Hey folks. The uglies for my new tank has been anything but normal. Instead of the usual diatoms > cyano > gha, my tank has gone diatoms > bryopsis > and now dinos. My tank is a little over a month old, but I have been unable to get a phosphate reading with my red sea phosphate pro kit in the past 2 weeks and my nitrates have gone from 4 to .75 to .25 as of yesterday. I think the bryopsis stripped out the little available nutrients which opened the door for the dinos. Before the dino bloom I had dosed fluconazole and it killed the bryopsis. Here are the measures I have taken to treat the dino bloom along with the following game plan.
vacuumed sandbed into a filter sock and returned the vacuumed out water to my tank
took out floss media and put in filter socks
Started 3 day total tank blackout today 12/10/18
ordered seachem flourish phosphorus and seachem flourish nitrogen. They arrive Wednesday (day 2 of the blackout) I plan on dosing to 0.1 phosphate and 5ppm nitrate on that day.
On day 3, total tank blackout ends and lights will come on for 8 hours total with 6 at peak intensity (previously 12 hours with 9 hours peak intensity)
5 gallon water change (out of 15 gallons on my nuvo 20) on Saturday to begin removing fluconazole from bryopsis treatment. Carbon put back into my media reactor
during this time, I will be testing phosphate and nitrate daily. I am considering ordering the 5280 pods and phyto combo from algaebarn. would that be helpful?
Am I on the right track with this game plan here? are there any other considerations that I should take into account? Thanks folks!
vacuumed sandbed into a filter sock and returned the vacuumed out water to my tank
took out floss media and put in filter socks
Started 3 day total tank blackout today 12/10/18
ordered seachem flourish phosphorus and seachem flourish nitrogen. They arrive Wednesday (day 2 of the blackout) I plan on dosing to 0.1 phosphate and 5ppm nitrate on that day.
On day 3, total tank blackout ends and lights will come on for 8 hours total with 6 at peak intensity (previously 12 hours with 9 hours peak intensity)
5 gallon water change (out of 15 gallons on my nuvo 20) on Saturday to begin removing fluconazole from bryopsis treatment. Carbon put back into my media reactor
during this time, I will be testing phosphate and nitrate daily. I am considering ordering the 5280 pods and phyto combo from algaebarn. would that be helpful?
Am I on the right track with this game plan here? are there any other considerations that I should take into account? Thanks folks!