[dinor2]

Thanks jimw639, that is very logical advice which I will take! However, I DID do a no-no and got three nassarias snails to help with stirring the sand and eating the detrius... and two more tiny peppermint shrimp so there's four of those guys now and YES, there are TONS of those anemones ALL OVER my dt!

I keep telling myself that I know this hobby requires patience but when I decided to get the two more shrimp, I felt it made sense since even after they get those aptasia under control they're great for eating leftover foods as well.

As for my nitrates, I am pretty sure that my tank is just going thru a second cycle; even though I cured the new batch of 50lbs lr before adding it i'm sure that has something to do with it all cycling again, and so far it's not going above 20ppm and my cuc seems to be hanging in there. The one I'm worried about the most is the blenny, he seems fine at times then stressed out at others.

I'm going to go out on a limb and see what happens if I leave the water alone for five days while testing the nitrates each day. If this is indeed another cycle, I'm guessing removing bacteria with the water changes isn't helping it cycle any faster.

Thanks so much for your advice, not even dreaming of adding corals till the nitrates are down and aptasia are gone. (Although, I'm still dreaming of what corals to put in and where they'll be in my dt!).

Thanks again,
Dana