This Tank Makes Me Sad Sometimes......

B

booker1978

Premium Member
Hello all. I'm going through the tank blues and just need a little venting time. Things have been going pretty well for the past 6 months as I began this journey last July/August. I felt that I was finally at the point that my SPS coral were growing and coloring up very nicely. The past few weeks, I have noticed that more and more my tank was becoming less vibrant with the developing colors and my softies (zoas and a small frogspawn) are not as open as they have been. Shortly after that, I began to see a diatom bloom on the sand and my rock begins to turn more brown. Of course, I immediately go through the typical steps of testing and all seem to be pretty normal. Phosphate and Nitrates are near or at zero, alk is around 8 - 8.3 dkh, calcium is at 460. I know that I have some phosphates as the algae is growing somehow, just trying to figure out where. I cleaned the sump completely, put in new carbon and did a 30 gallon water change (which I do every other week). I did notice that my biopellets were not tumbling very well as one part of the reactor was moving very slowly, so I'm thinking I am going to add more flow by replacing the eheim compact 2000 pump that I am currently using on the manifold to a larger pump and see what happens. I can always turn the flow down, but currently it is at its max. It is also probably time to increase the amount of biopellets, as I am still only running half of the recommended dosage since starting it two months back. Now is the time to try little changes.... wait... and then go to the next step, try that.... wait.... until finally the results are achieved.

Thanks for listening to my rant. I know this is a patience based hobby and I really do enjoy most of it, however it sure can get you down when things are not quite going your way. Ultimately I know that I will gain more knowledge about my tank in the long run once everything is running well.... that is of course until the next event occurs. Wash, rinse and repeat. Blah....... [smilie=wait.gif]
 
Hang in there - we've all lived through this. Try a few back to back water changes. Don't add more biopellets, but make sure the flow through them is still the same as it should be.
 
Thanks, Marc. I did a couple of water changes and boosted the flow to the the biopellets a bit more. Now to wait it out a bit more! I appreciate the listening ears!
 
Im having some of the same issues you are having...testing is fine but, stuff is not quite right....I think there is something else in the water we are not seeing or able to filter out. I put Purigen sachet in my tank and will await the results but, like others have suggested I am doing a bit more water changes and looking into lowering my Alk as its WAYYYYYY too high. How it got there who knows but, all the critters are ok, I just dont like having Alk that high to do how it will react to some other supplements.
 
You mentioned calc and alk.. what about Mg and salinity? What are your temp ranges like over a 24hr period?
 
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