Im not sure what to do

[Str8linespeed]

I started a thread on here about Peroxide treatment/dosing because I have a Bryopsis and GHA problem. Well the rocks I took out and sprayed directly with 3% Peroxide cleared up, but any spot I missed has either grown GHA (slowly) or Bryopsis is popping up. Its not out of control by my thoughts (maybe 5 spots) and it seems to just stay dime size or smaller. Although, Im finding Bryopsis starting to show up in my substrate also. So I use a Turkey Baster and suck it up to remove it.

Here is the thing. None of the Bryopis has started on my established live rock. Its all on my new Pukani rock. I do however have a little bit of GHA on the established rock.

I thought I cured the rock long enough (6 weeks) when all my readings where at zero, but Im thinking now that it was not and the phosphates are still leaching. I cannot detect any with my Salifert test kit, but being that the algae is growing it has to be coming from somewhere. To help I am running a reactor with GFO, but its still growing.

My sump is built into my tank (Red Sea Max 250) so I do not have the room for Cheato.

So after saying all of that, Im debating about taking the new rock out of the tank and either soaking it in 50/50 of peroxide for a few minutes or just using Muratic acid, killing it, then cure it again. Thoughts on what direction I should go with the tank?

 

[Maritimer]

Maybe look into a bacteria-based product called "Vibrant"? It's fairly new to market, but a lot of folks have reported great success in the elimination of nuisance algaes.

~Bruce

 

[Str8linespeed]

Interesting stuff, thanks for the heads up. Im going to look into it a little more.

 

[RobZilla04]

Nothing is going to rid a tank of algae in just a few days. The only exception is harsh chemicals, but as you found even those don't work 100%.

Keep an eye on your other livestock particularly corals while taking rocks out to treat. You can be releasing lots of trapped nutrients which will take a few days to culminate into a problem. Test often (daily or every other day) would be my suggestion.

 

[ericarenee]

the likely reason your testing is not showing any nutrients is because of the large amount of algae you have. its consuming the nutrients ..

Your going to have to tackle it by starving it out.. I would not use any QUICK FIX Chemicals. they usually put your tank into a Dependent cycle on them and that can get costly and will eventually crash your tank because they are not fixing the problem ..

So things you can do.
Depending on corals you can lower you lighting cycles
Do bigger and frequent water changes with KNOWN 0 TDS Water ..
If you do not have a DSB You may need to Vacuum your sand bed do a small area with each water change.. DO NOT Do it all at once..
Run Micron filter socks or padding in your sump and change it out daily .
be sure you have high circulation and no dead spots the filter material will catch as much as possible..

If you stay on top of it . the algae and bacteria issues can be brought under control.. We have all been there
Competing algae and macro plants seem to be the popular trend right now..

 

[snorvich]

the likely reason your testing is not showing any nutrients is because of the large amount of algae you have. its consuming the nutrients ..

Your going to have to tackle it by starving it out.. I would not use any QUICK FIX Chemicals. they usually put your tank into a Dependent cycle on them and that can get costly and will eventually crash your tank because they are not fixing the problem ..

So things you can do.
Depending on corals you can lower you lighting cycles
Do bigger and frequent water changes with KNOWN 0 TDS Water ..
If you do not have a DSB You may need to Vacuum your sand bed do a small area with each water change.. DO NOT Do it all at once..
Run Micron filter socks or padding in your sump and change it out daily .
be sure you have high circulation and no dead spots the filter material will catch as much as possible..

If you stay on top of it . the algae and bacteria issues can be brought under control.. We have all been there
Competing algae and macro plants seem to be the popular trend right now..

Good advice.

 

[Str8linespeed]

Nothing is going to rid a tank of algae in just a few days. The only exception is harsh chemicals, but as you found even those don't work 100%.

Keep an eye on your other livestock particularly corals while taking rocks out to treat. You can be releasing lots of trapped nutrients which will take a few days to culminate into a problem. Test often (daily or every other day) would be my suggestion.

Good info, thanks

the likely reason your testing is not showing any nutrients is because of the large amount of algae you have. its consuming the nutrients ..

Your going to have to tackle it by starving it out.. I would not use any QUICK FIX Chemicals. they usually put your tank into a Dependent cycle on them and that can get costly and will eventually crash your tank because they are not fixing the problem ..

So things you can do.
Depending on corals you can lower you lighting cycles
Do bigger and frequent water changes with KNOWN 0 TDS Water ..
If you do not have a DSB You may need to Vacuum your sand bed do a small area with each water change.. DO NOT Do it all at once..
Run Micron filter socks or padding in your sump and change it out daily .
be sure you have high circulation and no dead spots the filter material will catch as much as possible..

If you stay on top of it . the algae and bacteria issues can be brought under control.. We have all been there
Competing algae and macro plants seem to be the popular trend right now..

Great info, thank you. To answer some of the statements.

-I had my lights on for 9.5 hours a day. I just lowered them to 8 hours a day mid last week.
-I have been doing water changes every 2 weeks. I'll starting doing them once a week.
-My water is RO/DI and at 0 TDS
-I am using filter floss and cleaning it daily if not twice a day. (its usually got nasty brown stuff on it.)
-I feel I have good circulation in the back and front of my rocks.

My one question for you about the sand bed... I only have on average a 1" sand bed (it varies depending on where my diamond goby wants to dig around). Why only vacuum a portion of the sand bed with each water change?

 

[ericarenee]

Good info, thanks




Great info, thank you. To answer some of the statements.

-I had my lights on for 9.5 hours a day. I just lowered them to 8 hours a day mid last week.
-I have been doing water changes every 2 weeks. I'll starting doing them once a week.
-My water is RO/DI and at 0 TDS
-I am using filter floss and cleaning it daily if not twice a day. (its usually got nasty brown stuff on it.)
-I feel I have good circulation in the back and front of my rocks.

My one question for you about the sand bed... I only have on average a 1" sand bed (it varies depending on where my diamond goby wants to dig around). Why only vacuum a portion of the sand bed with each water change?

I would buy some 100 micron filter pad and ditch that filter floss. it really does not hold enough and lets most small stuff right thru.. You just kinda need to be sure they are in a place where water can flow over them if they stop completely up they can. I keep a bunch of them around and when they are dirty i toss them into a straining that sits inside of a bucket.Then once a week i will toss them in the washer with a cup full of bleach . let them air dry and back in service. Much cheaper then re buying something.
Amazon example.. I have found them cheaper
https://www.amazon.com/Polishing-Fi...-1-spons&keywords=100+micron+filter+pad&psc=1

As far as sand. The sand traps detritus and uneaten food. As well as bacteria that is beneficial to your tank.When you clean it some of that trapped Nutrient gets mixed back into your water column. The micron filter pad will catch a lot of that and doing water changes after you vacuum will delete as well. Do i small amount at a time maybe a bit over a foot then next time over lap that area and clean further.. If you suck up some sand i would toss it and replace it with new Sand .. By time its time to clean the next section it will have built up bacteria...

The other thing that can help you but its a long term to establish is a DSB Deep sand bed in your sump If you have room.. I use 1.5 gallon buckets they are exactly 8 inches tall by i guess 10 inch diameter i have 4 of them full of fine fiji sand.. doing them in containers if one becomes a problem you can easily toss it.. just NEVER STIR THEM up..

of course i have a 75 gal display fuge (work in progress) looks like wild west algae fest riding a tornado.. but its growing well and i harvest some caulerpa each week ...

I think most people tackle reef issues head on all at once.. BIG Mistake.

ohh and since you already have algae issue Do not even consider vodka or vinegar dosing . Been there done that too.its good if your just starting to have issues or you just want to get it lower .wait until your algae is less of a issues if you wanna try. its a lot of testing .. I ended up Drinking more Rum because of it...

Like most that has done this for a long time. Almost anything that can go wrong with a tank has happened to me.. I used to constantly tinker with things thinking what i read someone else doing was better..
Better is put the right stuff in place and maintenance and ride it out .

My Biggest chore is cleaning the Beautiful coraline algae off the glass ..ohh and i have soft corals only right now because I AM Lazy..

 

[jccaclimber]

I had a mystery algae I couldn't get rid of for years. I went the H2O2 route and found that it laughed or came back like you said. I finally started to hit every patch of algae, even single strands, with H2O2 every day until it stopped coming back. This was done pumps off for about 10 minutes. At the start I would treat as much as possible until I hit 1 cc/gallon total dose, as things progressed I needed maybe 25% of that to treat all spots.

In conjunction with this my chaeto started growing and the LPS did better as the tank adapted to consuming those nutrients other ways.