- Joined
- Mar 10, 2019
- Messages
- 31
- Reaction score
- 80
A sad story ....
I'm in week 8 of a nasty algae bloom. The back story: my tank, a 55 gallon with deep sand bed (Jober) with separate 10 gal skimmer tank & 29 gal fuge (cheto) tank, has been online 24 years. The fish and inhabitants I can see are all fine. While not as many pods as previously, they are still present and I continue to dose them (as I raise them separately.)
I probably caused this calamity: I made a mistake ... I added too much Tropic Marin All for Reef, elevating my alkalinity to 11.6, for a brief period. I should have been testing more frequently. But to be fair, after 50 years of reefkeeping, testing is very boring. I had hardly done any testing in more than a dedcade. To further confuse things, I had just added an AI blade LED light.
I've been doing continuous small percentage water changes, am running an Eheim canister loaded with Rowa phos, and after 6 weeks I'm not seeing any improvement. I'd been running for many years with NO filtration, other than the skimmer and the cheto. No socks, no mechanical filters, etc. And everything was great.
Again, the creatures I can see appear to be fine. The old clown, she's 32, is fine. The snails are fine. Bumble bees are fine. There are pods on the glass and swimming free. I cannot see the corals as the visibility is so poor.
All test/measurements are zero. But I don't own a low range Phosphate test kit. Hanna introduced their "low range" right after I bought the "standard" tester. Thanks Hanna.
I'm not sure what has happened. Might I have killed off the rotifers with the high alkalinity? Might have caused the DSB to excrete phosphates with the high alkalinity? Might have ??????
It's very discouraging ; ) Any ideas or good wishes appreciated. If anyone else has ever had an extended bloom I'd appreciate hearing how it resolved.
I'm in week 8 of a nasty algae bloom. The back story: my tank, a 55 gallon with deep sand bed (Jober) with separate 10 gal skimmer tank & 29 gal fuge (cheto) tank, has been online 24 years. The fish and inhabitants I can see are all fine. While not as many pods as previously, they are still present and I continue to dose them (as I raise them separately.)
I probably caused this calamity: I made a mistake ... I added too much Tropic Marin All for Reef, elevating my alkalinity to 11.6, for a brief period. I should have been testing more frequently. But to be fair, after 50 years of reefkeeping, testing is very boring. I had hardly done any testing in more than a dedcade. To further confuse things, I had just added an AI blade LED light.
I've been doing continuous small percentage water changes, am running an Eheim canister loaded with Rowa phos, and after 6 weeks I'm not seeing any improvement. I'd been running for many years with NO filtration, other than the skimmer and the cheto. No socks, no mechanical filters, etc. And everything was great.
Again, the creatures I can see appear to be fine. The old clown, she's 32, is fine. The snails are fine. Bumble bees are fine. There are pods on the glass and swimming free. I cannot see the corals as the visibility is so poor.
All test/measurements are zero. But I don't own a low range Phosphate test kit. Hanna introduced their "low range" right after I bought the "standard" tester. Thanks Hanna.
I'm not sure what has happened. Might I have killed off the rotifers with the high alkalinity? Might have caused the DSB to excrete phosphates with the high alkalinity? Might have ??????
It's very discouraging ; ) Any ideas or good wishes appreciated. If anyone else has ever had an extended bloom I'd appreciate hearing how it resolved.