So about 6 months ago I had dinos due to phosphate bottoming out. I beat it, things were fine for awhile then GHA started taking over. Phosphates were never over .05 before the GHA outbreak. I beat it by dosing reef flux. About a month has gone by and everything has looked great. Nitrates were consistently measuring at 25 ppm and phosphate between .03-.05 using the hanna checker. A few days ago I noticed the brown snot growing on my chaeto, then the sand started turning brown when the lights are on in the display, and yesterday I started noticing the brown snot like strands starting to protrude off the rock work. I've also noticed small patches of green hair algae starting to take root again....
I've shut off my skimmer for now and I guess i'll get my phosphates over .1 to get rid of the dinos and deal with the GHA again later.
Tank is a little over a year old
160 gallons of volume
salinity 1.026
calc 440
dkh 10
PH 8.2-8.4
As of this morning:
Mag 1350
Nitrate 25 ppm
Phosphate .05 ppm
I run a refugium 8 hours at night and feed pretty heavily. I have to dump the skimmer cup every 3-4 days. I've checked nutrients consistently every week. Nitrate and phosphate are essentially pegged. Yet going from GHA to dinos and GHA again would make it seem like a nutrient instability issue. I assume the nitrate is a bit higher due to the flood blend I use. I use home made food that is a mix of various fish and shell fish, mysis, algae flakes, pellets, a dash of reef roids, and amminos.
I'm going to pull out the microscope to see what type of dinos I have this evening, but I'm trying to figure out what I've done to create this issue again. Is it possible the reef flux disrupted the microbial biom enough to allow dinos to take root again? Or perphas the tank still isn't truly stable. Any ideas on the root cause? I really want to avoid going through this loop again and again.
I've shut off my skimmer for now and I guess i'll get my phosphates over .1 to get rid of the dinos and deal with the GHA again later.
Tank is a little over a year old
160 gallons of volume
salinity 1.026
calc 440
dkh 10
PH 8.2-8.4
As of this morning:
Mag 1350
Nitrate 25 ppm
Phosphate .05 ppm
I run a refugium 8 hours at night and feed pretty heavily. I have to dump the skimmer cup every 3-4 days. I've checked nutrients consistently every week. Nitrate and phosphate are essentially pegged. Yet going from GHA to dinos and GHA again would make it seem like a nutrient instability issue. I assume the nitrate is a bit higher due to the flood blend I use. I use home made food that is a mix of various fish and shell fish, mysis, algae flakes, pellets, a dash of reef roids, and amminos.
I'm going to pull out the microscope to see what type of dinos I have this evening, but I'm trying to figure out what I've done to create this issue again. Is it possible the reef flux disrupted the microbial biom enough to allow dinos to take root again? Or perphas the tank still isn't truly stable. Any ideas on the root cause? I really want to avoid going through this loop again and again.
