Please help fix my tank!

[Chaser]

Hi all,

I was a happy reefer for 2 years, with a 40gal, 1 250w 10kMH, 4 happy clams, 4 fish, a dozen astrea, turbo, and cerith snails, and SPS and LPS corals.

Then we moved.

On the advise of my fishtank guy (who watches the tank when I'm out of town) I got rid of my DSB and switched to a 2" bed of aragonite.

Everyone survived the move and all seemed fine. and then...

I started to have a hair algae outbreak. I thought it would be a matter of reducing some overfeeding, but soon it spread to all the rocks and onto the corals.

I use RO/DI water with a TDS of 0. My nitrates, phosphates, and silicates all test unreadable (probably because the hair algae gets them first).

I've continued to use my Aqua C skimmer and hang-on refugium with caleurpa. I've replaced my bulbs and RO/DI filters. I've scrubbed the rocks as clean as I can, twice.

I tried a lawnmover blenny, but he's not interested in the algae.
Lastly, I've added phosguard to the sump.

I'm feeding mysis shrimp, only what the fish eat, every 3rd day.

Ca: 420
kH: 11.4
Temp: 78-80

I'm thinking of adding 60lbs of live sand to reestablish the DSB. I feel like I've done all I can to reduce the about of nutients going into the tank. I figure that since the only thing I've changed is the DSB, returning it would be good.

Any other ideas?

If you like the DSB idea, please tell me what I need to do to add 60lbs of sand. Cure? Wrinse? Spin?

Thanks for all the help you can offer.

Mike

 

[Anonymous]

Well few things are happening. essentially you are stating a new tank up since you moved it and replaced the sandbed. So the fauna that would normally consume excess waste and the denitrifying bacteria aren't there yet and I doubt you'd get much or as good denitrification with only a 2" aragonite sandbed.

I would switch back to a DSB, or add some finer sand to what you have though the original dsb was the better choice IMO.

Or just stick it out and hope nitrates don't become a problem.

Essenitally what I think is happening is the algae is consuming the excess p04 and no3 hence it's not being readable - something the original DSB was processing nicely.