Should i just restart?

[stewy14]

I had a tank exactly like that(just the algae) it was a 10 gallon, 40 astreas, and 1 turbo did it for me(for u, get more turbos, and maybe more astreas) and get a lot of emerald crabs! now check back in 2-5 days and most of the stuff will be gone

 

[Pvtgloss]

That's funny. Did you buy the same toilet brush or is that some clever photo shopping?

I had a four year hiatus due to a catastrophic tank failure. I surrendered ALL of my livestock as refugees to my LFS. They were great to take them in.

The fine folks at TBS and I had great email exchanges where I described my tank, goals, and dreams with them. They absolutely nailed it in my order. I totally suggest you start a dialog with them. You cannot go to their storage facility and hand pick rocks. It is not a retail facility. Probably for insurance stuff???

For your situation, I might order a TBS "Treasure Chest" to start a 10 or 15 gallon half way house. I like this package for this purpose: https://tbsaltwater.com/shop/pico-package/

Temporarily supplement with some ceramic media if you need more space for bacteria.

Scrub and transfer corals and what other livestock you can into the halfway house and then totally decon and clean your display. Slowly move rocks, corals and livestock back into the display, and plan the trip to Tampa for 20 to 30 pounds of premium live rock. Don't add sand until you have had a couple month to hunt and remove undesirable hitch hikers.

I know you are concerned about seeding the bad algae in the new tank, but I believe the reality is that real ocean live rock does not have available real estate for nuisance algae to take hold. See how it grows on the cord of my wave maker, but no where else?

I really wish you the best of luck. Go slow. Let me know if I can help...

Very helpful. I have to move the tank down stairs in a month or so. I'll probably take your route. Thank you
P.s. I bought the same brush

 

[NanoNana]

Very helpful. I have to move the tank down stairs in a month or so. I'll probably take your route. Thank you
P.s. I bought the same brush

My lettuce nudi ate voraciously. My chiton is still keeping his tower pristine. IDK what you have that they wouldn’t eat.
I was dosing a lot of phyto, ended up with a massive phyto bloom. Added UV to rid myself of the phyto bloom and now I’m afraid the nudibrach may starve because my algae isn’t really growing anymore.

 

[Pvtgloss]

I finished scrubbing the rocks last night and putting cuc back on the rocks. I'll updated next weekend.

 

[justdeb1107]

I hope it all works. Here is a pic of my algae-free tank I took today after doing a water change. I did end up chopping the one remaining clump of GHA off with some rock. Right now it's only being used as a frag tank and 1 month isolation for new fish.

 

[justdeb1107]

P.S. My phosphate was .05 today, nitrate 1.1. Never got the phosphate lower than .14 before I took half the rock out.

 

[Rappa]

I'm going through the same ordeal for the past 10 months with my 14 month old tank. Only difference is my tank is 6 feet long. My "Removal Sessions" used to take 8+ hours every 2 weeks. I am slowly getting a grasp on it, and I have only about 25% still growing in certain sections of the tank. I have noticed this though... which may help you. Every time I break out the tooth brush and scrub, I will immediately get an increase in Green Hair Algae! If I just stick to sucking it up into the filter sock in my sump, the next cleanup session has less GHA. I think when we start scrubbing the rocks clean, we are somehow spreading the seeds of this crap to all of the other rocks. I really just recently discovered this as I did a brushing during a cleanup and the tank back-tracked with a new bloom everywhere. Then I got to thinking, and I "think" I realized that every time I would do a hardcore cleanup session with the tooth brush, it would get worse. I could be wrong but I feel like this is the trend. Maybe for your next couple/few cleanups, just try pulling the long stuff out and let your urchins and snails snack on what's leftover. Every time I do this, all my CUC moves to the rocks immediately and starts munching! When the GHA is long, nothing goes near it. I'm super frustrated with this crap as well!!!!! I also used Liferock and Marco for my scape. My first tank with actual live-rock never had these issues. Maybe give the "no scrubbing removal" a try and see how it goes? Then at least I will know if I'm right or wrong.... Good luck man, I totally feel your pain...

 

[Solo McReefer]

The 'seeds' are already all over everything

I have a Caulerpa 'leaf' growing in my cheato reactor

I know I didn't put that in there. That's illegal

 

[Pvtgloss]

This algae is crazy. I've spent atleast 8hrs every Saturday scrubbing the rocks and time algae keeps growing back.
The pencil and tuxedo urchins, and the chitons won't get off the glass. If I move them they go straight back to the glass.
I did a fluconazole treatment again, no benefit.
Today, I'm goning to pull out all the rocks and scrub them in a Rubbermaid. I'm also ordering vibrant. If the algae starts appearing in 3 or 4 days I'm gonna hit it hard with vibrant. After that the rocks, coral and all, are getting thrown in tune woods and the tank is going to get bleached inside and out.
It's really not worth all the money spent in CUC that won't touch the algae and the extra 8 hrs each week scrubbing rocks.

 

[brandon429]

are you doing the peroxide direct application step, on the clean surfaces after the removal/that's key imo

those pics look great, truly do in post #124

if you want an inside scoop, the thousands of jobs we logged as rip cleans with that step all work about 90% of the time using babywater common 3% applied to those clean white surfaces after removal. it burns off remaining cells very well

but my close circle, and my own reef years ago, we did 35% because we're not playing around. 3% is kidglove burn, usually good enough

research 35% and its massive dangers before ever keeping in a home, but if you want to not play around after the rasping step that's my secret sauce.

also

in all rip clean jobs on file we advised no brush use to remove. that's pestling algae bits into the rock crevices/ we rasped out with a knife so we damaged and removed holdfasts/ but, those pics above are so darn clean it doesn't matter either way probably. that's a sick pic above/looks great

 

[brandon429]

instating all manner of trial (the fluconazole, any other things you want to throw at it) in the clean condition is what is setting your attempts here far apart from the masses.


the masses, by page 7, have been locked into complete frozen inaction and the tank looks like a forest.

but yours is clean, perfect coralline carefully kept, zero algae above, and you're having to work too much to keep it at bay but you still kept it at bay and your reef is thriving, vs crashing, and now has been de-aged by about ten years lol due to that mighty clean sandbed.

even though you are having a trial run on growback prevention you are physically not permitting the tank to go eutrophic

by pics, it looks as if you don't have a problem/ that's updated reefing. that's taking command of a tank, it will have to live now and can't choose otherwise. we work to lessen your work levels, but that reef is on functional life support we can see. everyone should reef that way. never own a reef so big you can't manhandle it into compliance, unless someone is the 1% reefer who can beat GHA in any iteration. I can't, I had to cheat burn mine with mild rocket oxidizer.

 

[brandon429]

I was in digital jail lockdown hooked to the floor like sloth on the site doldrums during the exact time the second post was made here, couldn't respond for a month.



Ironically, for defending methods used successfully here. I love that as pure unsolicited irony and indication of a naturally- balancing universe heh. From behind bars me and the guys were like: rip clean that bro all high fiving and stuff, couldn't post but saw you had the attitude from behind digital bars. It was sick to watch man then be able to follow up.


If i miss you again, only this time until we're eighty in which case I'll for sure be back: keep up the good fight bro!


in seeing the pic transition from eutrophic to not eutrophic by force with no hesitation, i emerged back as a happy proby.

this thread deserves to be linked to a lot of others to copy action. You can force a reef to comply if you want it bad enough.

 

[Pvtgloss]

are you doing the peroxide direct application step, on the clean surfaces after the removal/that's key imo

those pics look great, truly do in post #124

if you want an inside scoop, the thousands of jobs we logged as rip cleans with that step all work about 90% of the time using babywater common 3% applied to those clean white surfaces after removal. it burns off remaining cells very well

but my close circle, and my own reef years ago, we did 35% because we're not playing around. 3% is kidglove burn, usually good enough

research 35% and its massive dangers before ever keeping in a home, but if you want to not play around after the rasping step that's my secret sauce.

also

in all rip clean jobs on file we advised no brush use to remove. that's pestling algae bits into the rock crevices/ we rasped out with a knife so we damaged and removed holdfasts/ but, those pics above are so darn clean it doesn't matter either way probably. that's a sick pic above/looks great

@brandon429
The algae grew back since the last cleaning. Every Saturday it's back. Today I'm about to pull out each Rock and scrub in a Rubbermaid, rinse and then apply hydrogen peroxide to the areas.
Here's today's Pics.

It's not crazy bad. But this is a week's growth. So if I skip a week of scrubbing it gets crazy growth. And nothing eats it. I've starved urchins, sea hares, lawnmower blennys, Turbo Snails all the Snails. Tangs and mollies won't touch it. I've tried every chemical except vibrant.

 

[Solo McReefer]

Tang?

Filefish?

To paraphrase Brandon, it doesn't look all that bad

Microbe Lift?
MicrobacterClean?
ProdibioDigest?

 

[Pvtgloss]

Tang?

Filefish?

To paraphrase Brandon, it doesn't look all that bad

Yeah but if I don't spend eight hours scrubbing every Saturday then it gets really bad.

 

[Solo McReefer]

Yeah but if I don't spend eight hours scrubbing every Saturday then it gets really bad.

Get some snails and hermits to help you, perhaps

Get an algae reactor, if the macro algae eats first the GHA starves

That "8 hours" sounds like hyperbole. Obviously it includes a big water change, which you should be doing already. And doesn’t include cleaning your glass. If there is no algae on the glass, your CUC is not going to be eating off it

Your back glass too, scrape that off. The CUC will be forced to eat off the rocks. You have to think like a snail here

 

[brandon429]

and the lighting adjustment


we find in great standout pattern that the very next move is 8 weeks sustained reduction in overall light power compared to current state that aids plants

corals have not been harmed by rather decent reductions, if we're dealing in the most uber soft skin acro tanks then maybe can consider but for 99% er's, taking out any white led's that run to 0 and reducing reds/greens focusing on blues and at -20% less intensity over current levels, is powerful in growback care.

the lighting tends to be overblown in these areas and corals adapt to far far less because the feed they get makes up for not blasting them with the worlds most ideal par.

lemme post something I want to show by scale. this is my friend Maritza the vase reef's tank

if anyone goes and looks up the Dec 2017 edition of coral magazine, pico reefs edition (its avail online free reef2rainforest lookup) you will see this vase below as Maritza's article, it's still alive. it's ten years old and has in my opinion the highest most top shelf collection of sps and lps in any pico in the world. it's the most coral cost per gallon that can be reached in reefing, and it's going on 11 yrs running

zero algae, ever not once


look at this shading. I try this trick on my bowl and my corals lighten out too much, mine needs light much stronger I don't know why it's tuned that way

but maritza has a kessil a160 running on lowest setting, all blue, hung up high, and her bowl shade rate is just barely above low planted tank dusk level no joke

that's a powerful powerful GHA control mechanism, to drop lighting like that and sustain it long enough to undo plant cycling. held long enough, you can make a reef absolutely stop growing bad algae and grow only corals.

I used brute force and daily 35% peroxide rasping in 2009 to force the reef into submission lol. but maritza just coaxed theirs with sheer low blue lighting to have never had the battle in the first place.

I use this tank as an example in tough jobs as someone who does not sacrifice coral quality for very low intensity levels, sustained now for about 5 yrs. they've been running a kessil about that long on the tank.

hope that helps. I wanted to give real feedback effort and direct example feedback based on known successes since you took the time to bootcamp that reef into shape until society finds or coaxes a better way. thats the right way to reef, those who can't luck into it can still get the figurative baseball bats out and hammer some compliance.



I estimate that to be three thousand dollars worth of various rare sps frags, ten years running, in a gallon fishbowl. I am 100% sure Maritza would not sell that vase for three grand, that coral is worth a lot more for darn sure.

 

[brandon429]

I'm all for fluconazole shots

and cuc added (mind the disease vector risk if $ fish present)

reef flux, vibrant, any preventative step as long as it's applied in the clean condition like pic #124.

forcing a tank to look like that even if it tends the other way simply force-CPR's it into compliance, such a cool tank saving method few will ever use. I have already linked this to some threads so they can see endpoints after attaining that fine status above. well done in my opinion among challenges

 

[Pvtgloss]

@brandon429
Just finished my first rock. Took about an hour and 45 minutes. Dental tools, stiff brush, syringe with hydrogen peroxide. This is my easy rock cuz I didn't have no coral on it. I don't know what to do about the big rocks of coral

 

[Pvtgloss]

Tang?

Filefish?

To paraphrase Brandon, it doesn't look all that bad

Microbe Lift?
MicrobacterClean?
ProdibioDigest?

Yep, all of the above. Waste away. Razor. Everything I could find on the shelves I've tried.