Five And A Half Months Old
The tank is now five and a half months old and I'm pleased with its progress for the most part so far.
The blue green cyano on the sand bed is persisting but is definitely improving. there is now zero GHA in the weir and virtually zero GHA anywhere in the tank or sump now.
All water parameters are consistently spot on and the coral and fish are all happy and healthy. The new Copperband Butterfly is still not eating from the water column during the normal broadcast feeding but he is picking at the rock work and is alert, plump and healthy. So he must be eating the fan worms and pods etc from the rock work. I have glued some LR to a spare magnet glass cleaner and have been putting live black worms in the crevices of that piece of LR in the hope that he'll start eating that. So far no luck yet but I'm not too worried at this stage. He was eating in the LFS so I'm sure he will eventually get the hang of it again.
I've been doing some reading on the Refield ratio and its impact on the risk of algae and cyano. As I understand it, the 16:1 rule states that nitrates need to be 16 times higher than phosphates and that a small reading on both, in a 16:1 balance, is actually healthy for your corals. Currently my phosphates and nitrates both read zero (Hanna and Salifert tests) and have been undetectable for several months. According to the ratio, my zero balances increase the risk of blue green cyano and my tank is a good example of that. I have started using with Coral Snow and Zeobac as a means of reducing the cyano and there is a definite improvement. I've also removed the Phosguard in the hope that I can get a slight phosphate reading. I've also been feeding more heavily to see if I can get a small nitrate reading but my skimmer is so efficient that I can't get anything other than a zero nitrate reading. With that said, I'd rather have a zero reading on phosphates and nitrates than a massively high reading so I can't complain.:)
The blue green cyano on the sand bed is persisting but is definitely improving. there is now zero GHA in the weir and virtually zero GHA anywhere in the tank or sump now.
All water parameters are consistently spot on and the coral and fish are all happy and healthy. The new Copperband Butterfly is still not eating from the water column during the normal broadcast feeding but he is picking at the rock work and is alert, plump and healthy. So he must be eating the fan worms and pods etc from the rock work. I have glued some LR to a spare magnet glass cleaner and have been putting live black worms in the crevices of that piece of LR in the hope that he'll start eating that. So far no luck yet but I'm not too worried at this stage. He was eating in the LFS so I'm sure he will eventually get the hang of it again.
I've been doing some reading on the Refield ratio and its impact on the risk of algae and cyano. As I understand it, the 16:1 rule states that nitrates need to be 16 times higher than phosphates and that a small reading on both, in a 16:1 balance, is actually healthy for your corals. Currently my phosphates and nitrates both read zero (Hanna and Salifert tests) and have been undetectable for several months. According to the ratio, my zero balances increase the risk of blue green cyano and my tank is a good example of that. I have started using with Coral Snow and Zeobac as a means of reducing the cyano and there is a definite improvement. I've also removed the Phosguard in the hope that I can get a slight phosphate reading. I've also been feeding more heavily to see if I can get a small nitrate reading but my skimmer is so efficient that I can't get anything other than a zero nitrate reading. With that said, I'd rather have a zero reading on phosphates and nitrates than a massively high reading so I can't complain.:)
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