pico reef pest algae problem challenge

[brandon429]

Anthony thanks for the pics. this will be a heck of a job but its just the kind of challenge I want for sure. Pics always change up the diagnosis, lemme tell you what Im brainstorming:

The sandbed doesn't look especially cruddy with waste, so that doesn't strike me as a source of nutrients. But there are some we need to contend with

Im a little concerned that a tank this new has that much eutrophication, makes me wonder where the phophates and nitrates came from. I'll need to go back and re read if that rock was used etc.

This won't affect the initial kill. That kind of GHA is easily offed by peroxide 3% from a new bottle, don't use an old one.

it should die within about 5 days to the point its falling off or easily removed.

if at all possible Id like to see the effort made to remove and treat the rocks externally. I noticed the glistening tentacles of what looks like a euphyllia glabrescens or similar LPS coral and an in-tank treatment at a ratio high enough to zap that algae might stress it.

so our ideal options are two fold: make an in tank regimen slightly higher than the usual 1:10 dosing to speed up the kill of that much algae, and it takes a long time (maybe faster if you use tarped submerged spot treatments) but requires no rockwork

optn 2 is ideal
remove the rocks and target soak them externally, heavily, with several bottles of straight 3% letting them soak a long time sitting on a towel somewhere not underwater. letting that peroxide sink in really good. soak them over and over a few times while removing physically what you can of those clumps of gha. The peroxide is attacking whats left behind. rinse rocks off very well and rescape.
This optn 2 allows you to siphon out detritus from up under the rocks if any. Its a hassle to rescape I know, but worth it IMO as the prescription here because the tank is fairly new and not packed with corals, this is the -ideal- candidate for a 30 pack of beer and several hours on a weekend w peroxide. that will get you the fastest results hands down

long term prognosis, the fun part

We need to see where the nutrients are coming from. If it was just a little bit of algae Id say peroxide wipe it and call it a day, but this much primary producer eutrophication indicates a heckuva phosphate store somewhere and it could be the rock. Sandbed doesn't look all that bad.

To test, you'll need to get or find someone with an ultra sensitive po4 test kit and get a bucket of clean saltwater you are assured tests 0 for po4

you set a test rock in that bucket for a week and test po4 afterwards, see if it rises. If so, then the initial kill the peroxide will certainly provide may manifest as a slow regrowth but at least the peroxide will catch you up fast. You may use rock cooking, lanthanum chloride dosing, and or GFO at that point to arrest this phosphate potential store.

But I recommend we hit with peroxide first, because even though its a lot of armwork to get in a tank that big your tank just might be some of the ones that respond to direct kills with none of this phosphate hunting. lanthanum and acid etching usually are way more in depth and a potential restart of the whole tank, whereas peroxide lets you keep everything running.

summary:
we can easily kill all that algae, I don't know how fast it will grow back but you will def get a clean tank out of a dedicated peroxide application either way you run it. In tank is a long time for dieoff, easiest work, external treatments are big work and fast dieoff back down to the base rock. Might require a second treatment on some areas that were particularly infested with holdfasts from the algae etc but you'll get a huge response off the very first run thats for sure.

Take out and dose just one easy test rock right off the top just to see, thats a no commitment option just to test. an external treatment on just one rock off the top...see what it does in two days

 

[Anthony.Luciano]

I know it would be much better to take out the rocks but I really cant. Just thinking about it makes me get sick to my stomach it's a lot of work first of all and the tank is in the middle of my living room. I cant have bins full of rocks all over the place.

The rocks were dry when I put them in the tank and the sand was live.
This algae problem happened within days. Everything was perfect and all the sudden one week algae covered the tank. Much worse then this. I go in there and pick it every so often.

There are three sources I can think of that the phosphate could have come from that happened right before the algae.
1. chromis stressed and killed multiple large fish under the rocks I was unable to take them out.
2. bad batch of salt.
3. half a bottle of herbtana medication to help the fish while they were being attacked by the chromis.

I think the best and easiest for my schedule would be just putting the peroxide directly in the tank through dosing or however else you suggest. Time is not that much of a concern as long as I can see progress. As for coral. There are only a select few that I really care about. If anything I will move them to another temporary tank.

There is also a whole under-the-sand pipe system that has 5 outlets under the rocks to keep detritus from settling.

 

[aleggett321]

When you say 'long kill time' for in tank dosing, could you be more specific?...days, weeks, months? I know each tank is unique but thought maybe you could generalize a bit. I have used the direct 3% out of tank treatment with good success on a few loose small rocks but would really like not to have to take the rest of the 150 pounds of rockwork out.

 

[brandon429]

In Anthony's tank we have the ideal in tank situation, if there is one, since its not fully stacked yet with corals and anems and fish etc. The few corals in there are 99% predictably unharmed by even a stronger than normal treatment, those aren't on the list of sensitives. I have links to other forums where sps keepers were dosing up to 4 ml per 10 gallons and still being ok...we stay well below that in this thread lol I don't want anyone breaking our 100% track record on zero collarteral damage.

Dead fish in the rockwork is pretty dang serious dude you had me laugh good with that one. It actually indicates a rather transient source of p04 though, as soon as your tank degrades all that mass we'll be ok. You need crabs man, a big CUC of hermits even though they are coral irritators I want something on that meat lol


So the kill time is relative to max dosing per unit of volume which is then set by the stocking list for the tank. Alegget I remember your posts but will have to go back and see pics to quick calculate a safe dose.

For this tank about I think 50mls per run as a submerged tarp treatment is where you want to go. tarp up a few areas of the rock stack underwater. Inject one with ~25 mls and the other, let tarps sit in tank with no pumps on for 10 mins, remove tarps, treat again in two days. that type of thing.

And I don't think that will even stress the corals, its a very low dose.

But you have to wrap those target rocks really good in saran wrap underwater, as best you can. even if the sides are all waving around crazy its better than not using it.

In my minds eye we can't beat an infestation like that without some degree of legwork (armwork) to ensure it. I do think you can get away with no removing rocks and you aren't blamed, this gallon reefer is spoiled rotten on tank drains as needed so I'll put myself in the shoes of a keeper with a reef the size of a small import car.

Since we aren't removing, the next step down in armwork is taking time to submerge wrap that rock. I have posters previously like this who were using all kinds of methods:

They'd tear out a huge long strip of cellophane and use wooden dowels, and two people, to push-guide the rectangle of plastic down over a target rock to at least position it.

Then some lucky arm wrestler gets to submerge him or herself up to the torso wrapping it around the base of the rock somehow good luck with that
Im sure it could be pulled off with a series of long wires or dowels used as pokers, some who can conveniently reach the target rocks were using metal pins to temporarily hold the submerged tarps in place. rubber banks, bungee cords I dunno whatever is creative.

Even if some peroxide leaks out the sides, which ideally it doesnt if you wrap well, this minor extension in contact time between peroxide and the target will increase the dieoff of that target many times faster. its totally worth the effort.

Still I recommend one test dip of a single rock off the top you can easily get to. The reasoning is it will set the pace for what we expect in the other target sites. just apply externally, don't remove any algae so we can set a gauge for its kill rate, wait 2 mins outside of tank, rinse and put back in right where it was. if we don't get death on it in 48 hours we'll know a 1.5:10 dosing for your big tank systemically may take a while and we don't keep upping the dose trying to spike it.



By having one rock we know will die off clean with an ideal application, we can watch your in tank target areas for comparable growth and use that as dosing feedback on our amounts and frequency.

 

[brandon429]

To answer the question directly about predicted kill time in the ultimate hands off approach of simply dose the tank, I really can't for something this large. There is a large bell curve in something of this much volume where we have to dose the tank in such a manner as to not overdo it but not underdo it to keep up with dissipation rates. The predicted result would be we would input a known safe amount of peroxide and nothing would happen. We'd have to keep putting that in weekly for X amount of weeks to keep the saturation levels safe and consistent, but the human tendency in that time frame will be to spike the levels to hurry things the heck up. so my guess is several weeks on just the first test run alone, might get lucky but plan for weeks in my opinion.

Emersed treatments, a few days to total kill. Underwater tarp injections, I think a week man so its worth that effort.

Its like that when using GFO as a remover of algae and not a preventative.

GFO in a lucky balance keeps algae away much better than it does at bleaching existing algae. To get it to clean your tank for you, something its not designed to do, you have to use more. Then we get the bleached coral threads...so in eye of that bell curve if we relegate ourselves to strictly full tank broadcast dosing on the top of the water I expect weeks to tune it and get some result. From now on we know that any form of submerged application, even if its just squirting the peroxide across the algae as it dissolves freely into the rest of the tank, is an upgrade from just dosing the top water. even that brief elevation of contact time has been shown to dramatically increase kill times over the old method of just dumping some peroxide in the tank.

 

[aleggett321]

Thanks for your help. I have an 8" canopy on a 24" tank. Even standing on top of a ladder and reaching in up to my chest I can only barely touch the bottom with the tips of my fingers. I'm going to wrap the rocks I can reach and try squirting the lower ones. I really hate algae! Will follow along on AJ's huge tank.

 

[BucNtears]

Wonder if I might give this a try.

 

[ampemployee1]

Brandon,

Although I treated my rocks outside the system, and cleared away the majority of the HA (I have a little regrowth in some areas and plan to retreat these) the chaeto in my fuge took a hit. It started turning white in parts, and before it disintegrated, I decided to remove it completely.

I think the combination of the peroxide and GFO was too much for the chaeto. Once I get the remaining algae off the rocks and get the P levels down from .08 (current level) to under .03, I'll get some more chaeto for the fuge. I don't have anything in the fuge now except the coral rubble, so the I've unplugged the fuge light for now. I've been changing out the GFO about every 3 days because there is still some recently treated rock that has algae die-off. Fortunately, I've been regenerating my GFO, so it hasn't been a financial burden!

VERY small price to pay to have essentially eliminated the HA. I'll post some updated pix in a few days, but I think we can definitely claim success. Recommend that if you have chaeto, and can move it to a different system for a week post treatment, you'll better your odds that the chaeto will survive. Fortunately, my other macroalgae were unaffected.

 

[brandon429]

That's good feedback I'm surprised any macros survived an in tank treatment!

If any of you guys who treated a while ago get your after pics ready, would you post them side by side with your before shot. It's hard to tell the difference when the before shot is pages back and this will look sharp as a picture set in same post

 

[ampemployee1]

Just to clarify, I did an out of a tank treatment, but even with rinsing prior to replacement into the tank, there was some residual peroxide in some of the deep crevices of the live rock.

Question about maintenance dosing of peroxide (ie 1ml/10gal of water volume). How frequently would you do this and under what conditions? Is the maintenance dose similar to using GFO (ie to maintain conditions proactively), or is dosing in response to seeing algae coming on in a very small patch somewhere?

Thanks, Ed

 

[ampemployee1]

Updated pictures, 5 weeks post initial treatment

Updated pictures, 5 weeks post initial treatment

I have treated a couple of the rocks (outside the display) a second time last week as some of the algae started to come back.
FTS

SPS

Zoas

Rock with some regrowth. I'm planning to nuke this one more time.

 

[brandon429]

Ed the people using the full tank dosing have done a range of applications, from 1 ml per ten gallons a few times a week to daily. The best I can draw from that range (since we don't know an exact) is that in no case out of thousands was the filter bed ever affected (by any dose, much less this safe one, as registered by ammonia and nitrate testing etc) and the animals not on the list of sensitives handled any dose of this 1:10 just fine. I dont recall any losses of non targets from this dose whether done once or several times thats the best I can recall. just out of picking something to stick with Id been recommending 3x per week application with large water changes on the weekends to offset any buildup and thats worked.

there's room for experimentation though

my modification to the whole thing of tank dosing was to not just add it to the top but rather focus on underwater spot injections of X amount that will be input into the tank anyway. Whether or not that holds long term solutions is unique to each tank and its nutrient sourcing/profile, but its fun to search for the tanks where only a direct kill was needed to win the war.

 

[ampemployee1]

B, thanks for the feedback. I noticed that my SPS PE was very good once I added the rock I treated outside the system back in (it was still bubbling a little as the active peroxide was oxidizing). I had read that many people indicated an initial drop in ORP, but then a higher level afterwards when dosing peroxide. I don't have an ORP probe but I can report that a higher ORP does seem to correlate positively for SPS PE (all things being equal, and other params of the tank N, P, C and Mag within target ranges for SPS).

 

[kaserpick]

Hey Brandon.

First, I'd like to apologize; I never took any pics. But, I had a 4 lb piece of LR in my fuge that had HA all over it from a previous problem. I wanted to rearrange my DT and add this particular piece to the rock structure. So, I removed the rock, positioned it so that my Maxi Mini Anemone was on the topmost part (someone decided to make a trip down the overflow about a month ago), poured 3% peroxide all over it (except for on the anemone), and let it sit for about 3 minutes. After that, I dunked it in a bucket of old tank water (was doing a WC at the time as well) and sloshed it vigorously.

It's been in the DT for week without a single sign of HA. The problem with my PO4 had been fixed recently by upping my WC frequency and carbon dosing. The DT never had HA, but since the fuge was lit 24/7, I think the environment was lending towards its growth. The anemone and the sexy shrimp did fine as well.

I'm sorry I didn't take pics, but thank you for sharing this amazing solution!

 

[brandon429]

Hey thank you for the feedback we'll take a verbal description anyday for sure. I was just passing on what reefmiser on nr.com showed to me and I knew it looked like real fun



the current status quo in algae battles sucks, we needed something really left field man heh

 

[nam2212]

I finally took all the frags that were in the sand and treated all of them with peroxide. All did remarkably well. I sprayed coral flesh directly with a liberal amount and let it set from anywhere between 3-5 minutes before rinsing. All corals were opened back up within 5 minutes. Most had feeders out in that time. I was able to add another 10lbs of sand to replace all the sand I had to remove over the months while pulling GHA out. There are a couple of spots that I will need to retreat but those can be done by lowering the water level a little.

I will add a quick before and after pic:

Before:

After:

 

[brandon429]

That is amazing man thank you for the updates. just wow.

can you tell us again how many days was that transition from pic1 to pic2

did you say five weeks I get mixed up with the different posts we have going, but this would be a great timeline to be able to predict for someone else's tank

 

[nam2212]

That is amazing man thank you for the updates. just wow.

can you tell us again how many days was that transition from pic1 to pic2

did you say five weeks I get mixed up with the different posts we have going, but this would be a great timeline to be able to predict for someone else's tank

Before picture was taken on the 6th of this month. After pic was taken tonight. That is 13 days of results. It was clean after about 5 days but I waited until I had time to clean the frags in the sand.

 

[bbwebb]

Okay, I've had it! This is my last resort, I have tried everything.

- Nitrates and Phosphates always measure zero (I know, I know)
- I do NOT overfeed. Sometimes I think I'm starving my fish.
- I have done manual removal for months and months and just can't keep up.
- I do weekly 12% water changes using RO-DI. I've replaced all of the filters and membranes twice!
- I have dosed carbon (Red Sea NoPox for about 9 months)
- I have tried Algae Fix (Learned that won't work after examining my algae under a microscope - It's Siphonous - presumably Derbesia)
- I have setup a bio-pellet reactor (only been running about 6 weeks at this point)

This is my last chance, and the thought of pulling all my rock out and rescaping does not make me very happy. But it will be worth it if this actually works. My tank is small (RSM 130d - 34G), so I should be able to do everything in an afternoon/evening.

My plan is to do this external with the dip method. I've heard everything from full strength 3% peroxide to 50:50 peroxide:salt water mixture. What is the best rule of thumb here?

I'm going to take a top rock off and dip it tomorrow and see how it goes. If all goes well and it rids the rock of Algae I'll be doing the entire tank sometime next week.

Here are some pictures, so you can see what I'm dealing with. It's very short for the most part, but also very dense. It has a turf like appearance. I actually ordered a USB camera that goes into the eyepiece of my daughters microscope. It should be here tomorrow, so I'll post some picture of that as well. Based on Sprung's description of Derbesia I'm almost positive that's what I'm dealing with.

Full Tank Shot

This is the piece I'm going to do my test with!

Encouragement or suggestions appreciated.

Thanks
bbwebb

 

[brandon429]

Hey thanks for posting here comes another fix, this tank is ideal. Based on the first picture I would have guessed you had a lysmata cleaner but it turns out to be a cbs stenopus which is not on the list of sensitives. Even though you are doing the removal method, which is always ideal compared to any other, that shrimp is not sensitive to peroxide so thats a nice start.

also its a rare opportunity, the first actually, to get a before and after picture on high zoom microscope

seriously thats amazing, you might be able to document the breakdown of the cell wall structure, or maybe we'll see internal bleaching first and then lysing of the plant matrix, but either way some new light will be shed on the actual destructive characters of peroxide vs plant that ive never seen documented. so far we just get the clean after pics



you should use straight 3% no dilution
you can spot apply it only to the bad areas, no need to submerge the whole rock. and you might even have to retreat a few times since this ran unchecked a little, but watch what your test application rock looks like in three days and see if you aren't extremely happy

thanks for posting this is going to turn out well

Remember the second appliction options of in tank treatments, but drained ones.

Your setup is ideally treated piece by piece externally as you said, because none gets back in the tank and all of it goes directly to the target.

But the follow up treatments to catch final leftovers, resulting from well established holdfasts in the rock, might be better off being a drain and treat (what I do on my tiny pico reef) so that you don't disassemble the rock structure all over again just to get at a few spots.

Any time you want you can drain that water level down (if you are lucky enough to have the target resurface in the upper 2/3rds of the tank) and catch that water (or make up new water, a big change is refreshing) and while the areas are exposed place several drops of 3% right on the targets, let sit for 2 mins or so, then refill. Wait a few days to repeat so this last treatment can dissipate

that combined assault of the initial external treat, w microscope before and afters, along with the occasional drain and treat will certainly work. consider your tank fixed, thats pretty bold thing to say but we have a 95% track record this tank looks ideal