Algae/Cyano Folks, It's Saturday. Did You Brush Your Rocks?

[NS Mike D]

Is this too simple an approach to dealing with nuisance algae/cyano?

Diligently physically remove cyano, GHO and red turf while encouraging corals to take up any available rock space.

Some of my understandings:

I don't believe in short term solutions to cyano and nuisance algae. If I kill them with a bottle of some off the shelf product, wouldn't the dead cells just add back the nutrients in the tank? not to mention that unless I change what led to their appearance, it's false hopes to expect a different outcome.

Chasing zero nutrients is fatally flawed, IMO. Cyano is ever present in the water column (and I wouldn't be surprised if true for nuisance algae) has this ability to start forming mats under a wide variety of conditions, including ultra low nutrients. Seems the only circumstances where it won't mat (or unlikely to mat) is in high flow. In my journey to chase low nutrients, two of my SPS recently bleached. Corals need nutrients too. I'm not keen in this chemotherapy-like approach - starve everything hoping that the corals will outlast the algae. That makes not sense to me since algae and cyano are some the most persistent forms of life in a reef.

What makes more sense to me is:

STABILITY: Keep my water parameters within generally accepted ranges (I currently use the ranges posted by Red Sea as my targets).

ELBOW GREASE: Diligently pick and scrub the rocks as part of my weekly maintenance routine,

VACUUM THE MATS: Suck the cyano off the sand bed and kick up a detritus storms,

GENTRIFY THE NEIGHBORHOOD: Continue to encourage my corals to take up real estate on the rock by growth and new additions forcing the algae out.


I'll be testing the water later today but here are my numbers from last week.

29 gallon mixed reef

Salinity 1.026
Ph 8.4 (it's usually 7.8 - 8.2)
NH3/NH4 0
NO2 0
NO3 0.25 (I'd like to let that drift up to 1.0 to 1.5)
PO4 0.08 (no surprise, ultra low NO3 and high PO4 and cyano/algae is present)
Alk 3.4 9.5
Ca 460
Mg 1480
Temp 78.8

2 ocelaris clowns
3 chromis
2 pj cardinals
1 tail spot blenny
1 yellow watchman goby
1 mandarin dragonet
1 cleaner shrimp
1 emerald crab
assortment of snails and hermits


I scrubbed the rocks today, sucked up most of the cyano, have the pumps cranking and the filter socks should catch all that floating alage/cyano. I'll use my Julien's Thing to storm up debris that settles ever hour of so.

I've been adding rubble rock to the back of my tank (safe haven for pods to breed for the madarin) as well as in the under the tank sump. I've been curing the rubble rock for a few weeks and add a few pieces each day.

The HOB 4.6 gal CPR sump has a Hydor nano skimmer. Skimmate is tea as best, it's nano skimmer so I have limited expectations. The fuge section is packed with cheato and grape caulerpa that needs harvesting every two weeks. decent pod life, fan worms, a few snails and some tiny bristle worms. some sand a some rubble rock

The 10 gal DIY under the tank sump runs a sicce 1.5 pump. filter sock, carbon/gfo reactor (gfo until the PO4 drops) and a 7"x 7" x 7" egg crate cube in the fuge section about half filled with rubble rock. No lights in the lower sump and I intend for this to be a semi-cryptic zone of bacteria, filter feeders and pods.

There is a DIY LED ATS, but that was a fun project and it's running out of curiosity and not any urgent need to export nutrients. I expect to remove it in the near future.

If my plan works out, I plan on removing the filter sock at some point and only use them during tank maintenance.

Let's hear your thoughts.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Ooo. I like it! I do think physical removal is a good idea. I avoid chemical solutions. Occasionally, I have seen carbon dosing help if it's been done in moderation.

 

[dansreef]

I like you approach and agree with the sentiment about not wanting to add chemicals. I have done that in the past with tanks and it just didn't work out well short-term or long-term.

Two approaches I am using on two large systems now are:
1) Algae Scrubber or a Macro Algae Reactor - I use an Algae Scrubber on my primary tank (225 TWV). This has done a really nice job of controlling nutrients.... not to a point it totally strips the tank... but enough so that cyano and GHA are kept in check or non-existent. I think it also draws algae to it as it is on 24 hrs a day and algae is drawn to light. For your tank it may not be practical. I have a neighbor that DIY'd a Chaeto Reactor for his tank. It quickly lowered his Phosphates... we will see how it performs longer term.
2) On my other tank (130 gal TWV)..... I just let the algae grow. What I found is that the tank found its balance. I have a certain amount of fish... and corals. I feed X amount every day and I don't deviate. I don't skim. I only feed and top off the tank...and clean the sides for viewing. That is it. I actually tell people I can grow better corals and happier fish in tanks I neglect.... this is one of those tanks. I don't do water changes except maybe once every 6-8 months. I actually am at about 10 months now.... If nutrients spike for some reason....the GHA and Cyano can bloom. I just let it burn itself out... I have grown a lot of softies, LPS and some easier SPS in this tank for years. It is not the prettiest tank to look at sometimes. But the life in it is healthy.

I don't subscribe to a lot of the dosing of treatments to solve some of the challenges we have in this hobby. So far... this has worked for me. Maybe something here can help you.

Good Luck!