ReefsCubed
New Member
With an established reef tank of two years, light to moderately stocked with a heavy bioload I have been experiencing a tough time getting my corals to color up, I've adjusted flow, lighting, and feeding. Nothing really seemed to work, corals continued to grow and do fine, no loss of colonies good PE just pale color. The tank has had a history of cyano bacteria coming and going. The tank also has a large fuge with live rock which at one point large quantities of rock were removed and later replaced always adding additional bacteria to help offset the lost of rock before the rock could be replaced. I have deduced that my nitrates and phosphates are low at .75 and 0 respectively using reputable up to date red sea testing and a TRITON test. I believe there to be an imbalance between my biological media, tank nutrients, and the cyano taking over all the nutrients in the tank rather than my corals, causing them to be pale and nutrient starved. My thoughts are to eradicate the cyano while adding additional bacteria (possibly some marine pure) and slowly upping the bioload by adding some fish and feeding fish and coral more to help reset the balance so my biological media and coral are up-taking the nutrients and not the cyano or other algae. Any thoughts on my game plan or any stories anyone would like to share in their experience with similar issues is welcome. Id like to brain storm an bit more and find a best course of action. Thanks!
