Ford's 75 (6 months old): New Additions! Pg. 3

Wow very informative! Thanks for the advice. Also just wondering does iron, in high enough amounts to cause cyano, harm corals?

Sounds simple enough. Just wondering though, whats the harm in doing larger water changes? Water gets to clean? Thanks.

Also, should i maybe take off the GFO for a few weeks, then resume usage with a smaller dose? My old tank had no GFO ever and it loved to grow hair algae

 

OK, I just went through the same thing. Nitrates 0, phos 0, and everything else at near perfect levels. I had/have some cyano going on and thought it was a good idea to start running GFO to get that crap out of the water. The GFO cause sps to bleach, zoas to start closing, LPS to open a little less and so forth. I took the GFO offline and did about a 40 gallon water change (160 gallon system). After that, everything is starting to look much better. There's still cyano on my sandbed (5 months) and honestly, I believe it will go away. It's just one of those things that happens. Another thing I have been doing is vinegar dosing and think that my corals are starting to really thrive with all of the extra bacteria in the water. Polyp extension is better and color is just getting better. I would start by getting that gfo offline.

 

Good to know, have you gone back to gfo at all with smaller doses? or just completely stopped using it? how have you kept your phosphates from going too high? thanks!

 

I just took the gfo offline about 2 weeks ago. I had a similar incident about 2 months ago and took GFO offline. I went back about 2 weeks later with a much smaller dose and had the same results. Honestly, you have a great skimmer and plenty of macroalgae. The vinegar also helps to keep phosphates low due to the increase in phosphate consuming bacteria in the water. BTW, my chaeto is starting to take off again.

 

awesome! i sorta want my cheato to grow some, whats involved with vinegar dosing? i have never really heard of it. i just use it to clean all my pumps, equipment, skimmer once in a while.

 

I had very minimal cyano until I started gfo. Now my bandbed gets nasty with cyano within a few days even low nitrates and phosphates are zero. I'm pretty sure it's the extra iron and took gfo offline a few days ago awaiting to see the results

 

Same here I started gfo ad my Zoas and leathers closed for weeks and lps opened less. Even after a few months of trying to see if things would adjust and running it at half dose things don't see right so I took it offline and did a small wc. Awaiting to see if things improve

 

wow this is so interesting to me, something that is such a staple for so many people in this hobby could be causing much more harm then good! how did gfo get so popular when it can have such negative side effects?

I just took my dual gfo/carbon reactor offline, i am doing a small water change tomorrow and will try out the airline vacuum on a small portion of my sand bed to see how that helps out. Also, i am reducing my lighting period and feeding a bit more often. Be sure to post any updates to the gfo issue as this seems to be quite problematic for several of us. I will be posting the results i witness on this thread as i see changes occur.

Again, thanks for all who have helped thus far. This has been interesting to say the least .

- Ford

 

Lps like dirtier water. Sps like cleaner water.

 

Some pics!



Lookin a bit better today



Torch very happy, a bit pale though:



Hard at work:



Mangroves:



Shroom Babies:





Red linckia starfish:



Doin work!:



Watermelon Zoas:



Lil Froggie:



Thought this was sorta cool:



and this..



and this too...



FTS:





GFO has been off for 24 hours now, i have already been feeding heavier as well. Also Tuesday is my water change day, this week i did about half the water i usually change, about 8 gal vs. 15gal. I manually removed my patch of cyano, which has not come back yet. In addition i vacuumed the very top millimeter or so of the sand bed, sand looks so much better already.