Dealing with the uglies

S

Shilpan

Member
Hey guys!
Just a refresher, 400L tank with sump and refugium other caulerpa and chaeto. 0.6 pounds of love rock per gallon. Run seachem phosnet and purigen. 10% water changes biweekly. Tank has been running for 1.5 months post cycle.

I have 2 clowns, a few GSP pieces and a leather coral. Oh and 3 astrea snails.

I feed a total of 15-18 mini pellets (5-6 normal pellets) and 1/4 cube of mysis a week.

Nitrates 5-10ppm.
Phosphate 0 (phosnet is only 1 month old so maybe that or algae).


Anyway I'm definitely going through hay I think is the uglies stage. The tank looks clean from a meter away but one close inspection there's little patches of things everywhere. Green on the sandbed, a little few tufts of hair algae, cyano patchces, some neon green stuff, some neon blue stuff, some weird purple encrusting stuff with white spots, basically it's all sorts of stuff.

Now what should I be doing? Every time I do a waterchange I get a toothbrush and bottle brush and scrub the rocks clean and then I get a rake and sift the sandbed. The I siphon and water change.

Should I be doing all this disrupting? Or should I water change and leave all the algae alone? I figured I shouldn't add anything else to the tank until I pass this.
 
lmforbis

lmforbis

Well-Known Member
I've always left mine in place unless it gets really long. you can do is take a turkey baster or power head and blow the rocks off before your water changes. The uglies can last a while and it can go through different stages where different thing are a prob. I dealt with a lot of briopsis and periods of cyano.
 
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S

Shilpan

Member
2 months. So don't siphon or stir the sandbed? Why is this?

There are snail pellets on the sandbed.

And thanks for the advice guys
 
S

Shilpan

Member
And yeah imforbis I see what you mean. My GHA died off and came back and died off. Having cyano bloom atm. Well not really a blooom but I can see it.

Oh also I think cause I used dry rock my bloom may last a bit longer since the deep pores I couldn't clean all the stuff off them
 
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deejeff0442

Active Member
Wow. you need to just leave the tank alone. 2.months is nothing. I didn't even put a light on for the 1st 2 months. just ghost fed.
8 weeks. it takes Imo a good 3 months after the 1st cycle to start to stabilize . sand beds are a natural filter system . leave it alone.
You aren't going to speed nature along.
 
S

Shilpan

Member
Yup I ghost fed too for about 4 weeks. Oh so my tank is 4 months old actually, but I meant 2 month a post initial cycle (as I said above).

Ahh I see ok so leave the sandbed, it won't trap detritus?

And ok I'll leave it :) my reasoning was that if I'm scrubbing siphoning and skimming all this algae off every 2 weeks, then I'm physically removing these nutrients from my system each week.
 
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deejeff0442

Active Member
You can suck algae or the red cyno up sure. don't get into the sand though. Imo the more you mess with and add chemicals it messes with what mother nature does. phosphate reactor is fine also a protein skimmer. let the thing go a bit . small.water changes
I always run a ton of flow. and alot of rock. started this tank with all dry rock in had. coraline came in on some corals.on rock.
I have 3 big powerheads in my 90. 1 is huge and I have it on pulse 10 seconds on and 10 seconds off. makes the water go in every direction. my sump just has a phosphate reactor and a skimmer.
Heater on one side the pump side is full of rock rubble .
Tank is now 1 year old 12 fish and 50 corals. I do nothing but water changes and have next to zero algae
 
S

Shilpan

Member
I see I see. So suck up cyano to stay on top of it, and all the other stuff will balance itself out eventually so I don't need to go in there and scrub rocks and sand because I'm probably just killing bacteria.

Out of curiosity is there any benefit to blowing cyano off with a turkey baster and letting the skimmer get it? Or am I just spreading it around?
 
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deejeff0442

Active Member
Probably easier to just suck it up. lol cyno isn't protein
You have plenty of flow? I suck on the rocks a bit when I clean and blow them off when I add in the new water
 
S

Shilpan

Member
So I have 2500+2500+3600=8600 liters per hour. 400L tank, so 21.5x tank turonover spread over two powerheads and my return pump. That ok?

I think my LFS said 15x would be fine for a softie tank.
 
S

Shilpan

Member
Oh yeah I always thought what matters is the velocity of the water blasting different areas of the tank.

So it's about 105gallons x21.5 = roughly 2250 gallons per hour
 
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deejeff0442

Active Member
My 90 has 3 powerheads . 2 at maybe 1150 each both on the back sides facing each other then the big 2300 gph front right side facing the overflow on the other side . when the big one goes on sometimes the overflow burps from all the instant flow.
Looks like I have double of yours
 
S

Shilpan

Member
Yup my initial research suggested the same thing. So I feed mysis 4 days a week, pellets 2x to get in any nutrients the mysis doesn't have, and then one day no feeding.

Good idea though maybe I'll reduce to once a week pellets instead
 
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deejeff0442

Active Member
Lol sounds like a pain. me 2 times a year I go to a Asian supermarket . get all raw muscles . . krill.. back yard octopus . .. clam... what ever I see raw. add seaweed
Put in the food processor . smell the house up and put in zip lock bags flatten to about a quarter inch thick. makes enough for 6 or 8 months. so much better then all that processed junk from the fish store
 
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deejeff0442

Active Member
Hey go to the reef forum . find the 120 upgrade post
Joe posted a sand vs. bare bottom video.
Watch the water flow. about what mine does
 
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