LF Skimmer Advice

[jostafew]

3 week update.

Status: tank still not pretty, but very little cyano growth, diatoms significantly reduced (still wide spread, but not as thick), GHA is still there but it is hurting. I can tell the GHA is not healthy because it was coming off the rocks easier during the big cleanup tonight than it has in the past.

Changes: brought up the Alk a bit (was on the low side), continued with usual water change schedule (still struggling a bit to find time for the tank), but the big change is that I began carbon dosing. I was considering bio balls but after some reading I felt that vodka or vinegar would be easier to manage and cheaper to run, and generally gave better results. So pulled out the dosing pump, grabbed a jug of vinegar, and began dosing 7.5mL once per day (50gal total system volume). After one week I increased to two doses, and after 2 wks I increased to three. I just finished the 3rd week, and no sign of bacterial problems so I just increased to four doses per day. As much as I would like a sand sifting star, aside from the odd person's own experience all my reading tells me that it's going to be tough on the star and tough on my sand bed so I think I will hold off on that one. I do intend to pick up a goby to sift the sand though (orange diamond or similar) the next time I can get out to J&L.

The skimmer is pulling more junk out of the tank now so that tells me that the bacterial colonies are growing and as I harvest them I'm slowly pulling nutrients out of the tank. I'm sure that in the past with such established algae in the tank, the flora would consume any nitrate / phosphate / silicate before the other processes could take care of it, hence why I've never measured any detectable amounts of these substances in the tank. I feel like I'm seeing a slow and steady improvement now and will continue on this path for a while. Will update in a few weeks again.

Once more, thanks for everyone's input.