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- Feb 16, 2009
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I had a delay in cycling my tank 9 months ago, the original saltwater sat in the tank for about 5 weeks and built up bacteria. Once I cycled the tank I had a big bacteria bloom. It worked itself out but i ended up with snot like bacteria all over. As time has gone on I have pale to white sps corals in the tank. I have been adding microbacter7 and vibrant alternating after a water change or at least once per week for a few months, while it has helped, it is still kind of sterile in the tank. I started adding amino acids once every other day ramping up slowly about a month ago. I have seen very little change in 8 months. There is some hair algae on the Vortechs and some on the sand bed, a small spot of cyano but otherwise a fairly sterile looking tank. There is some gloopy brownish stuff on the sand bed, which I suspect is that pesky bad bacteria. I shut my skimmer and UV down 2 months ago. It seems things got a little worse in that time. More of the bacteria stuff. Sps are slowly growing but pale and anemic until some perish. I only have 4 fish with 4 more in QT. I feed flake and pellet once per day and meaty foods once per day. I started the tank without live rock, I have man made rock. I added a fist size piece of live rock from the lfs, though it looked a little man made but all encrusted With coralline. Not much in the way of live stuff. I thought some good bacteria might be on the rock.
I have nitrate I can add, the question is will it just be consumed by the bad bacteria and algae? Is it worth adding the nitrate to just try and get the nitrate up in hopes of feeding the corals? I don’t want to OD the tank in the wrong direction but clearly I need to do more. The addition of Microbacter and Vibrant has helped but minimally. Any advice is welcome.
I have nitrate I can add, the question is will it just be consumed by the bad bacteria and algae? Is it worth adding the nitrate to just try and get the nitrate up in hopes of feeding the corals? I don’t want to OD the tank in the wrong direction but clearly I need to do more. The addition of Microbacter and Vibrant has helped but minimally. Any advice is welcome.