Im SOOOO frustrated arghhh!

rakabos

rakabos

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So the plan was to reboot my tank by quarantining all the zoas in a separate tank then the fish in another holding tank. All of this was to remove all the pests, clean the tank and start fresh.

The zoas had been in qt since Friday. I get home yesterday and the polyps are covered with cyano, which for zoas are the worst thing ever. This is the second attempt I had at qt for the zoas, same thing happened. So I had to move the zoas back to the DT, all 50 colonies. By this time I was swearing quite badly :p

I have no idea why the qt tank is such a hassle. 200L, lotsa flow, fresh water, bacteria dosing, air stone, lotsa light. I dunno.

So now I have no choice but not to reboot the tank, and just try and nail the bryopsis with low nutrients and high MG. Im gonna chuck the DSB and go with pellets ( slowly I know). I will do special blend in the reactor.

Here are some pics from last night after they went back into the DT



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Just remember that magnesium will act as a muscle relaxer and to much could cause your fish to relax all the way to heaven. SO no more than 100ppm rise a day, and don't go over the maximum you decide on.

My system has been running pellets from day one and its great in illuminating nitrates but without an additional phosphate reactor my phosphates get out of hand so might be something to consider adding as well?

Do you plan on covering all your rocks with zoas? Do you have a specific plan to do so? I'm considering taking a few small colonies and placing them at the bottom of my rock work to allow them to grow up to the light.
 
U dont think its the light and maybe too much bacteria in the QT that caused the cyano bloom?

Martin speak to Dallas, maybe go the Biocube route instead of pellets, they seem to do the same thing except the biocubes are supposed to be more efficient and faster acting...also they dont need a reactor.
 
Special blend dosing in qt couldnt cause a cyano bloom, so dunno what happened there.

So are biopellets worth the trouble? Im not chasing zero nitrates/phosphates. Just want to get it down.
 
That sucks...

What I would suggest though is take all your rock out, rinse it off well in salt water, scrubbing off as much of the algae as you can (use a pot scourer, rinse well and then place back in the tank.

Also vacuum all the substrate well to clean out all accumulated detritus.

Sometimes a direct physical approach to algae is the best.

I has a bubble algae outbreak a few years ago - got so bad that some corals died because it was growing into them. One dya I decided enough was enough. Took out all the live rock (about 50 kg), scrubbed them all down using a toothbrush, rinsed them well and then put it back into the tank. There was no recurrence of the problem and I kept my maintenance regime the same as I had previously
 
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I have 70kg caribsea biorock. I may yet decide to empty the tank for a day and clean it all out and just use the biorock
 
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rakabos said:
Special blend dosing in qt couldnt cause a cyano bloom, so dunno what happened there.

So are biopellets worth the trouble? Im not chasing zero nitrates/phosphates. Just want to get it down.
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@rakabos I can always sell you your phos reactors back at an inflated price! Mwuhahaha! :lol:
 
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rakabos said:
I have no idea why the qt tank is such a hassle. 200L, lotsa flow, fresh water, bacteria dosing, air stone, lotsa light. I dunno
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Whats a lot of flow?

I have had a bit of cyno and a lot of diatoms lately....I found by cranking up my Vortech to full on lagoon mode, it blasts the cyno away from my zoas. As long as the zoas are well attached and healthyish they get used to the powerfull flow quickly (all expect vietnam zoas dont know why) and I have all my zoas looking pretty good considering my tank is not in its best state....

I think you onto something with the Bio rock....Gives you a great opertunity to setup the aquascape you truely want instead of the usual rock pile, only down side I is it can take a while to get seeded and look natural, but thats a small trade off IMO
 
rakabos said:
Special blend dosing in qt couldnt cause a cyano bloom, so dunno what happened there.

So are biopellets worth the trouble? Im not chasing zero nitrates/phosphates. Just want to get it down.
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Biopellets like you already know, is a form of carbon dosing, like Vodka, but with less hassle.

In the long run I feel it's definitely worth it, however it won't be solving your problems in a single month.
 
A lot of flow being a MP40 on half power... When i cranked it up the cyano blew off and so dit the zoas :p. Some still needed to attach to the tiles
 
I am looking at getting a JNS Alpha 2 pellet reactor from TSR. No DSB going forward. Then checking the levels of nutrients. 3 month elevated magnesium, reduced feeding. I swear I will concur this issue!!

Oh and gives me a chance to re-scape with the new centerpiece :p
 
rakabos said:
A lot of flow being a MP40 on half power... When i cranked it up the cyano blew off and so dit the zoas . Some still needed to attach to the tiles
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LOL....I get your frustration now

Flip....people often go on about how difficult SPS corals can be (they are hard) but im starting to think that zoas are right up there as some of the most difficult to figure out!

Well when you got it all figured we will call you "Proffessor Martin" ;)
 
Zoas love flow, they need flow, they just need to be attached. In the DT i have very little flow on them at the moment and no cyano issues, so gonna give them time to attach then clean out the tank
 
Don't reckon the Cyano is because so many of the Zoa pieces are fragged and still healing?? excess nutrients?:whistling:
 
Just a thing I have noticed. Every time I start a new frag tank from scratch I get a hectic cyano bloom in there. Clean everything out and then the cyano takes some time to come back. And I also have lots of flow.

And by a tank from scratch I mean new tank, new eggcrate new everything.
 
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