[Michael Hoaster]

Yesterday, I removed some dinos, cyano, and ulva from the back wall, but not the grasses, which weren't too coated. This produced a rather large export. My shipment of 1000 pods came and I added a small, red macro I found at my LFS as well. I ordered a few more macros and snails from GCE too. More puzzle pieces.

I've been re-reading my old thread. It's particularly interesting to read posts at around the 2-6 month mark. They sound eerily similar to what I'm posting now. Even the puzzle metaphor gets tossed around! I had a brutal cyanobacteria infestation that I struggled with for three months, before finally giving in and using Chemiclean. I combined that with blackouts, manual removal and water changes, and I still wasn't completely out of the woods.

Also in that time frame, I added the reproducing mini strombus snails. I only started with around eight or ten of them, so it took months for them to reproduce to the point that they made a difference. But they did make a difference! I now believe that they were likely the key puzzle piece in my battle with algae. Still, they were only one piece. I added pods, live sand, live mud and live rock soon thereafter.

I'm hoping that this time around, with more players in place, earlier in the process of maturation, maybe I'll get out of Algaetown a bit sooner this time. Supplying the newly-forming ecosystem with diversity, and then stepping back, letting Nature work her magic, seems to be the right course of action.

It would be an interesting experiment to set up two identical tanks, with identical herbivore and detrivore additions. One tank (A) gets all the aquarist's attention, with algae removal etcetera, and the other (B) gets none. How would they differ after one year? I suspect they wouldn't be very different! Sure, tank A would look better after maintenance days, in the interim, but after one year, I believe Nature's influence would be greater than a year's worth of 'aquarium work'. This reenforces my belief that no matter what methods we choose as aquarists, if we are patient enough, Nature makes it work. I can think of no other explanation for so many different methods producing successful aquariums. Miraculous!