Isabel’s Hobby
Active Member
- Joined
- May 31, 2019
- Messages
- 224
- Reaction score
- 185
You name it I had it all.
But i think I finally got an answer ........ My tank is running for 4 + years now and I have been battling with cyno the most.
I have been keeping my levels up and 15-20 % water change from weekly to every 10 days I have been feeding less I dose microbacter 7 then Vibrant. It seems to have little to no impact. Within a day or two ( sometimes even only hours ) my sandbed was filled with either greenish or brown or red stuff. My glass had almost a film of algae on it within hours. Over and over again. My rocks on the bottom would have some funky looking grayish hair algae . Cleaning and cleaning and cleaning still it was insane. water tested my self and in LFS and all the numbers are great .... so Ive been told.
Ph was low at some point 7.7
alk 8.3
CA 440
NO3 0.5
PO4 0
Mg 1380
these numbers did not fluctuate much at all. Nothing seems to help or make sense. Weeks and weeks and then cyno hit again. My acros startet to become white ....
then i looked up a few things on how all these different algae’s and cyno and so on work...i posted here and thank you for all your responses every one helped. I also watched a few episodes on BRS and I look at my tank and i think .....lots of my rocks are against the back wall they’re stacked up I have so many dead spaces, as I call it, what collect anything and everything and I do not reach these places so even with water changes these corners / caves are mostly untouched. Especially since i have a big center overflow box . So that gives me already 2 corners with little to no flow. And these corners where nicely covered with rocks lol
I took down my reef as carefully as one possible can and moved everything away from the back I cleaned out all these nasty corners
I got so much junk out of there it was lIke a pond !!!
I moved everything like center and have now the back for the most part so open that I can vaccum back and front.
I only have one stacked up and that is for my hippo tang so she can vedge her self and sleep there. My naso has her cave and so on. Trying to give every one of my living creatures the closest thing they would find and use in nature.
after I did all that and have a nice rocking wave going ( standing wave) i am so surprised.... it is been a week my tank looks fab. The cyno has only tiny patches what come and are easily removed with sucking them up manually, the patches are less then a quarter. I watch my tank like a hawk !! I stopped microbacter and preceded with vibrant. My glass is clean for days without having to use my magnet. Dinos seem to disappeared. My protein pump is doing its job maybe a bit wet but still brown and i clean it every day. I just did another water change and it seems as of the past few days every day it is getting clearer and better. Cyno Seams the last one and it is also from a few patches to one patch to nothing.
IMO I did not build that reef right . I do listen to people but no one told me about dead spaces in fact I had some LFS people help me initially and they even suggested more rocks all the way from ground to top ...To the point that my tank was 75% full of rocks ! I took them down more and more with the years of battling and i think, pretty much all forms of nasty stuff. I am one of these people what want everything now and today and full and crazy colorful...... so my bio load is high even for a 225 G tank.
I dont know If any of this makes sense to any of you but I thought I share what I learned because it is so frustrating when you deal with these unsightly critters and you dont seem to win the battle in the Long run. Maybe this helps someone else...what never thought of that even if you have tons of flow in your tank and all your numbers are good to great......look at your reef and where the nasty can stag up and if your are able to clean these places ? Because IMO I would never win the battle if i kept on having these dead spaces what can just grow nasty .
If anybody has any other input please...... tell me.
on another note..... I apologize for my English it is not perfect ( never went to an English class )
the first pic what is more blue is how it is now. The other picture Is how it was actually like a year ago
But i think I finally got an answer ........ My tank is running for 4 + years now and I have been battling with cyno the most.
I have been keeping my levels up and 15-20 % water change from weekly to every 10 days I have been feeding less I dose microbacter 7 then Vibrant. It seems to have little to no impact. Within a day or two ( sometimes even only hours ) my sandbed was filled with either greenish or brown or red stuff. My glass had almost a film of algae on it within hours. Over and over again. My rocks on the bottom would have some funky looking grayish hair algae . Cleaning and cleaning and cleaning still it was insane. water tested my self and in LFS and all the numbers are great .... so Ive been told.
Ph was low at some point 7.7
alk 8.3
CA 440
NO3 0.5
PO4 0
Mg 1380
these numbers did not fluctuate much at all. Nothing seems to help or make sense. Weeks and weeks and then cyno hit again. My acros startet to become white ....
then i looked up a few things on how all these different algae’s and cyno and so on work...i posted here and thank you for all your responses every one helped. I also watched a few episodes on BRS and I look at my tank and i think .....lots of my rocks are against the back wall they’re stacked up I have so many dead spaces, as I call it, what collect anything and everything and I do not reach these places so even with water changes these corners / caves are mostly untouched. Especially since i have a big center overflow box . So that gives me already 2 corners with little to no flow. And these corners where nicely covered with rocks lol
I took down my reef as carefully as one possible can and moved everything away from the back I cleaned out all these nasty corners
I got so much junk out of there it was lIke a pond !!!
I moved everything like center and have now the back for the most part so open that I can vaccum back and front.
I only have one stacked up and that is for my hippo tang so she can vedge her self and sleep there. My naso has her cave and so on. Trying to give every one of my living creatures the closest thing they would find and use in nature.
after I did all that and have a nice rocking wave going ( standing wave) i am so surprised.... it is been a week my tank looks fab. The cyno has only tiny patches what come and are easily removed with sucking them up manually, the patches are less then a quarter. I watch my tank like a hawk !! I stopped microbacter and preceded with vibrant. My glass is clean for days without having to use my magnet. Dinos seem to disappeared. My protein pump is doing its job maybe a bit wet but still brown and i clean it every day. I just did another water change and it seems as of the past few days every day it is getting clearer and better. Cyno Seams the last one and it is also from a few patches to one patch to nothing.
IMO I did not build that reef right . I do listen to people but no one told me about dead spaces in fact I had some LFS people help me initially and they even suggested more rocks all the way from ground to top ...To the point that my tank was 75% full of rocks ! I took them down more and more with the years of battling and i think, pretty much all forms of nasty stuff. I am one of these people what want everything now and today and full and crazy colorful...... so my bio load is high even for a 225 G tank.
I dont know If any of this makes sense to any of you but I thought I share what I learned because it is so frustrating when you deal with these unsightly critters and you dont seem to win the battle in the Long run. Maybe this helps someone else...what never thought of that even if you have tons of flow in your tank and all your numbers are good to great......look at your reef and where the nasty can stag up and if your are able to clean these places ? Because IMO I would never win the battle if i kept on having these dead spaces what can just grow nasty .
If anybody has any other input please...... tell me.
on another note..... I apologize for my English it is not perfect ( never went to an English class )
the first pic what is more blue is how it is now. The other picture Is how it was actually like a year ago
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