Now some of the zoa frags are melting away. It is not as bad as it was but still pretty bad. It has pretty much taken over everything on my big shelf rock since that is where is it the worse. I am going to order BRS high capacity gfo and some new carbon along with the dual reactors from bulk reef supply this week.
you are already using GFO, I would not put much faith in changing brands or devices, I would start with changing out your sand, do 1/2 or 1/3 a day, if you think you have a phosphate problem, try kent phosphate sponge change it out every day for a couple days and then go back to GFO.
I thought someone on here said phosphate sponge was the same thing as GFO because that is what I was thinking of doing before. Why would I change a sand bed already? it is only 1.5 years old and it gets flow. I can not seem to get the flow I want without blowing sand around. I have my powerheads set to short pulse waves at 1second intervals.
No Kent phosphate sponge is a very open celled Activated Alumina, ceramic based product not GFO at all, GFO is Iron based and is rust color, your Phosban and Rowaphos are both GFO.
Your sandbed may only be 1.5 years old but could very well be Phosphate saturated.
If you have a deep sandbed over 4+ inches deep I could see not wanting to mess with it, but if it’s under 4" no sense in not changinging it.
Even with all the times I have stirred up the sand bed re-aquascaping? I also have a sand sifting star along with many snails to keep the sand bed stirred up. My sand bed also has no algae at all on it. I thought it was only a problem if there was no circulation on the sand bed at all.
Thanks for the tip on the difference between the sponge and gfo.
[quote=“JustSumGuy, post:45, topic:5771”]
Even with all the times I have stirred up the sand bed re-aquascaping? I also have a sand sifting star along with many snails to keep the sand bed stirred up. My sand bed also has no algae at all on it. I thought it was only a problem if there was no circulation on the sand bed at all.
Thanks for the tip on the difference between the sponge and gfo.[/quote]
When i had it going on, the sandbed would get covered anywhere the light touched…
I used to get it on the sand bed awhile back but since I got the mp40 I have not had that issue. Biggest issue I run into with the mp40 is the sand being blown around when I have the pulse just the way I want it. I raised it up a little higher today along with the mp20. Wish I could find a cheap driver and plug to upgrade it and have the 2 pumps synced
Since I have been running the Rowaphos and siphoning everynight the algae is not as dominate anymore.
I should be getting my order from BRS Thursday.
I ordered dual gfo reactor with pump, brs high capacity gfo,brs carbon, 10lb of dry rubble rock to try and give the copepods a fighting chance in my other tank…
I have noticed that some of my corals are opening up even better now to. the frogspawns are looking better and the purple death paly’s heads look even bigger and the devils hand is also looking much bigger and needs to be thinned out badly.
There is a very good chance the nutrients in the water column have been depleted, but if you had issues a couple weeks ago keeping up with the water changes and phosphate removers will likely be necessary or the problem will come back. It takes a lot more then a couple of weeks for the rock to fully release all the phosphates that were bound up in them.
Glad to hear your making progress though and that the animals are looking healthier. Keep it up.
well mine is slowly disapearing in the frag tank with the slow recharging of the bio pellet reactor. i just added the third heaping tablespoon of the old pellets back into the reactor tonight. the tank is looking better. some of the brown hair type algae on a couple rocks seems to be shrinking too. sand looks cleaner, glass staying clear longer.
And hey, no white cloud this time. so far. so good. I did a glass cleaning with the magnet to get what brown algae slime was on it loose and caught in the sponge filter. then did a filter cleaning, skimmer cleaning, and fuge cleaning to get any excess hair and slime out. remove the crud. its getting there.
I just realized I forgot a few things I have been using and doing.
I have been dosing MG since it was lower then I wanted, Also dkh buffer to try and bring it to 7-8. I also replaced the fuge light with a 50w plant bulb which I have been running 24/7.
Oh yea and MicroBacter7 every day and turning the skimmer off for 4 hours as directions say to do when I dose it.
Today there is even less of that snot algae to the point it is not as noticeable only couple spots with very small strands around now. Some of the HA is also going away even the algae on the glass does not need to be scraped as often.
I cut down feeding the fish to only a little bit each day not much at all just enough so they can get a couple pellets each and a small chunk of seaweed.
The bacteria dosing may be helping. it takes a bit of time for it to take hold and compete with the snot.
I have only dosed 3 times so far. Will be dosing tonight again at 6 
trying to keep 24hour spacings. Today I am down and out with a cold so I will see if I am even awake to turn the skimmer back on tonight. Maybe I will setup a timer :
:
[quote=“JustSumGuy, post:51, topic:5771”]
I just realized I forgot a few things I have been using and doing.
I have been dosing MG since it was lower then I wanted, Also dkh buffer to try and bring it to 7-8. I also replaced the fuge light with a 50w plant bulb which I have been running 24/7.
Oh yea and MicroBacter7 every day and turning the skimmer off for 4 hours as directions say to do when I dose it.
Today there is even less of that snot algae to the point it is not as noticeable only couple spots with very small strands around now. Some of the HA is also going away even the algae on the glass does not need to be scraped as often.
I cut down feeding the fish to only a little bit each day not much at all just enough so they can get a couple pellets each and a small chunk of seaweed.[/quote]
Sounds good jeff :
: glad to hear you can see a diff already GolfC
The bacteria needs three things phosphates, nitrates, and organic carbon. You have trace amounts of two but how about the third?
[quote=“Gordonious, post:55, topic:5771”]
The bacteria needs three things phosphates, nitrates, and organic carbon. You have trace amounts of two but how about the third? [/quote]
I don’t have anything to test organic carbon. The snot algae is back today 
still not as bad as it was but its back.
I hooked up my BRS dual reactor with their high capacity gfo and their carbon. So hopefully that will help also. I hope to eventually be able to take the one reactor off the tank with these 2 running and run cheaper gfo and carbon in one reactor on my smaller tank. I also got my 10lb rubble rock that I did not realize I was going to have to cure cause it was live rock at one time. So the spare qt tank will be used to cure it.
[quote=“Gordonious, post:55, topic:5771”]
The bacteria needs three things phosphates, nitrates, and organic carbon. You have trace amounts of two but how about the third? [/quote]
organic carbon? isn’t it present wherever there’s life/death… i dunno much about it…
jon, any info or links about this pertaining to a reef tank? and what do you use to test it?
it can take the disolved CO2 out of the water. the protein skimmer adds some with the air bubbles. so do the fish , and corals at night.
I do not believe you can directly test for it.
Yes it is just about always present, but it is also typically the limiting factor to growth of the type of bacteria the original poster mentioned adding.
As far as links read anything about Ultra low Nutrient systems, probiotics, biofuel, or Heterotrophic bacteria in reef aquariums and you will find more info. Vodka dosing = organic carbon addition. Biopellets = organic carbon. Sugar = organic carbon. There are many countless ways to add solid, powered, or liquid organic carbon.
If you are going to look into this you should read a LOT before experimenting. Ask KaptKen what can happen when you add a pinch of this and that with out reading the directions. 
who said i added ONLY just a pinch. Im at 3 heaping tablespoons of bio pellets in the reactor now. doing fine. getting the color back in most of the corals from the white out. i still think the Chemiclean gave the pellets a boost. the reaction was like in 6 hours from the treatment, it started whiting out. after it cleared with the pellets removed, i got a burst of cyano and some green/brown fuzzy hair. but almost gone now. looking good.
Hmmm I can add another spoonful monday night . the 3 spoonfulls make about one inch in the TLF reactor. before the whiteout i had simply ran 5 inches of the pellets for 3 weeks, with no problem. then the chemiclean/.