Quote:
Originally Posted by Myka
The brown cyano may be dinoflagellates if the snails are dying.  Do you have a calibrated digital pH meter to test pH? Test kits are useless for pH.
The mini crash suggests you're dealing with nutrients from die-off. Temporarily (or permanently) adding extra water flow to stir things up better would help a lot. Especially blowing behind rocks and down by sandbed. Maybe look into vodka/vinegar dosing or biopellets until you're under control again. Some Lawnmower Blennies will eat prepared foods (most won't), you could look for one that will. Or a smaller species Foxface Rabbitfish if you have room in the tank. Be diligent with weekly 10% waterchanges taking the time to pull out the algae (12-18" tweezers are handy for this purpose).
What is Mg at? Do you dose Mg? If so, which product?
In the end, elbow grease and time. |
The brown cyano isn't dinoflagellates. No bubbles and it doesn't come back in a matter of hours like dinos.
I've already got a ridiculous amount of flow (wavebox, tunze 6100, 6080 and 6045, vortech MP40, dart return full open). I have been turkey basting and siphoning where things pile up (I've angled the flow to pile detritus in easy access points).
I do 20% weekly waterchanges which have sort of fallen off into bi and tri-weekly waterchanges but I'm getting back on track the past few weeks.
No vodka/vinegar dosing. Even if its the holy grail I'm done with that stuff, its too "smoke and mirrors" for me.
Might have a look for a foxface rabbitfish, fish are slim pickins around here, if it wasn't in Finding Nemo or an "aggressive"/FOWLR type its unlikely I'll find it. I haven't had much luck with fish that are supposed to eat certain types of algae. I think my other fish just tell the new ones to hold out for prepared foods. My fish are a bunch of lazy arses.
Mg is at 1290, working on raising it up but I rarely go past 1300. The tank uses a ridiculous amount of Mg. I use Elias magnesium mix, he does the Randy Holmes-Farley recipe for me and a doser takes care of the rest.
Already running GFO, can't say I'm impressed with this last batch from BRS, it doesn't seem to be doing a bloody thing, all the phosphate just goes straight to whatever algae is breeding away in the tank so PO4 levels are usually low.
No pH meter, it died awhile ago and I never replaced it. Tank was always 8.1-8.3 though and frankly the tank used to run at 7.8 and looked the best it ever did.
I think Ocean diver has it right though, elbow grease and time. I'll see if I can jack up my Mg levels. I've read that higher levels (1400+) can help knock it back as well.
Thanks for the ideas
