Official Bacterial Driven Thread

Mark, sure some things are growing but more is still dying all the time.   I have sold a few corals but everytime i trim a colony, the frags i would make would do great but a week or so later my entire colony would die. I have a pile of colonies in my basement.   So I even gave up on selling corals for the time being because it caused to many problems.
There hasn't been any posts on my problems because I keep researching and trying things in hopes I can get it figured it out. My nitrates are at zero( before 10ppm). My frag tank has been overtaken by hair algae and briopsis, I purchased a larger skimmer, numerous tangs (that die because they won't eat the algae) snails, crabs, seahares, and do daily algae removal by hand. However, I still lose the battle. My p04 are way to high and the only thing that seems to make any impact is carbon dosing but that too has hit a wall. II am hoping Ilby increasing my dose they begin to lower again. Obviously here is something that is causing the high p04's and more and more I believe the problem is coming from my "Utah" sand. Maybe I didn't get it from the right place but the only difference from my 120 that I upgraded from 2 years ago is the sand. I never had any real issue with my 120 for almost 5 years then I upgraded and within a month of the switch my tank crashed. I had the 150 setup with only the sand for almost 3 months before I even made the swap to ensure I was completely cycled. I really am at my wits end and about 4 months ago gave myself the ultimatum that if I cant get things fixed by the end of January it is time to start selling my system off.

*I forgot to add that I am not dosing C

Edited by chk4tix - December 16 2011 at 8:20pm

Ryan Thompson wrote: Keith, I would pull the sand out over a month or two and go barebottom for a little bit. My little nano started getting some serious hair algae about 6 weeks ago. I tried snails, crabs, water changes, chaeto, lights out and manual removal. It never quit coming back. I don't have any fish and don't feed my tank. Where are the nutrients coming from then??? I finally did a 5 gallon water change and added 2 cups of hydrogen peroxide to my old water and soaked the algae covered rocks for about 10 minutes. I have also been dosing it straight into my tank. Hair algae is totally gone and things look so much better. May want to check that out.

Thanks for the advice. I have slowly removed some sand but I have a few sand dwelling fish that I probably need to catch and sell before I can pull it all out.   However, i am not against having a bare bottom tank either.

Mark Peterson wrote: IMO, it would be premature to go to all the effort of pulling the sand, unless you are pretty sure that it was contaminated. Which area did you collect it from and did you screen and wash it? 22 caliber shells have been found in the sand in some areas.I'm thinking we ought to continue this in another thread. I wish I could come visit, but if you would like to place a full tank pic in a new thread or in a PM to me, I'm sure we can get to the "bottom" of the problem. Pun intended.

I will post pics in a new thread, sorry for getting a little of track...now back to the original topic.

kellerexpress wrote: Decided to bump this thread.  I have recently started dosing a carbon source in my tank and wanted to track/share my results.  After a ton of research and debating which method to use I finally decided on using Vinegar.   For those interested, when using vinegar you can still follow the dosing manual for vodka found on the link on first page of this thread, with 1 change: Vinegar is 8-fold more dilute than vodka.  Some take your starting dose for vodka and multiply it by 8 and you have your starting vinegar dose.   The reasons I chose vinegar are the following: -- The carbon source found in vinegar(acetate) is less likely to result in unwanted cyano when compared to vodka(ethanol). I cant explain the chemistry behind this but Randy Holmes-Farley says so and I believe him --Vinegar is crazy cheap! --Ease of use.  I am simply adding this to my top-off reservoir, no daily dosing and no reactor to manage.  I realize that top-off can vary some due to changes in evaporation but my tank is pretty consistent.  I am also starting off dosing conservatively and feel that the minor changes from day to day in evaporation will have a minimal effect on my results. --As an added bonus Vinegar also increases the potency of my kalkwasser in my top-off.   Its been 2 weeks since I began adding Vinegar to my tank and I like what I see so far.  Water is VERY clear and skimmate production has increased. The first couple days I had a very small bacterial bloom(not cyano) in my sump, but it disappeared shorty after and hasnt returned. Corals seem to be happy with great polyp extension, and some nuisance algae that Ive been dealing with for a while is slowly decreasing.  Ill keep everyone updated with my results.   Â

Glad to hear Kevin! I will dosing vodka again when my new tank is setup and can't wait. I've thought about using vinegar as well but I have half a bottle of vodka left to use still.

I don't dose mb7 or any additional products like that right now. I'm all about simplicity and I'm hoping I can get away without it, and so far so good.
Dosing vinegar can lower PH some, according to Randy Holmes Farley, 1 mL of distilled white vinegar per gallon of aquarium water will cause approximately an initial pH drop of about 0.3 pH units. I add way less than that. Adding the vinegar mid to late afternoon of the light cycle when pH is high and O2 is also high will help if you are worried about it. This isn't an issue when using it mixed with a kalk solution as the high PH should neutralize these effects.
Hope this helps :)

Edited by kellerexpress - March 03 2012 at 5:08am

Sorry, one other question.  Do you keep chaeto when you carbon dose, or does it remove too many nutrients for the chaeto?

My chaeto is still alive at this point, but like Ryan said I expect it to eventually die off.

I use kalk from BRS in my ato container, along with some vinegar. The amount of kalk to use will depend on your tanks cal/alk demand. A fully saturated kalk solution is 2 teaspoons per gallon of ro/di water.

I tested phosphate again this morning, just to make sure I didn't do something wrong.  It says 0.00 both times I tested it.  I also tested alk and calcium.  Alk=10, calcium=500

That is what I am using.  I used the api test kit and the hanna checker.  The hanna checker is the one reading 0.00