Ugly stage help/questions

[DCBadger]

Our tank (125g) finished cycle at end of June after about 3.5 months. Planning on Fowlr with anemones.

Since then we have added some fish slowly every 2 ish weeks (2 clowns, 1 yellow watchman, 1 tomini, 1 fairy clown wrasse, 1 royal gramma, 1 purple firefish goby, BTA). We also have some CUC (2 emerald crabs, 3 tochus, 2 turbo, 1 strawberry conch).

We have 3 Redsea G2 170 on 72" long tank. Only have lights at 100% for 2 hours, rest is 75-80% with ramp up. Sunrise starts at 10:30am and lights off at 8:30pm.

We have a ton of algae on pretty much everything, assuming the bulk is diatoms and hair algae but have found bubble algae (emeralds not found it yet). My questions, do these pics look "normal" for ugly stage? Any suggestions on doing anything at this time? Should we get more CUC? One lfs says we should have a ton more snails, the other (our go to) says to add only a bit more. We do weekly 15-20% WC.

We have fine live sand so hard sucking the sand bed without getting sand. Also started with 60% live rock and 40% dry.

Read a million different posts on the ugly stage but any other insight is appreciated... thanks in advance.

Parameters:
78 degrees
Alk 8.1
Salinity 1.025
Ph 8.2
PO4 0
NH3 0
NO3 10
Mg 1530 (a bit high)

Fx6 canister filter (biofoam, floss and ceramic rings/Bio FX media)

Octo 2000 HOB skimmer

 

[Biokabe]

That looks about right for the Uglies.

Having said that - what are you doing to put your Nitrates and Phosphates at 0 each? What test kits are you using to arrive at those numbers? Generally speaking you want those numbers to be low but not 0. When both parameters hit 0 (bottom out), it creates conditions that are good for dinos, which can be persistent, ugly and potentially toxic. And while I can't say 100%, some of those pictures look like they could be dino strings.

You can also definitely stand to have more snails and CUC in general in there. Six snails is not really enough for a 125g tank. In my tank (75g) I have two enormous zebra turbos, three conches (forget the species), about half a dozen smaller turbos, 20-30 Astreas, 10-20 ceriths, 10-12 nerites, and half a dozen hermits, in addition to a bluelip tang and a Midas blenny.

 

[DCBadger]

That looks about right for the Uglies.

Having said that - what are you doing to put your Nitrates and Phosphates at 0 each? What test kits are you using to arrive at those numbers? Generally speaking you want those numbers to be low but not 0. When both parameters hit 0 (bottom out), it creates conditions that are good for dinos, which can be persistent, ugly and potentially toxic. And while I can't say 100%, some of those pictures look like they could be dino strings.

You can also definitely stand to have more snails and CUC in general in there. Six snails is not really enough for a 125g tank. In my tank (75g) I have two enormous zebra turbos, three conches (forget the species), about half a dozen smaller turbos, 20-30 Astreas, 10-20 ceriths, 10-12 nerites, and half a dozen hermits, in addition to a bluelip tang and a Midas blenny.

Thank you tons for the reply.

Actually our NO3 is 10, not 0.. that was my typo. All of that is from the lfs testing. We have API and Hanna (for alk, NH3 and PO4).

Not sure what we are doing for PO4 to be at 0. Feed 2 times per day with frozen mysis and seaweed delight and then pellets in eve. Also clip in nori for a bit in the afternoon.

We are also on fx6 canister (no other pads other biofoam and floss), HOB protein skimmer.

thanks again