Hog 1 poor performance.

[Mcwolf]

Hi, new member here. Bought a Santa Monica hog1 which has been set up since my tank cycled about 8 weeks. The only growth that I have in my scrubber is a little bit of green slime and the rest is like green film algae. This unit cost £160 in total, and so far I'm disappointed in it. I have brown algae growing on my sand and now cyno starting to grow on my rocks. Can anyone help???
Scrubber lights are on for 20 hours
Pump on 24/7

[SantaMonica]

Welcome from UK.

Your tank is still cycling; it continues past the test-able period. Dead stuff is still rotting from your rocks and sand. So don't move or change any rocks or flow or lighting, so that periphyton can start to grow on the rocks.

As for the scrubber, do a toothbrush cleaning in your sink. It should grow even more afterwards.

[Mcwolf]

Thnx SM, I'm away from home until Friday, so will keep updating the progress. I made a mistake in not toothbrushing every 7 days from installation, left it about 4-5 weeks before I did any toothbruhing. Could this be the cause of a slow start, and can I recover it? Thnx.

[SantaMonica]

It will be fine, just clean when you get back.

[Mcwolf]

6 days since last clean...

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p433/jmacwolf/21206496-1593-4A92-9D99-897600A85596_zpsorejthra.jpg (http://s346.photobucket.com/user/jmacwolf/media/21206496-1593-4A92-9D99-897600A85596_zpsorejthra.jpg.html)

And this is just getting worse..

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p433/jmacwolf/6EEA28E2-9D9E-4740-BA2A-F2C898E5157A_zpsv8arzhqm.jpg (http://s346.photobucket.com/user/jmacwolf/media/6EEA28E2-9D9E-4740-BA2A-F2C898E5157A_zpsv8arzhqm.jpg.html)

Any ideas?

[SantaMonica]

Let it grow another week, then clean

Your sand will be doing that for a while as the dead stuff dies out. And you rocks, being brand new, have no periphyton on them at all; once periphyton develops on them, it's natural filtering will increase.

One thing you can do however is to get a sand sifting goby, like a diamond back goby. They will clear up the sand real quick.

[Mcwolf]

Ok, thnx. Will update next week.

[Mcwolf]

Here's another week of growth, so 2 weeks...

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p433/jmacwolf/AB53C67B-A8BA-4067-BD85-43B656710EB1_zpsww8pvnmk.jpg (http://s346.photobucket.com/user/jmacwolf/media/AB53C67B-A8BA-4067-BD85-43B656710EB1_zpsww8pvnmk.jpg.html)

But the tank has in the past week has grown a lot of gha in the tank all over the walls. Can't understand why it's not growing in the scrubber but has taken hold in the tank.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p433/jmacwolf/93744FA3-D9D3-4652-9CE8-438C121F397A_zpssym1gf44.jpg (http://s346.photobucket.com/user/jmacwolf/media/93744FA3-D9D3-4652-9CE8-438C121F397A_zpssym1gf44.jpg.html)

[Bacon]

A reef tank will generally go through a wide variety of things during the firs year. Big swings in things we can't measure as hobbyists. The best thing to do is let nature take it's course and not chase issues. A lot of things will go away on their own, unless you do things like constantly removing rock and scrubbing it off, etc.

Check out #15 here

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-01/eb/

[SantaMonica]

Clean scrubber and put back in for another 10 days.