[jon.smolders]

Hey everyone,

I am in need of some advice and opinions. I have been dealing with a bad bacterial bloom for the last few months, and I would like some feedback as to what I can do to correct the issue.

Here is my setup:
- 60 gallon tank, 20 gal sump. Total water volume of about 70 gallons
- 35 lbs dry pukani rock
- 1 lb live rock (one small mushroom rock, one small ½ lb piece to help seed with sponges, etc)
- bare bottom
- BM Curve 7 skimmer
- Running 1/2 cup carbon in sump baffles changed at least monthly
- Run filter socks occasionally but never for more than a few days at a time
- Tecklight T5 x 6 lamp. Only running 4 lamps, brand new in the last couple months on for 9 hrs a day
- Temp 77
- Salinity 35ppt (1.026 sg)
- pH 7.8
- Calcium 360ish
- Alkalinity currently around 6-7 dKH - trying to keep it up past 7
- Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates all 0
- RO water TDS 0
- PO4 0ppm test kit was a bit dated however
- 1 pajama cardinal, 1 blue neon goby added about a month ago
- several small frags of montipora, star polyps, green nepthea, meteor shower crystphea, xenia (not doing well), and a "grassy fields" lps, green rhodactis mushrooms (now a pale blue)
- 3 red hermits, couple snails lost a few over the last few months


The system was started 10 months ago. Very, very little coraline algae. Little algae in display or on rocks. Chaeto in sump

After lots of reading online I finally made sense of the low alk and pH. The bacteria use up alk because it is a carbon source. Bacteria also produce CO2 which would drive down the pH. I figure the other nutrient source in the system is the dry rock. I did not give it an acid bath, just stuck it in the tank with a piece of shrimp and let it go for a few months. I had bad algae for a while, and I suspected the sand so I removed it and went bare bottom. That helped the algae a bit, but the tank still had a white haze. Just over a month ago I did a 100% water change. Transferred everything into a brute, drained the tank completely, cleaned, refilled with fresh salt water, transferred everything back. Looked great for a week before the haze came back.


So... I have come up with a few things I might try to get this under control.

1.Dose bacteria. I started the tank with MB7… would it help at all to dose more bacteria to consume the nutrients faster? Maybe I should dose vinegar or vodka too to give them a carbon source other than my alkalinity?

2.Reduce the amount of dry rock in the system. Say I take out half of it. I could cure it elsewhere. Then there would be less leaching nutrients overall and maybe the system could handle it?

3.Establish a different source of bio filtration. Could I add a DIY wet/dry filter in hopes that the bacteria would colonize that instead of my water column? Would the extra bio filtration help the system handle the nutrients leaching from the rock?

4.UV sterilizor - I know this would help clear things up (at least temporarily) but I don’t really want to drop another $100 on another piece of equipment at the moment… I’d rather figure out how to deal with the root issue.

5.More mechanical filtration - Thought about a DIY canister filter with filter floss… not sure if it would make much of a difference though.

6.Weekly 30% water changes and more patience. I was doing 15% every two or three weeks before the 100% change. I've also been dealing with this for months now so my patience is … well… dwindling.



Any thoughts or comments would help. I’m not really sure what route I should take with all this. Thanks!