Neptune Aquatics

Help diagnose my tank!

All new sand and rock. I cycled the tank for about 5 weeks. I have an auto feeder that feeds pellets once a day and also a cube of mysis or LRS with pumps on. Once or twice a week I feed reef roids with pumps off. It’s a 4’x24”x16” tank with an MP40, MP10 and Jebao towards the back of the tank. No filter bags but I use filter floss in the sump that gets changed out every 5-7 days or so.


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I recently switched to feeding with the pumps off, which means the fish are actually able to eat ~85% of the food I put in rather than having excess food fly around and wind up in crevices all over the tank. It's made a huge difference in the plague of majanos and diatoms on the sand.
 
The bacteria that are stimulated when you add the missing carbon by using NOPOX should eventually be able to outcompete the dinos/cyano, but until you reduce their head start it is somewhat risky.

The phosphate removers will leave you with a nitrate problem, whereas NOPOX, chaeto, and other growth-based strategies don’t. But I agree the phosphate is likely the larger problem right now.
 
Updated pics of the dinos
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That bit of red around the coral on last picture looks like Cyano to me.
First photo I don't see anything. Maybe try with a flash.
But it is hard to tell without a microscope anyway.

Honestly, it looks pretty clean in general. Coraline seems to be spreading, which does not
happen when Cyano/Dinos get out of control.
Not sure you should do much of anything.
 
In my humble experience 90% of the times reefers think its dino, it's actually cyano or diatom.


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This is the inside of my overflow box. 7–10” stringy. Will get some additional photos tonight. Either way, I’ve clearly got a phosphate issue I need to address.


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That looks like slime from a bacterial bloom to me.
Perhaps with a bit of coral mucus mixed in.

I would definitely NOT do any carbon dosing like Nopox. It will almost surely make that worse.
On the other hand, I would also just remove it and not worry much.

Really:
  • Water changes
  • Slowly add GFO in a sock or reactor
  • Patience
 
Hey guys, quick update here.

- I tried NOPOX for about 2 months and it didn’t seem to make much of a difference with respect to nitrates or phosphates.

- I used the Brightwell phosphate remover and while it did lower the phosphates, I didn’t notice any change in the growth nor the inability to grow zoas and mushrooms so I didn’t move onto using GFO. Would you guys suggest using GFO anyways? Perhaps I need to have sustained lower phosphates before I’ll start to see any differences?

- The dinos went away for good (hopefully - haven’t seen them for months).

- I still can’t grow zoas. I had a theory that something in the sand (the theory was either spinoid worms or brittle worms) was bothering the zoas so I decided to start removing the sand bed. I was also getting tired of sand blowing everywhere and thought the removal of the sand could help with nitrates and phosphates. I’ve removed most of the sand from the front of the tank and the mushrooms seem to be doing better now but no luck with the zoas.

- Still can’t grow chaeto.

- oddly enough SPS have really taken off in the past several months and on some of the larger colonies I am seeing nearly daily growth.

- about a month ago I added the Aquatic Life T5 hybrid system and I’m really loving the color blend.
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- Overall I am enjoying the tank now that I am seeing sustained success with SPS but still incredibly frustrated that I cant seem to grow zoas. I would love to have zoas fill in some of the bare spots in the rock. Would love to hear more ideas on how I can get this addressed! TIA

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Zoas and mushrooms are softies and tend to like a “dirtier” tank. Sps on the other hand are the opposite. Trying to find some kind of balance is tricky if not impossible in some cases. This is why I think successful mixed reef tanks can be the most difficult. I think I’d be happy with having the sps thriving like it sounds like is the case.
 
Zoas and mushrooms are softies and tend to like a “dirtier” tank. Sps on the other hand are the opposite. Trying to find some kind of balance is tricky if not impossible in some cases. This is why I think successful mixed reef tanks can be the most difficult. I think I’d be happy with having the sps thriving like it sounds like is the case.

That’s the biggest part of this mystery. My tank IS dirty so you’d think the zoas, mushrooms and chaeto would be thriving but they aren’t. On the other hand, SPS are thriving.


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