pokerfish
daily puffer
I humbly request your valued opinions...first,some backround,,,revamped my 55 gallon FOWLR that had been running empty (no fish) for, roughly, a year.Tank had lots of algea in it and I periodically scraped it down.stirred the sand to make it look decent for my monthly poker game. I ran my HOB Aquaclear 500 continuosly but did little else...I knew nothing about keeping salt water and was ready to quit...I decided to give it another shot...after a few big water changes,adding some live and base rock, my tank cycled and was left with normal parameters with 40ppm nitrates...got a pair of oscellaris clowns, converted my filter to a minifuge with rock rubble and cheato,purchased t5 4 bulb ( 2 10k 2 actinic) fixture and started an algea bloom (bubbles in san and all over rocks)....thought it was diatoms and I started 20% water changes (using poland springs distilled water) bi weekly. Cheato was growing in mini fuge but gave way to a purple slime that migrated into tank and what I thought were diatoms was coming up like carpet...mini fuge was slime factory so I took off light and took out cheato and run it with rubble and a bag of carbon. ....nitrates are zero (woohoo! Didn't think that was possible for me!), all parameters are good but cyano comes back immediatly after water changes( suck it all up during change) in the highest flow areas!
So, I gotta have phosphates , right? I bought a tesy kit today, and some Phosban to put in a media bag in the Aquaclear, expecting to get a positive phosphate reading...nope...zero...source water(poland springs distilled) zero....the cyano( or whatever it is} is a much lighter color (green and yelowish to almost clear) and a little less voluminous. So,finally, heres my question....are phosphates leeching out old rocks and maybe not showing up on test cause they gettin used up by waning cyano outbreak? Should I use the Phosban for a few days, or should I hold the line and ride it out?
Side note: I have had my purple mushrooms for over a month and although they have grown alot in size, they have not spread..nor has the coraline that is on the rock the mushrooms came with...any relation to cyano/algea problem?
Thanks in advance for your always valued advice...
So, I gotta have phosphates , right? I bought a tesy kit today, and some Phosban to put in a media bag in the Aquaclear, expecting to get a positive phosphate reading...nope...zero...source water(poland springs distilled) zero....the cyano( or whatever it is} is a much lighter color (green and yelowish to almost clear) and a little less voluminous. So,finally, heres my question....are phosphates leeching out old rocks and maybe not showing up on test cause they gettin used up by waning cyano outbreak? Should I use the Phosban for a few days, or should I hold the line and ride it out?
Side note: I have had my purple mushrooms for over a month and although they have grown alot in size, they have not spread..nor has the coraline that is on the rock the mushrooms came with...any relation to cyano/algea problem?
Thanks in advance for your always valued advice...