The color of your screen tells me that you need to be cleaning it a little more often than every 7 days. Looks like the roots are dying and letting go, are you finding clods of algae in the sump? Could also be that your screen is not rough enough.
The color of your screen tells me that you need to be cleaning it a little more often than every 7 days. Looks like the roots are dying and letting go, are you finding clods of algae in the sump? Could also be that your screen is not rough enough.
I still have algae kind of pond scum that forms on surfaces in the sump. This happened before the ATS as well. So I can't say definitively that it let go. This will be my fourth week now, the algae is lighter in color but still not green. I think I'll give it an extra rough up on the next cleaning. I must have very high nutrients since I do have the correct 1 watt/inch of screen....even slightly more. I would switch to 42w CFL but they bulbs are expensive ($10 each), and I am worried the weight would be too heavy for the clamps leading to much larger problems than dark algae!Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo
What about something like this? Has anyone tried them?
http://www.sunslighting.com/High-Pow...5-p/1325rb.htm
Grrr.nitrates are back up above 20ppm. I am not there yet by any means.
The screen had gone half white by the time I got home from work, either the pods or lack of roughness caused it to all essentially disintegrate. I cleaned it and roughed up the screen a lot more.
The good news is that the algae was much tougher to get off than previous weeks. It took some really good scrubbing whereas in previous weeks it came off with a strong stream of water. I am going to have to do a water change this week to keep the levels in check. Phosphates have probably skyrocketed as well, API test is too inaccurate to really tell.
Hang in there. It took me 4 weeks to start getting good thick growth on my screen, and another 4 weeks after that before I started seeing significant improvements in my tank.
Phil
From the looks of it, I would guess it was a roughness issue with the screen. It doesn't look like the typical "pod circles" you see. While 20 nitrates may seem frustrating to you and you want to get it lower, it is by no means a concern for the fish or corals in your tank. You said you fixed the roughness and it is getting more green so I am sure as it matures a little more everything will do as expected and you will hit 0 nitrates in a matter of weeks.
Thanks Ace. We'll see what happens, I only did the extra roughing up yesterday. It looks a lot rougher now. The nitrates going up above 20ppm is a concern for me as I know phosphates are going up at the same time. Due to only having API phosphate test, can't tell with any accuracy other than yes I have more than 0 and less than .1. Outside of that I can't be sure. I have several corals which have been unhappy and this won't be helping to make them happier. I will do a water change this weekend.
Due to the roughing up of the screen I am pretty much starting over with a completely white screen. We'll see how it goes. If it doesn't catch on quickly I will need to put some phosphate removal media in the sump for a few days to get it down.
People freak out over a little phosphate or nitrate, but you have to remember that corals need N and P actually, so a temporary spike in them will really not do very much long-term harm. Reducing them quickly with reactive media can do damage. I have talked to people that dropped a ton of GFO on their tank and dropped their P down to nothing in a short time and crashed their system. My take is just let the scrubber do its job, which is gradual and natural. your corals will be fine.
thanks Floyd, nothing good happens fast right!
I just am so tired of that orange nitrate test and though I was on my way. I am ready to see some of my euphyllia corals come back to life after months of wasting away. Also have an accro that was somehow doing well through the last several months , but now started STN which sucks. I am going to try the superglue trick as many report it has stopped it. Failing that, I guess I will have to frag it.
Finally got around to switching out my return pump. As I mentioned earlier I was able to switch to a different Maxi-jet 1200 for the ATS.
HUGE difference! I wasn't getting anywhere close to the same amount of flow as I do now. I am interested to see how things go with the increased flow on the ATS and on the main DT. I probably doubled up on both, one will help better deliver nutrients to the ATS, and the other will promote the type of clingy algae I want.
I also did a 5% water change and blasted my rocks a bit to release some decaying crap which could be leading to my higher N.
Decided to do a quick clean this morning as it was developing some of the rea dark slime.
Things are looking good since roughing the screen and increasing flow. My tank has started to use some alkalinity which is a good sign, this hasn't happened for a while. Maybe one of these weeks I'll see some real green thick growth.
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