I've asked some of this in a previous thread, but i was hoping for a little more clarity. A little history first.
-Last winter, i stared cooking the rock and pulling out the sand bed. During this time, i was using 2 part dosing and keeping alk and calc around 11 dkh and 400 ppm.
-In March, i started adding rocks back in and corals. In May, i added an MRC kalkreactor and a auto top off. In doing so, i stopped 2 part dosing and my calc and alk leveled off to about 7.5 dkh and 450 ppm. I suppose, because of the amount of waste still being consumed in my rocks, as well as the intensity of the
coralline algae growth on the starboard, the alkalinity was increasing (to that higher than the kalkreactor and water changes replinsihed).
-On July 21st, i measured my alkalinity and it was at 5.4 dkh. Oops. So i started dosing alkalinity again and put a
calcium reactor at the top of my wish list. But over the last month, the coralline algae started turning white, and now it appears to be turning brown (possibly diatoms?). This has happened on probably 60% of the coralline (on the rocks and starboard). I noticed zero change to my corals during all this (obviously there was little to no growth, but nothing bleached or otherwise showed negative effects).
- Yesterday (august 24th), i added a calcium reactor. Before so, i measure the alkalinity at 8.3 dkh, and today it's at 12.4 dkh. I noted that was a quick adjustment, so i turned down the bubble rate of CO2 and the flow rate of the effluent, and i'll keep watching it over the next few days until it's dialed in.
I anticipate the coralline algae to grow back over time. Anybody experience this? Also, am i correct that this brown stuff is a diatom bloom? I don't fully understand how coralline or diatoms really work, so if someone has the time to explain some if it, as well as provide suggestions or comments on how to prevent this in the future (other than what i've done so far), that would be great. Thanks!
