterday I did a 5 gallon wc (100 gallon total volume) I used the 3/8" tube off a gravel siphon and suck as much chryso off the rocks as possible. I might do 5 more gallons and pull some more and then go lights out. I just started running instant ocean salt rather than reef crystals. I feel like I've had nothing but issues with nuisance type algae since going to rc from red sea coral pro. That and a lower alk is why I switched. I appreciate the help, and it is a relief to know someone has beaten this.
There are a few ways to beat it. Not everyones situation is the same and therefore require different approaches. I went through a plethora of different approaches that didn't work for me but has worked for others. Usually it all depends o. How long its been there, what it looks like, precedures already tried and most importantly coral health.
My no3 and po4 were zero for quite some time and that was where, I believe, my problem started. I try to shoot for 2-5 no3 and any measurable po4. Po4 seems to drop back to zero after a day or so after dosing. I will try to shoot for a higher po4 because what I put in seems to get used up. I wasn't sure if my po4 checker was working so I bought the one time use calibration kit and found that the checker was low by 0.01 which isn't too bad. My no3 is a lot more stable than po4, and it wasn't until I had slightly stable po4 that I noticed the chryso turned darker brown and the cuc started eating it. I tested for silicate and that tested zero so I'm not sure gfo would be helpful. Last time I put gfo online against dino I lost 2-3 sps frags from rtn. So gfo is kind of a last resort.
A few whisps of green algae appeared around the same timeframe.
Nice! I've had some cyano in the sump that's been there a while. I do have some green algae starting to take off which looks like is going to turn into coraline. I tested again yesterday P was .06 and N was still 5-10. I didn't have to dose but I'm going to keep an eye it.Cyano is known to grow in with other blooms like dino's and chryso's.
When I started NO3 dosing, my chryso bloom got darker and redder until I finally got a patch of cyano growing on the front glass of the tank. Yes!!!
