Common from what i've seen,

sand or not - no need or requirement to put it in an immature tank. Same as alot of things, patience.

hey do you have an update for us : )

yeah I'm growing a lawn on the front of my tank


Nitrites still reading 1.0 really wish this would drop

I've been home sick last two days (it's a workplace tank) so had abit of a suprise, had gone through the brown and started on the green when last it saw it and now covered in it.

Also in the middle at the front of the rock was what looked like 2 small dug out areas of white sand (most of has purple and green on it) I've pushed the sand back up to the rock to see if it happens again, could I have hitchhikers? Nearly all the rock was dry rock but I do have acouple of small pieces from someone elses tank and did a water change last Saturday with NSW instead of ASW like normal.

Ok just tested this morning and reading 0 across the board for Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrite

After a 50% water change and algae removal with a sharp blade, whats the best way to get it off the rock or should I let it just die off?

youll probably have to let it die off. some fish or snails will eat it too.
anything you do to the rock to clean it might kill the bacteria?
i dont think a water change wouldve helped personally - just giving the algae a fresh supply of nutrients...

Id reduce the lighting hours, and get a phosphate remover into the filter. My phosphates tested at 0, but i started running phos-gard and the algae started reducing the next day....

theres probably a better way, but im just following logic - to get it to die off, starve it of light and nutrients.

I've currently got a damsel in my tank and got given some small soft corals and an anemome when I picked him up, the guy was closing down his tank and moving the next day.

The leather coral that you can see in the above pics and small mushrooms all looked like they were doing good til last Friday, now the leather does not open up and the mushrooms look abit sick. The cycle only showed done on Mon and still shows clear with new testing today, I did a did a 50% water change last night with ASW and cleaed out some of the hair aglae but there still alot on the rock.

Any ideas on what need to do.

Also just received some strontium, Magnesium and iodide supplements today that I got off trademe 2nd hand if they may help.

They probably didnt appreciate such a big water change... especially considering there wouldve been a change in salinity and temperature probably too...

hows it all coming along mate.

Still a big mess of green, have small bag of Phosphate remover in the aquaclear as well as some Seachem Purigen and have had my skimmer working well for the last 4-5 days.

It's not really showing any sign of going yet, it's worse than the photos i put up, not much new growth just alot longer.

Patience, it'll go, and when it does it will be quick.

Nothing good happens fast in a marine tank, an oldie, but true.

yeah lol, it's hard when you have to look at it all day though (It's setup next to my desk at work)

Get some astrea snails, or even some periwinkles from a rock pool somewhere - they last for a time in warm water, so maybe swap them out every month or so.

You should pay about $10 per astrea snail if you can find someone selling some.

Wow thats a great price Puttptt iv seen them as much as $60 on trademe and even other forum members have offered them to me for $25+

that does depend on who is selling them