I am thinking of rmeoving my 10-11" DSB from my rubbermaid 150 gal refuge, input?

[JIM260]

I have six tanks linked to the 150 gal refuge for a total system water volume of around 550 gals. The fuge has a large amount of cheato and invert cleaners and the main 300 has lots of live rock with a low stocking level yet I have 15-25 ppt nitrate. top off is automatic r/o.

I know the dsb topic is widely debated, just thought someone could give input for my specific setup.

[SCR]

How long has the DSB been in use.

[JIM260]

Good question with a multifaceted answer. It was originally in the main 300 at around 5-6" depth for 3 years. It is southdown sand and i didnt like the look of the dsb or the fine sand blowing all over all the time so i removed it, put 1-2 inch carib sea in the main and put the southdown in the fuge which is smaller so it equated to around 10" DSB.

This part might be key. When I cycled the tank 4 years ago i cycled 200 lbs of UNCURED LIVE ROCK IN THE TANK WITH THE DSB thinking the uncured would have more life to seed the tank. I now believe this was a bad move.The algea outbreak was the worst i have ever had in a new tank. It took a while for things to stabilize. I am sure there were lots of nutrients absorbed by the DSB during this time. Do you think they maxed out the dsb's"storage" even though it was shoveled out and moved to the refuge? (which is still part of the system).

Thank you for the help

[samtheman]

Are you having problems?

[JIM260]

in the last 6 months a good amount of green hair algea in the main tank and I develop film algea on the glass that is noticable 1 day after cleaning it. It used to take a few days to do this.