How did you defeat the ugly phase?

[jassermd]

Interestingly, I never went through the ugly phase... not sure why.
I used 300# of caribsea rocks, 120# of live sand, and 2 bottles of Fritz in a 280g; was fully cycled in a week. Started adding coral at 2 weeks (leathers) and ghost feeding.
Only had minor diatoms for a couple weeks that resolved with water changes.
Knock on wood, I haven't had dinos, GHA, or any other terrible algae or cyano outbreak. Tank has been running for 18 months now. I'm calling it luck...

 

[wonroc]

i thought my conch was starving when i saw him climbing glass. guess hes just a regular nut

 

[jhuntstl]

I did nothing other than react with a CUC member if necessary. I saw diatoms, gha, ulva, cyano, bryopsis, bubble algae, dinos, bacterial blooms, and turf algae. Ulva was the only one that made a big presence, but pretty easily mowed down with turbos.

 

[jassermd]

Of note, I did add numerous hermits, snails, and a couple urchins early on. Both urchins have doubled in size over the 18 months and still plowing over everything.
I clean the glass 1x week...

 

[RMS18]

I think when I started about a year ago, I understood that it took time because it had been harped down in those YouTube videos, but I don’t think I understood some things take an incredibly long time. My concept of a long time was like 3-4 months, instead of like half a year, at least for the ugly stage.

IMHO and this may sound harsh.. it's because of all the YouTube videos / channels / vendors that new hobbiest think things can happen quickly. The noise around equipment / fixes in a bottles / new products is overwhelming for new comers.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

i thought my conch was starving when i saw him climbing glass. guess hes just a regular nut

You'd be surprised how much algae is left after a week of not having one. You don't see a lot, but every bit is being eaten.

 

[JoJosReef]

This is a great thread, seeing how seasoned reefers deal with or skip the uglies.

I love my conch, but it has been buried in the sandbed for weeks. I occasionally pull it up, but it goes right back under, and I don't see it out at night. GHA took over, even on the sandbed, so maybe that's not to it's liking.

Unfortunately, I got a small tux urchin for the Evo's GHA, but screwed up badly during manual top up (working out kinks of ATO), and had a sizeable salinity spike and nitrates went up to 20 then back to 5-10 where I've been keeping them. It shed all of it's spines next day. (@vetteguy53081 great recommendation for the urchin--really cleans up, but I need to work on stability a bit more before the next one).

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

New video out. Go check it out^
I recently went through the dilemma of wanting to upgrade/modify my LEDs in my Biocube and keep the hood on. There are only a few alternatives, and they’re all expensive (most commonly Steve’s LEDs at a price of $400, which is not feasible or worth it for many reefers). I found a solution, 21LEDUSA.com ‘s ReefBars, at an amazing price of $50 after everything. These lights have made a drastic difference in color to my tank and achieve what I was looking for in new lights, more blue to tone down the whiteness of the Biocube lighting. I see way to many new Biocube reefers falling into the trap from Steve’s LED users to buy them, but there are frankly cheaper alternatives out there like these that provide the same results. I hope this video can help budget reefers like me have a stunning tank for cheap.
(Not saying Steve’s LED’s are terrible, they’re some great lights, just not for me).

What lighting do you use? There are thousands of different light brands out there and they’re all are unique. I have heard of some people running successful reef tanks with cheap, no name lighting and others that have run their tanks with some of the most expensive lighting options there are. They all seem to look different and unique. Share your pictures!

Like, Subscribe, and tell me you came from R2R! One view means a lot to me, because YouTube will help push my content out to other Reefers. I would appreciate if you, at minimum, gave me a view! Hoping to reach 100 subs by the end of the month! Here’s a link to my channel. Go subscribe!:
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCEWCIj6yc7Goxg-ez80CbuA/featured

Link to the new video discussion:

What lighting do you use?

I recently went through the dilemma of wanting to upgrade/modify my LEDs in my Biocube and keep the hood on. There are only a few alternatives, and they’re all expensive (most commonly Steve’s LEDs at a price of $400, which is not feasible or worth it for many reefers). I found a solution...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Screwgunner]

Tank has been up 1 year . Very first thing is diatoms they eat all your sylicates in your water colum. Then I had die off of some snails. Green hair algea . I used vibrant for 7 weeks and it melted the hair algea. Then cyano chemiclean 48 hours then 25% water change done. Then Dynos. I had undetectable phosphate and nitrates so I started feeding heavily and turned my light down all the way to just blues on low. For a week then started Dr. Tims eco balance. It is almost gone.

 

[JoJosReef]

New video out. Go check it out^
I recently went through the dilemma of wanting to upgrade/modify my LEDs in my Biocube and keep the hood on. There are only a few alternatives, and they’re all expensive (most commonly Steve’s LEDs at a price of $400, which is not feasible or worth it for many reefers). I found a solution, 21LEDUSA.com ‘s ReefBars, at an amazing price of $50 after everything. These lights have made a drastic difference in color to my tank and achieve what I was looking for in new lights, more blue to tone down the whiteness of the Biocube lighting. I see way to many new Biocube reefers falling into the trap from Steve’s LED users to buy them, but there are frankly cheaper alternatives out there like these that provide the same results. I hope this video can help budget reefers like me have a stunning tank for cheap.
(Not saying Steve’s LED’s are terrible, they’re some great lights, just not for me).

What lighting do you use? There are thousands of different light brands out there and they’re all are unique. I have heard of some people running successful reef tanks with cheap, no name lighting and others that have run their tanks with some of the most expensive lighting options there are. They all seem to look different and unique. Share your pictures!

Like, Subscribe, and tell me you came from R2R! One view means a lot to me, because YouTube will help push my content out to other Reefers. I would appreciate if you, at minimum, gave me a view! Hoping to reach 100 subs by the end of the month! Here’s a link to my channel. Go subscribe!:
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCEWCIj6yc7Goxg-ez80CbuA/featured

Link to the new video discussion:

What lighting do you use?

I recently went through the dilemma of wanting to upgrade/modify my LEDs in my Biocube and keep the hood on. There are only a few alternatives, and they’re all expensive (most commonly Steve’s LEDs at a price of $400, which is not feasible or worth it for many reefers). I found a solution...

www.reef2reef.com

I use two 21LED Deep Blue ReefbarPros on top of my Evo, upgraded from a single Fluval Marine 3.0 for about the same price tag, and I'm guessing about 3x par output and better spectrum. Very happy with them. Think the corals are too. Would love to try ReefBrites, but they are much more expensive, and the 21LED people in Texas seem to know their lighting.

 

[Murftoo]

By using live rock, never having an ugly phase, and by using the phrase "ugly phase" as a punchline.

Same. Real live rock can't be beat. I had a very mild ugly phase with a variety a small algae patches that cleared up on its own in 4 days.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

I use two 21LED Deep Blue ReefbarPros on top of my Evo, upgraded from a single Fluval Marine 3.0 for about the same price tag, and I'm guessing about 3x par output and better spectrum. Very happy with them. Think the corals are too. Would love to try ReefBrites, but they are much more expensive, and the 21LED people in Texas seem to know their lighting.

Have only seen 3 other people have them. Good to see another. They are definitely worth the money.

 

[ReefRondo]

Used Brightwell bricks from sumps of already matured systems, Microbacter 7 and clean and no lights with a few tangs and lots of snails. Worked perfectly for me other than a month or so of dinos.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

Used Brightwell bricks from sumps of already matured systems, Microbacter 7 and clean and no lights with a few tangs and lots of snails. Worked perfectly for me other than a month or so of dinos.

Dealing with Dino’s right now from nitrate bottoming out. Not a great time

 

[ReefRondo]

Dealing with Dino’s right now from nitrate bottoming out. Not a great time

It will pass. Hang in there.

 

[TnFishwater98]

LIVE ROCK

 

[JoJosReef]

LIVE ROCK

Second this.

Update from 1 month after adding TBS premium nano live rock to my 13.5g GHA tank:
- removed two GHA covered CaribSea LifeRocks, left 3, replaced with 3 premium nano live rocks
- scooped out ~1/4" GHA covered CaribSea live sand, replaced with ~1/4" TBS live sand sifted for pests
- added 3 astraea and various types of cerith and nerite snails from ReefCleaners (to the 5 existing dwarf trochus, 1 african cerith, and 1 tiger conch)
- running carbon and purigen under floss
- NOT brushing rocks with toothbrush, but occasionally tweezing long strands that cover corals or get too long
- keeping NO3 and PO4 relatively high at 15-20ppm and 0.25-0.5ppm, respectively, mostly from feeding and less frequent water changes I think.

1 month in, GHA is receding on rocks and back wall (even glass had it); I can see the rocks now, no corals covered. Sand GHA receding more slowly but in the right direction. I have been ignoring the huge bottle of Vibrant and Microbacter7 that I bought prevously after using up other bottles in the pre-live rock battle. Importantly, I'm no longer spending hours at night with tweezers and a toothbrush removing GHA and no longer debating tearing down the tank.

 

[Arego]

Waited very patiently and did absolutely nothing about it except continuously swapping rubble and frag plugs from tanks I thought had what I needed, good solid bacteria. No complaints here.

 

[trainbob]

First started to manually pull it out but it would come right back with more of it. Then added more snails and an urchin plus a yellow tang. Then changed the light schedule to decrease the most intense time to 4-5 hours with long ramp up and down

 

[Arego]

Already responded, oops. deleted.