MrGisonni
Valuable Member
So the past 6 months I've been taking care of a newly established aquarium at the school I work for. I teach Marine science there. I'm a fairly advanced hobbyist with experience with reef aquariums for close to 30 years now. I tuned the three Hydra lights on this 180 gallon aquarium with sort of a modified zaxby spectrum and an 8-hour photo. I blocked as much of the natural light that was coming into the classroom as I could. I added a dosing pump and started to dosing all for Reef. I have my alkalinity at 8.7 calcium around 430 and magnesium in the 1300s. all the parameters are in line. The tank is a mixture of live rock and "Life Rock." There is live sand in the aquarium. I have spent the last 6 months fighting high nitrates in phosphates from the neglect of the aquarium by those who are caring for it prior to my stepping in. With water changes, the limited carbon dosing factor from the all for Reef, a little bit of chaeto in a net breeder in the sump, the protein skimmer and brightwell nitrate blocks in a small denitrification chamber and some rowaphos, I got the nitrates down to 42ppm and the phosphates to .25 from ridiculously high numbers. All the while I've been beating back cyanobacteria. I increased flow and there have been a couple of doses of chemiclean and a blackout. Recently I've been using the coral snow, calcium carbonate powder method with some microbacter 7 in the tank. The coral snow did an amazing job with water clarity and seemingly has kept the cyanobacteria under control but now the tank has a pretty significant outbreak of dinoflagellates. All the while I'm seeing impressive growth from the corals that I've added to the aquarium. A Red Monti Cap, needle in a haystack acropora, orange montipora digita, goniopora a chalice coral, a monti hirsuta and a Nephea Coral. I'm losing my patience and I'm ready to siphon out all of that dinoflagellate infested live sand, but I feel bad for the sand sifting goby in there. I know I should be patient because the tank is really less than a year old but I'm on my wit's end. Any advice would be helpful thank you in advance. Oh and there's the hair algae also that the cuc can't keep up with and seeming is getting poisoned by the dinos. Uggh
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