Its always somethin..

[Cuttlefish]

Whyyyy does this gotta happen? I finally get my Alk and Ca stabilized by getting my Mg up. I enjoy perfect conditions for a few days and I start noticing frikkin cyano. Its in small patches here and there, on live rock and coating coralline a bit, on the floor where theres a little sand (is supposed to be a BB tank) and on the few dead coral skeletons and barnacles. I havnt had a cyano problem in a long time. What could be causing this now i wonder? The patch thats coating sand is in a pretty good flow area. I thought the whole tank had pretty good flow actually. I used to think cyano growth had something to do with dissolved O2 levels. But I always thought my tank would have good O2 saturation because I use a wet dry. Maybe it was all the phytoplankton, oyster egg and rotifer feedings combined with the generous fish food feedings? Incidently I just did a cheato harvest. A day later I notice the cyano. Any ideas on what caused this all of a sudden? I also have a very noticeable algae bloom. Not sure if this is from all the feedings + the decreased volume of nutrient absorbing cheato/caulerpa, or is its from the 3 stage RO unit which I used to add about 10 gallons of top off. The addon DI chamber is on the way and I have plenty of good salt ready for a nice water change.


Any ideas guys?

BTW I found my camera cord so I will gladly start posting all kinds of pics to accompnay my posts. I figure pics can do a much better job of explaining.

[jenglish]

My guess would be the heavy feedings you were mentioning. The chaeto harvest may have lead to a bit of surplus nutrients for them to feed on temporarily. When the chaeto gets growing it may outcompete the cyano. I might take a feed less, skim more, wait and see approach.

[Fat Tony]

yep all those foods are high in phosphates... especially the Phyto... there is simply no reason to be using phyto for 99% of our tanks

[Cuttlefish]

It was just a spike of some sort. I think what happened was a result of ignoring the fact that my sea hare had climbed over into the macro fuge and went to TOWN for a 5 days. Its happened before and the result this time is a sea hare the size of apple. Anyway he left logs all over the place and the algaes phosphate was returned back to the water in the form of doo doo. Anyway since I sucked it up and did that water change things have improved alot. I just had too much doody strewn about the place, the MT too. So siphoning out all that plus some sand returned it to true BB tank. After that a lawnmower blenny to cleann up a few patches and a second small sea hare for the rock fuge is the ticket. They are currently going to work devouring . Those sea hares give you instant results you know.. you place him anywhere you need extra algae control and its like you got a robotic vacuum cleaner.. for algae, goes to work immediatly every time lol.

so yah.. lesson learned there. Dont let da poop accumulate :P

cyano was sucked off the floor btw. the small patches here n there seem to be disapating already. so thats good.

[Cuttlefish]

Originally Posted by Fat Tony

yep all those foods are high in phosphates... especially the Phyto... there is simply no reason to be using phyto for 99% of our tanks

my tank has a ton of xmas tree worms and now now mounds of encrusting sps. was just trying to get them fed well after each piece was added, added up. Just have to back off the feedings a bit. Trying to figure out a convientient way to spot feed what i have, thatll help also

[Fat Tony]

SPS don't need phyto, they live just fine off of light and fish poo. You can spot feed the cristmas tree worms using an old coke bottle and place it over the rock with the worms. SPS don't need to be fed at all, and LPS only needs it sparingly.

[Cuttlefish]

mmm good to know. I had assumed all those little pink holes with tiny hands comng out to sift the water were part of the coral and looking for plankton. Perhaps they are another organism then. WhaT eve they are id definetly like to get em soma this live phyto.

Will feed much more sparingly with the coke bottle though definetly. thx for the perspective, i think things will improve now with the Ca, Alk, MG balanced and the phosphates on the way out
.

[Fat Tony]

They are polyps, but they aren't looking for plankton, they are just looking for any food source.... but when you have fish, you already have the food source for the corals solved

[Cuttlefish]

i mean they are tiny though. LIke a hand, 5-6 fingers, each with the thickness of like less than a human hair. maybe like a babys hair. things that tiny i cant imagine are looking for poo can they? If ya saw a pick of this section ud see why the phtyo and oyster eggs, they might even be looking for they middle particle size, rotifers. So i mix in a lil bit of those too, now less than a little.. and less often. I just cant get the camera to focus nearly that close but they are there. This is what the LFS owner told me homie. In this 25 gallon section there are probbaly over 100 different species of dusters, not just the tiny hands. I hear ya on the MT though, no more invert feeds there. I just have to feed this section and I will get a decent pic up so you can see then need for food like that..

errr, not 100 different spcieas, just lots of differents ones totaling over a 100 lol

[Fat Tony]

yep poo... they are polyps... they look for nutrients and they dont care in what form it comes

[Cuttlefish]

lol well ill be. so POLYPS.. means large brine shrimp catching "yellow polyps" as well as these dam near microscopic hands. Interestin, did not know that :P

but dude lol... the label on the bottles for the stuff says... "great feed for encrusting sps corals, montiporas, feathers dusts, larval fish" lol. See the thing is.. I dont think the LFS bothers with Phycopure.. or Roti's n what not. I think thats why they are looking alot better than they had em. Since I got this first porites rock for example. It was breaking up, the color was faded and actually tanish. 6 weeks in my tank it has actually turned a bright blueish/purple.. with more of these pink holes with tiny polyps. and what used to be a parting in the coral tissue (exposed coraline rock) is now sewing up with new growth.

Isnt there a slight chance it might offer better nutrition than poopoo?

[jenglish]

Corals for the most part eat zooplankton, zooplankton eat phytoplanktton. SO in a round about way you may be increasing zoo..... but only marginally for the amount of phosphates you are adding. Corals love poop

[Cuttlefish]

only reason im on this is cuz I want to know if this section only needs tiny-feed on the worms n dusters. Trying to save the tank as much exposure to nutrients as possible would prolly be the best thing aye

[Cuttlefish]

Originally Posted by jenglish

Corals for the most part eat zooplankton, zooplankton eat phytoplanktton. SO in a round about way you may be increasing zoo..... but only marginally for the amount of phosphates you are adding. Corals love poop

lol arlight man.. gonna take your word on this . Will still give a gentle dose of tiny-feed on OCCASSION. Let em have their way with the doo doo. all you can eat baby. Poop sure costs alot less than this frikkin stuff.

[Loverotties]

But not much nutirance in it.