I just did the 20% water change and turned down my skimmer so it might actually start skimming something. Haven't added the carbon yet and keeping the gfo reactor off for now as well.

I noticed yesterday the table cover was leaking a tan colour light through so I put a couple blankets on top and its now black.

Three more days and ill take the cover off and see the results. Hopefully it goes away for a while so I can enjoy my tank.

Day 3 now.

Do you think it'd be okay to turn half my lights on for like 20 minutes to feed the fish? Feeling guilty about having a totally black tank.

Today is day 5 of black out.

I took the cover off this morning and ran half the bulbs for about 45 minutes. Hopefully that doesn't screw everything up.

I did not notice any brown stringy crap, which is good but ill do the one more day of black out to be sure.

I fed my fish and my maxi mini.

I cleaned a power head.

I removed a netting that I installed at the overflow to prevent my peppermint shrimp at the time from getting sucked down. The netting I think did more harm than good since detritus and other gunk would just collect on the screen.

I noticed my skimmer hasn't produced anything in the last few days. I'm thinking my water is really clean right now from the previous water change and not feeding anything. Lots of bubbles in the skimmer, just no foam at the top being produced.

So you see the slime with snotty bubbles anymore? I would probably do another water change after you take the cover off.

I did not see any brown snotty stuff. Mind you it usually came out after the lights have been on for a bit.

I have water already mixed up for a water change tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be the big reveal! Lights will be on and hopefully no reappearance of the evil brown crap.

good luck , are you running your phos media??

No I'm not running the phos reactor, I'll do a test and see what it is. My Duncan was opening up this morning which is good. I'm wondering if I was stripping too much out of the water before, I was running quite a bit of gfo. I'm going to add carbon this morning as well, I don't have a reactor for it just in a nylon sock.

its possible but i doubt it , i run on a 25g tank what some people run in a year for gfo. im running about a half a reactor full of gfo that goes fast.

now its possible as a whole, to be stripping too many things out , but theres always going to be a tiny bit phoshate always being produced or added....if there wasnt you would have no life in your tank and it would all be dead;)


how much at what brand are you using??


changing the carbon out for new stuff is a good idea.

do you run socks??

Ya I run a filter sock and change it out every few days when it starts overflowing.

I had about 2 cups of brs gfo in the reactor.

I'm also hoping that the cheato I've added will aid in phosphate removal.

Phosphate right now is .08