Tank Update:
The tank is now 14 months old. This is the first tank I've started using dry human-made rock, and I have been amazed at the difference between starting with this rock and years old cured rock. In my previous system I used old cured rock and basically had an insta-system that only relied on water changes. It never had any real algae issues and had tons of coraline growth. This new tank is only now starting to get over its initial ugly phase, and the coraline is only now starting to grow a bit. The cyano phase lasted about 9 months and the hair algae started at around the 6 month mark and is now subsiding at the 14 month mark. The only reason the algae is now going away is because I added a skimmer and a refugium that lights caulerpa 24 hours a day about a month ago. I have used dry natural rock before, and it got short green algae on it for a short time, but this cement based stuff gets a lot of long hair greens. The next time I use it I will cure it for a couple years before putting it in the tank.
The tank has a deep sand bed of fine silica based play sand. Some people worry about diatom blooms with this type of sand, so here is my experience so far. When initially putting it in the tank I did get noticeable diatoms, and every time the sand was stirred diatoms would grow in the agitated spot. Now however, I do not get diatom blooms, even with my snails rooting through it all day long. This has lead me to think that when the sand was first added to the tank diatoms feasted on the fine dust and any part of the sand that was able to dissolve, but now enough time has gone by that all of that resource is used up.
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