Quote:
Originally posted by dbui
Hi Hoang,
Congrat! on your TOTM! I have some questions which you had mention about on your forums.
mysterious RTNs, crazy algae blooms, stubbornly browned-out SPS, if you have any solution to these problem can you send it to me dungbui1@yahoo.com. I think I have these problem in my tank specially the crazy red algae blooms and Stubbornly browned-out.
Thanks
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dbui,
honestly, when facing with those problems, I often tried a bunches of things to try to resolve them... And many times i don't have the patient to try one 'solution' at a time; so when the problems were fixed I wasn't really sure which one fixed it.. could be one of the changes, or a combination of them, or just lucky, or sometimes the problems just disappear themselves that I had no clue why
However, I'll try to give you some of my 2cents on some potential 'solution' or causes of those problems:
1/ Red algea blooms: may be due to high nutrient or feeding in your tank. However I once time had a wierd red algea from the Bali culture that would grow like crazy even when i cut way back on feeding and do lot of water changes.. In this case, I found the best solution is to find the right grazers for that algea. The best grazers are the tangs.
- In my experience, purple tang and yellow tang are good for those red algea, turf green algea, brown algea...
- Naso tang: is excellent for a weird type of algea that no other tangs would eat like dictyota and another type of brown algea that grow like waffles that i don't rememeber the name.
- sailfin tang is good for hair algea.
- and Mexican turbo snails are good the most of the above algea!
So you may want to try a combination of these grazers to keep your algea in check (and you may have to do trial and error to find out the right grazer for specific algea)
2/ Stuborn brown SPS: as the name said - this a really stuborn problem
However, I found that when the tank is still new (less than 1 year), the biological system of the tank is not stable so it's hard to get the more delicate sps to color up. But once your tank mature and the tank parameters are stable, most of the SPS will color up. There willl be some really stuborn ones that may never color up in your tank
.. In this case, the solution may be just get rid of it
IMO, first requirement for SPS tank is nitrate level to be zero (non detectable) and low phosphate. (When you tank is mature, these two parameters are pretty much taken care of - not much effort needed to keep them in check)
Next is to make sure the other tank parameters (mainly dKH, Calc and Mg) stable by regular dosing (manually or by calc rxtr, kalk rxtr).
Then, frequent water change (preferred weekly) is another helpful practice to export the extra nutrient and replenish the trace elements for the tank.
Again, these are just suggestions based on my experience. you will find lots of different methods from other people that will also work. Hope this help
