Cycling a new Biocube 32

[Daniel266jz]

this could have easily been phosphate curing out of new rocks/about the right timeframe after submersion but I still dont regret never measuring for nor reacting to phosphate

dinos would have made you hate reefing worse, this pic above showed greenwater in the daylight reflection/unlikely to be a bacterial issue and phosphates sure can boost some greenwater.

Randy says in his posts that phosphate will move out into the water over time I feel its safer to kill what phosphate blooms vs try and run po4 controls for months and months bringing on dinos.

I actually have some Dino outbreak and the brown algea along with hair algea but also have some corralline going crazy at my back wall. I usually brush this off with a toothbrush and siphon during water change. It’s like seeing all the stages in one for some reason

 

[brandon429]

we expect all that with white rock cycling. even skip cycle live rock transfers when placed into new tanks will get some algae (rarely dinos) = bright lights n open spaces will bloom in various ways we just manage them directly/and some try to use chemical alteration to help. all valid ways of experimenting.

your reef is close to 6 mos mark I think if you ever wanted to try chemical adsorbing modes you can, but remove them and scale back to last known working condition if anything blooms up or gets worse.

I would have done 1 new rip clean on your setup before adding the uv now that you know it works, the uv is likely to help stave off rip cleaning though and will work much better from the clean starting point vs just water change starting point

the only hard part of a rip clean is securing all new water; the 2nd best way of ripping is to drain off and catch 80% of the current water for reuse, rip clean sand and rocks then add back with only 20% new water. that way will beat even a near-total water change, leaving rocks and sand in the tank uncleaned

 

[brandon429]

Another factor i find applicable here is the analysis between clean vs dirty cycling

we have all read about dirty cycling, letting the rocks and sand go through the phases. threads right now ask for help for that in the main forum, we see the recommend to literally step back and allow what will be to be.

that helps with food web establishment; a massive tangle of gha and cyano and diatoms and a few dinos adds surface area, surface area traps detritus, and detritus promotes the entire process and is food substrate for pods.

the tradeoff is the 100% invaded look, what you hated about cloudy water now moved to the rocks and for sure encroaching on corals unless you do something or find that lucky doser.


and fragmentation; by housing these new growths which indeed invite diversity to the early tank small fragments are hitching about in every crevice, that means if one or more strains were highly invasive they get a foothold with uglies-style cycling.

*when someone successfully completes uglies-style cycling they have a nice reef of no work, and a strong feed web. and coralline, happy corals, utopia earned


but be warned thats the sole method prescribed to all reefers since the dawn of this hobby, its the most tested approach ever invented. eighteen new ways have emerged because we all tried it and hated it pretty much.


you and I are cleaning here until that coralline sets in; you can't imagine the stability 50% of your reef covered in coralline will produce. takes work, cheats, sweat n tears to turn white rock into that or luck, depending on the system you use.


the truth is, I dont have much fear about what nanos do.

if you let that rock beard up to a full on manbun invasion then we could just rip clean it all back into compliance anyway. room to experiment. i can say all this because Im about two inches away from a full bun heh lockdown locks.

 

[brandon429]

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we can side-track this tank for uglies phasing then coming back around, they are going hands off mode. helpful to at least work with comparative tanks, similar stocking ratios etc

right now is the beginning phase we can watch for ups n downs back to the ideal condition.

 

[Daniel266jz]

So i have an update. Tank is doing very good and I have major coral growth. Fish are all healthy. I’ve had the UV on and that’s been keeping the water very clear. As far as the algae goes i bought some more snails and crabs and they have annihilated the algae , I mean there was whole rocks covered and they are now white again. I will try to find some before and after pictures. One thing I did notice is that I have diatoms again so I’m waiting them out. My filter floss has been getting full much faster also and I think that’s because while the clean up free is eating the algae they are creating more waste in the form of algea getting sucked into the filter. I’ve got a good amount of coralline on the back wall also.

 

[brandon429]

ok nice! if we can find some dedicated animals to help that's ideal prevention. nice update

 

[Daniel266jz]

Well Needed Update: I have been super busy with work but also working on my tank. All of the cyano is gone and all the glass algea/diatoms are slowly receding away also. The clean up crew i bought completely obliterated the algea. My rocks look like there was never any algea even there lol. Apart from that I am seeing good growth and even my Cabbage Coral (forgot the name but pretty sure its a montipora) is beginning to grow and encrust. I still have many head growing on various corals and my anemone is getting very big. All inhabitants are well fed and chunky. I have a good amount of corraline algae growing on the back end of the tank. I am finally looking to add some more coral to the collection also. Overall its been going well, just waiting for the rest of the algae to go away.

 

[Daniel266jz]

Anyone know what this white ball is? It’s growing in a couple of spots. It’s round and it looks like it has a couple of openings? Here’s some pics. Ones growing on my trumpet and another in a rock. I also have some white web like slime???

 

[brandon429]

No Im not sure, someone will know

I’m eyeing the tiny details on the live rock, the fan worms adhered to the surface, the coralline spotting on the wall and the pigmentation on rock that used to be all white. It’s literally turning into real live rock based on the frags added it’s importing all kinds of life which have taken up residence, wow looks great!

that is indicative of strong feeding habits, well done. that is exactly how maturing live rock ( formerly dry ) should look


hey on the cloudy water we never knew what it was right? Just that uv fixed it- good enough for me

 

[Daniel266jz]

No Im not sure, someone will know

I’m eyeing the tiny details on the live rock, the fan worms adhered to the surface, the coralline spotting on the wall and the pigmentation on rock that used to be all white. It’s literally turning into real live rock based on the frags added it’s importing all kinds of life which have taken up residence, wow looks great!

that is indicative of strong feeding habits, well done. that is exactly how maturing live rock ( formerly dry ) should look


hey on the cloudy water we never knew what it was right? Just that uv fixed it- good enough for me

Thanks! It is slowly coming to life with all kinds of algae, worms, sponges, and coralline. I never found out why the water was cloudy but the UV did the trick and it’s never been anything else than clear now. I’m still having massive coral growth. And some of the algae only grows in certain spots which is why I leave it alone since it’s not overtaking and the cc likes to pick at it.

 

[brandon429]

Those growths on the rock specifically remark on strong calcification rates reflecting calcium and alk and pH consistency within range

whatever care system you have been using the last few months is specifically making the rock age quicker than I’d thought, it’s fully ideal. I have no idea about the cloud, just happy for the big pass touchdown win, if I ever have a larger reef it will have uv. It doesn’t really matter what the bloom was caused by, glad it’s burned. uv is now reducing glass scraping to a small degree, microalgae, it’s dinos insurance. An all good device


using uv is specifically not burning pods, or pelagic micro benthic organisms like sponges and spirorbidae worms which must transit the water to a landing site. It’s killing the targets intended for zap

you guys make a great reefing team for pressing onward through the hideous cloud. New reefers need to see this type of resolve

 

[Daniel266jz]

So yesterday I did a water change and manually removed a ton of algae, unfortunately I forgot to take pictures lol. The tank is doing very well, I recently noticed one of my regular mushrooms spit out a baby and my rainbow anemone has now gotten very big and is always open now, I have yet to see the clowns brush to it, but time will tell. I have not had anymore algae problems or clouding and coralline algae is spreading more and more. My favias have grown so much they are growing over their plug like you have to flip them over to even see a plug anymore, should i glue them to the rock or let them encrust over the plug?

 

[brandon429]

your call, let em take over like the blob and then when you need to cut them back that w give us another excuse to put the tank under operation again he he


i still link this thread to a lot of people, 16k combined reads is not bad exposure at all

 

[brandon429]

Daniel I just bragged that your tank can never get dinos. If it does lol then the only pics we want to see is the clean condition and a verbal report of former dinos hows this example reef doing

 

[Daniel266jz]

Daniel I just bragged that your tank can never get dinos. If it does lol then the only pics we want to see is the clean condition and a verbal report of former dinos hows this example reef doing

It’s doing great! No Dino’s only regular hair/ball algae I clean every water change. Still got heads popping up on corals all the time, my Sunkist mushroom split just recently and I added an urchin yesterday. All’s normal along with some coralline growth, I’ll post some pics today after my water change

 

[brandon429]

22 pages pure documentation, very rare very rare- nice job!

 

[Daniel266jz]

22 pages pure documentation, very rare very rare- nice job!

So here’s a picture of how much algae I pulled out during my water change today, been so busy I just got it done. I’ll also take some full tank pics and pics of my crazy coral growth. I have corals that haven’t finished growing heads with new heads on those heads lol. I also have coralline growth all over the place. I still don’t know what kind of algae I have but it balls up and is very soft to the touch, you pull a bit and it just comes right off.

 

[brandon429]

Excellent. We don’t think that means bad params, or over feeding, it is just the path of maturation for white rocks systems. You are using the accessibility of the system to hand garden, this work reduces within two years price of fine reefing.

if you have the ability to occasionally lift out rocks and apply peroxide to the cleaned areas it should help with grow back prevention

 

[Daniel266jz]

Here is my FTS

 

[brandon429]

Daniel so happy for you! that’s a reef we all want, such a sharp maturation and deep colors there just perfect.