Is this Safe (Modified Rock Cooking) to Deal with Past Algae/Cyana Problems

[Wally.B]

Dude, honestly its a battle we all will fight, I had algae issues for a long time in my old 72 gallon, finally went away, what I began to do, was simply add a GFO reactor, dose Mg and siphon off any detritus I saw. I bought an amazing cuc too. Look into a fromia sp sea star. not to popular in the aquarium trade but ive got one in my 20 and three in my 150. Red with black tips. They also eat cyno, but unlike seahares, who are known to eat cyno and algae only, these guys eat detritus and other food stuffs. Very slow movers. But if they die they do not emit that poison that sea hares do. Its a perk. There are these poly filters that remove everything from the water column, excess organics, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate phosphate, you may want to consider that until your issue goes away. I know when I added mine, my protein skimmer went NUTS!! As far as sand bottom, I like it because I feel it does aid in general biodiversity to your tank, Maybe not the easiest to clean. But no more than an inch and a half you shouldn't be facing any issues with buildup as long as you have no stagnant areas. cyno is stubborn and will just take time, but I would definitely run GFO, the Poly pad and make sure flow is good. do you have a refugium? that could help for sure. I grew calurpa and still do in my 20 and I pulled softball size portions out weekly. Good source of nutrient removal. I don't like dosing things like vinigar or vodka because they are not stable and will alter your water chemistry. Mg is a tad risky but doesn't cause a huge swing plus its hard to overdose on.

Yes, I do have a refugium , if you can call it one. My Rubbermaid sump has a bunch of live rock in it with GFO, Sock with Carbon and a Mangrove for decoration. A couple of snails and a hermit crab. I don't run a light, but room is very bright from a 200W MH lights from a nearby tank in sump room.

I do plan on adding some macro Algae to the sump. Won't go with Calupra this time since I did a long time ago. This time it will try Cheato algae.

I am also planning on enhancing the single rubber maid sump by having two rubber maids with a Bulkhead connection between both. Kind of like a baffle in my old Glass Sump. Plus I am planning to build an algae srubber.

Here was my 65 Gallon water reservoir years ago, in addition to a smaller sump. Calupra grew like crazy, but I had no algae problems in main tank

 

[tmz]

I'd put the rock in a curing bin with a powerhead and new salt water. Check the PO4 if it goes up after a few days then the rock is probably leaching it. Remove PO4 from the water continuously for a week or two via gfo or lanthanum chloride until you get low PO4 readings.

That takes care of the PO4 but not all the pests and/or nuisance alge.

For that a bleach bath to destroys the organic material.An acid bath removes the top layer of rock including PO4 built up there and any heavy metals sticking around.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Hi,

So I have restarted the tank. Lights back on and some corals back in.

Corals are doing really well in the Hair Algae free tank.

I started Vinegar dosing about 2 weeks ago as per POST. 15 ml each day (100G tank) (has that been too aggressive? Should I cut back, or keep going till I reach 45ml max slowly?)

This is what I'd suggest about vinegar/vodka or other forms of carbon dosing - use the minimum amount that works for you. That's determined by your nitrate and phosphate tests of your tank water. If your nitrate is already below 5 ppm and is dropping (rather than increasing), I wouldn't increase your vinegar dose - I'd keep it where it is and perhaps slowly start decreasing it until you figure out what is necessary to maintain a nitrate concentration that you're comfortable with.

Every tank is different - some folks find that they have to use quite a lot of vinegar/vodka to keep nitrates in the sub 5ppm range. In my 50g tank (about 60 gal total water volume), approximate 3 mL of vinegar per day is all that is necessary to keep nitrates detectable, but about 0.2 - 0.5 ppm.

Having said that, I run skimmers on my tanks that many would say is quite a bit oversized, so again, "your results may vary".

 

[Wally.B]

So I'm at the last stage of my tank recovery.

Tank doing well, and with lights on regularly there is a bit of algae coming back (especially since I started to Feed corals), but I'm dealing with it.

Here are the final steps:


- Added the final Algae Clean up crew which are working very hard removing algae I couldn't reach with scrubbing.

- Got rid of the MH lights which were too strong for my Soft/LPS tank, and went back to 4x T5's with a single Kessil for main lighting.
I love the new look and control over Kessil. 2 more T5 will be added on dimmable ballast, So I can control lighting level and temperature.

- Added a makeshift Algae scrubber. Will continue to improve it, but for now good enough as a trial. Runs off my GFO reactor output for now. Will run off of return later.

- Removed all mechanical filtration (Socks, Floss). Just live rock and carbon in baggies.

- I am continuing Vinegar dosing manually (15ml/daily). And will be adding a dosing pump made from a cheap Chinese Peristaltic Pump running off my Apex.

- Better Circulation Big Tunze Pump is gone (died). MaxPect Gyre XF150 is replacement (love it).

So with all corals back, here is the tank after the rebuilt.

BEFORE (DEC 2014)

AFTER (MARCH 2015)

There is Algae coming back (Thicker, Macro looking), I'm hoping as part of cycle. But no Hair or Cyano yet.
Will see a few months from now, it this all works.
If not, I'll bake the rocks completely.