Quickest way to remove bound phoshpate in Rock

[Husky_1]

Hey everyone,
I have been fighting hair algae for over a year, after trying all the standard methods of keeping nutrients low including every other day feeds, Phosban, weekly water changes, decent skimming, Zeovit, Carbon, Light bulb changes, New RODI Cartridges, NSW and Mixed water, and finally Ultra Algae X as the last attempt. I have start the process of tearing down my tank and going to rebuild.

There are a few things that I will be doing, namely going from a Tunze 9010 Skimmer to a new Alpha 170 cone (when it arrives). I am also going back to sand after having BB for almost 2 years. I will also be increasing flow in my sump.

In addition to the above items, one of the major things I want to do is to "reset" my rock. About 70% of the rock that I have came from a friends tank. At the time (2 years ago), I did not think about the bound nutrients in the rock, but over time I really began to feel that this was the main contributing factor to my issues. You have to understand that the tank that this "dead" rock came out of was pretty disgusting before the rock was dry.

So my main task at hand is trying to quickly remove the bound phosphate. There are only a few of methods that I am aware of, and I would like to hear everyone's opinion on these:

• Muriatic Acid
• Cooking Rock (no light, water changes, phosban)
• Boiling Rock

My main questions are:
What is everyone's experience with the Muriatic bath, do you think this works?
Have you heard of boiling (not cooking)it? I was talking to one of the guys at Aqua Digital and he suggest this.

Is there anything else that I am missing? Keep in mind that I really do not have the time to cook the rock for a long time, so cooking would be a last resort.

Thanks for your time,
Dale

 

[snorvich]

I had the problem and ended up replacing the "base rock" with good live rock. If any of your methods work, I think many could benefit from using them.

 

[unstopable]

replace the rock with cooked rock

 

[unstopable]

or get some well established rock from a friend or store and use that.

 

[Husky_1]

Replacing the rock is on the list. But I would rather try to salvage this rock, and not spend additional money unless absolutely necessary. If I do go with new rock, I will probably go for something straight from the aquaculturist and not a LFS or local reefer.

BTW, I will be purchasing a small amount regardless, which should help seed my future base rock.

 

[DT's_Reef]

I had a 120g barebottom sps system that had horrid algae for several months....state of art skimmer, lights, very sparse feeding, light fishload, the whole works.

It only went away when I discovered my magnesium level was in the 900's and raised it to 1300's. The algae went away and things looked happy once again.

No idea if this might be the issue, but your post reminded me of my ordeal because at the time I thought I must have a bunch of phosphate bound up in my rock.

At the end of the day, it helps a lot of the critters in your tank are growing and actively using nutrients in the water to starve out algae....and apparently the magnesium helped.

 

[Husky_1]

Thanks DT, I guess I forgot to mention this solution. I never (knowingly) had a MG problem. It was always steady at about 1260, but I did bring it up to about 1600 early on, just incase this stuff was bryopsis.

BTW, here are some pics from a few months ago:

Here are some pics after I stopped dosing Zeo and started Ultra AlgaeX:

 

[DT's_Reef]

Lol, that's the nicest looking hair algae ridden tank I've seen! Seriously....it looks very clean except has a lot of dense hair algae.

You could try "cooking" a portion of the rock, return it and see if hair algae grows on it. Your tank seems to have a lot of live rock, so I doubt it would miss it.

Nice tank!

 

[Husky_1]

DT,
Thanks, I was not joking that I do everything that I am suppose to. I was thinking about doing small portions, but this stuff is just relentless and have lost my will for the marathon. I think I gave up the long fight when I had a couple of SPS die from this stuff.

All my salvageable corals have been moved to a frag tank, others were fragged as smaller pieces. I plan on removing the rock this week, and should start my initial bleaching within a couple of days.

 

[DT's_Reef]

Believe me, I know how you feel. Anyone in the hobby long enough has gone through something similar.

Good luck and keep up the fight. It'll resolve....eventually!

 

[undertai]

How long ago did you change from ZEO to AlgeaX? That could be the problem? System is use to one thing and then switches to something else. Different chemicals in different products could be cause it. Check water papr., pull out as much as possible, and then through in a cleanup crew

 

[KenT]

You've been fighting hair algae for over a year, but the pic from a couple of months ago shows no hair algae.

What is the phosphate level?

 

[snorvich]

Phosphate level is difficult to determine. If the phosphate is embedded in the rock, it will not show up on testing. By the way, I measure phosphate with a photometer as it is the only way I have found to give me low level measurements.

 

[Husky_1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15211479#post15211479 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by KenT
You've been fighting hair algae for over a year, but the pic from a couple of months ago shows no hair algae.

What is the phosphate level?

If you look at the first pic you will notice that there is hair algae, and the pic was taken after an "aggressive" cleaning.

Phosphate always read 0 on the Salifert and another test kit, I did not have a hanna, nor did I heat the water first.

 

[Husky_1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15211552#post15211552 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by snorvich
Phosphate level is difficult to determine. If the phosphate is embedded in the rock, it will not show up on testing. By the way, I measure phosphate with a photometer as it is the only way I have found to give me low level measurements.

Thanks Snorvich, I never end up getting the photometer. I agree that it will not be testable if its embedded in the rock and being absorbed by the algae.

 

[Husky_1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15210742#post15210742 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by undertai
How long ago did you change from ZEO to AlgeaX? That could be the problem? System is use to one thing and then switches to something else. Different chemicals in different products could be cause it. Check water papr., pull out as much as possible, and then through in a cleanup crew

Hey Undertai, I agree that the recent "bloom" is due to this, but even before the UAX, the stuff would not subside. My clean up crew at one time consisted of at least 100 snails and 100 blue legs, plus a sailfin blenny, Rabbit fish and Yellow tang. This still did not help the issue, but I agree that what you mentioned should be the standard method of eradication.

 

[undertai]

In my old 55 gallon tank. I used live cure and uncured rock along with base rock. Never had a big bloom like yours. But I always ran carbon and rowaphos in a reactor. Both mixed in together in one reactor.
Do you use one? Here what I did. Pulled out as much as possible, scrubbed in tank with old tooth brush, then ran reactor and skimmer. Some will get pulled out with skimmer so no problem with reattaching some where else.
The rest my clean up crew got. Anything bound in the rocks will not be released back into tank. Haven't had outbreak since, unless I got a frag with some on it. But cleanup crew cleaned it even when I moved to smaller tank

 

[Husky_1]

Undertai,
Thanks for the suggestions, I did run Carbon and Phosban religiously in a TLF reactoe, which helped keep the stuff at bay.


All,
The tank tear down started a couple of nights ago, and I pulled out 90% of my rock and bleached it last night. Since no one has any input on my original questions, I will probably go ahead with the muriatic acid bath, then a boiling.

 

[Skeptic_07]

I've seen a sea hare wipe rocks clean of that stuff, the guy then returned it to the store and the algae all came back quickly.

I think muriatic acid would only dissolve the outer layer of rock and not do much to release trapped nutrients. I used to use that stuff to clean stains off gunite pools and it make a horrendous stench that is probably dangerous. Just make sure you're outside so you don't choke yourself and your family. GL!

 

[Husky_1]

Thanks Skeptic,
From what I have read, you are correct about the purpose of using the Muriatic acid.