vdub99aml
New Member
Hi everyone, I've been watching this forum for several months now, and have used a lot of information from these boards to answer many questions that I have had.
I have a 46g bowfront which was started on feb 22, 08. It is setup with a penguin 350filter, 200w heater, 2 Koralia 1 powerheads, a bottom layer of crushed coral, and a top layer of fine aquarium sand. The sand bed is 2.5" deep total. There is about 20 lbs. or so of live rock, and the tank was cycled with that live rock for a month before the ammonia and nitrite reached 0. I kept an eye on ammonia and nitrite for about 5 more days to make sure they stayed at 0. My cuc consists of 5 blue legged hermit crabs, 2 nassarius snails, and 3 unknown snails- I bought 4 empty hermit crab shells for the blue legged hermits to eventually grow into. The next day, one of them started to move, and I saw it was a larger blue legged hermit. Over the next couple days, I found that the other shells were also slowly moving. I'm not sure what they are though. They kind of look like cerith snails from what I've researched. My current water quality readings are from the Red Sea Marine lab:
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 2.5-12.5
ph: 8.4
sg: 1.023
temp: 76 degrees f
I also have 3 yellow tail blue damsels which are doing great. They are eating as soon as I put the food in. I did a 10% water change last weekend. I hope this is enough info for a base to my question. If not let me know. I have been reading up on cyano bacteria, and diatom algae like crazy because my sand bed is mostly brown now as shown in the pic. I don't think that it's cyano because it doesn't really look slimy from what I understand about cyano. So, does this look like cyano, or diatoms from the pic? I have been looking at other people's pics who have posted about this same topic, but I'm not completely sure what I have. I'm leaning toward diatoms which I understand are common for new tanks. Thanks for any help in advance, and sorry for another cyano/diatom thread.
I have a 46g bowfront which was started on feb 22, 08. It is setup with a penguin 350filter, 200w heater, 2 Koralia 1 powerheads, a bottom layer of crushed coral, and a top layer of fine aquarium sand. The sand bed is 2.5" deep total. There is about 20 lbs. or so of live rock, and the tank was cycled with that live rock for a month before the ammonia and nitrite reached 0. I kept an eye on ammonia and nitrite for about 5 more days to make sure they stayed at 0. My cuc consists of 5 blue legged hermit crabs, 2 nassarius snails, and 3 unknown snails- I bought 4 empty hermit crab shells for the blue legged hermits to eventually grow into. The next day, one of them started to move, and I saw it was a larger blue legged hermit. Over the next couple days, I found that the other shells were also slowly moving. I'm not sure what they are though. They kind of look like cerith snails from what I've researched. My current water quality readings are from the Red Sea Marine lab:
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 2.5-12.5
ph: 8.4
sg: 1.023
temp: 76 degrees f
I also have 3 yellow tail blue damsels which are doing great. They are eating as soon as I put the food in. I did a 10% water change last weekend. I hope this is enough info for a base to my question. If not let me know. I have been reading up on cyano bacteria, and diatom algae like crazy because my sand bed is mostly brown now as shown in the pic. I don't think that it's cyano because it doesn't really look slimy from what I understand about cyano. So, does this look like cyano, or diatoms from the pic? I have been looking at other people's pics who have posted about this same topic, but I'm not completely sure what I have. I'm leaning toward diatoms which I understand are common for new tanks. Thanks for any help in advance, and sorry for another cyano/diatom thread.
