Algae Outbreak!!!

brandon429 · May 21, 2016

There are studies someone linked me to along time ago on googschol where scientists put simple exclusion grids over certain areas of an otherwise non-eutrophic reef and were able to generate algae dominance simply by grazer exclusion. Same chemistry makeup of the water...no grid, no algae dominance. Similar studies where cross competition kills off natural raspers like urchins also brought back algae dominance in phases... there are times healthy reefs look like the tank above.

Your tank is in a phase that's about to get peroxide jacked and then that phase will change to sunshine.

After reading that grid study my thoughts on the true nature of cause and effect for eutrophication changed.

people post to those threads multi thousand dollar reefs and they state the best water param preventative approaches in reefing. We feature ATS users (still needing display tank help) carbon dosers uv users deep sand bed denitrifiers all needing DT cleanup work, employing these actions before algae grew to uptake what the tests would read. Algae growing independently of measurable water table nutrient problems isn't accepted by the hobby yet but we collect enough tanks to show a new phenomena must be acknowledged imo (and that phenomena is called sometimes your preventatives don't work, then what will you do)

in the end grazers have the final say on Cousteaus reef and when we need to cheat a little, peroxide is about the most fun there is

midtnmike41 · May 21, 2016

Here is my rock test so far. I'll post again the rock has sat in the water for 2 hours.

Right out of the tank:

After a good scrubbing in the sink:

Clean Saltwater bucket:

brandon429 · May 21, 2016

Excellent begin snaps, a little saltwater rinse with algae carried away and pores all opened up now the bac are free to breathe ~ I bet it won't have much detritus in it now that we can see the surface

You've got some coralline beginning we can see and it too wants to spread out with a little hand guiding and once set, it truly helps to exclude algae

There was one link or set of pics in our algae thread where the keeper had a full coverage algae issue, but they had used some pre cured live rock that had thicker plates of coralline and everywhere these 1-2" whorls of coralline were, algae was not, neat patterns to see in our tank watches. Some tanks did have bryopsis cover the coralline, but it tends to help in the other way more often. Simply having the algae mass on the rocks allows fish waste and feed and micro detritus pellets your internal currents move around to get caught in the strands and degrade right inside them, localized feeding for algae, vs being swept away to a sump or a filter pad for you to export there.

Attacking the algae mass directly before we start changing water params begins to change the export mechanisms for your tank. It robs algae of their communal self-support abilities, one way algae grows in spite of water parameter issues. Another way is lighting: put a 6500 K old metal halide plant bulb on anyone's ideal reef down low, crank it up overpowered, and in a week they've got algae in an otherwise perfect water tank. Making sure you have reduced white spectrum and a little more blues helps us fight, if the setup had adjustable lighting. Too white on the kessil will bring brownish algae out in my own tank.

midtnmike41 · May 21, 2016

I am using 2 AI Hydra 26's over the 90 gallon. I have them set with my apex to the 20k setting, which is very blue heavy. I cut the intensity down from 80 percent to 40 percent a few weeks ago. Even at 80 percent I was only getting about 125 par at the bottom of the tank. So far there is nothing coming out of the rock into the bucket. I am going to let it sit a little while longer before I hit it with the peroxide.

twilliard · May 21, 2016

Looking good keep it going!

midtnmike41 · May 21, 2016

How much rock do I really need in that tank? I bet there is at least 150lbs in there right now. It's basically a huge pile of rock going from the back glass almost to the front glass. I am thinking about doing my aquascaping a little different since its all coming out anyways.

brandon429 · May 21, 2016

Absolutely possible. We work in vast extra surface area settings...this is why people go bare sandbed, much less rock and tons of coral and things are still ok. The extra surface area we use in reefs is double edge sword cleaning requirements, that's the only fault bioballs presented in a 1990s sump yet the whole hobby decried bioballs and opted for live rock which is much worse at retaining detritus than bioballs>such that denitrification is easily overtaken in some tanks.

We do funny things as a hobby whole sometimes...I myself like the packed look with a deep sand bed packed wall to wall with rock and coral...but it increases the work I must do, it's more challenging to fight spot algae issues, your tank did not have a large fish bioload you have plenty of call on what to remove.

brandon429 · May 21, 2016

Hey check out our buddy's little lps fix

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/373759-feather-looking-algae-on-candy-cane/#entry5336330

If he chose to drop the whole frag in a cup of 3%, the algae would've died just the same and the polyp would go bizarrely twisted and bubbly for two days seeming to imply doom. Then in 36 hours it opens just like this...some sensitive sps frags can be harmed by direct peroxide but lps are quite tolerant. I've spilled 35% in short duration directly on my green brain coral and it does harm the flesh, but it heals up in a week. Peroxide doesn't start some cascade of loss it's ideal for the reef aquarium.

we avoid contacting non targets in every way where we can, but if an error occurs there was already a safety margin in place.

midtnmike41 · May 21, 2016

I have a pretty large zoa growth on a a few rocks, should i just spray them down with the rest of the rock? They have been closed for about a week now anyway so not sure i can do much harm.

brandon429 · May 21, 2016

Yep and they are the most tolerant of all corals to peroxide no harm they either come back or don't but it won't be peroxide that kills them.

midtnmike41 · May 21, 2016

Here is what it looks like now. It's back in the tank and bubbling!

Hardly anything in the bucket after sitting 2 hours:

The rock after being sprayed with peroxide,sitting for 5 min, and being scrubbed again:

Back in the tank:

brandon429 · May 21, 2016

The reef will look new, soon

low/none detritus content, no mini cycle, insert march to battle meme and attack

midtnmike41 · May 21, 2016

I'm very impressed how that rock turned out! So what's the next step? Just wait for a few days to see if or how much growth returns? It's already catching algae debris floating in the tank but still 1000 times better than before.

brandon429 · May 21, 2016

Yes I think this is par for the course. We didn't rinse the sand so any moving about will dislodge waste, I see that part as a series of repeat siphons over the next mos, five or ten gallons at a time just to mop up.

The detritus whirring around is just part of the cycle back to oligotrophy (as we remove it and Po organic stores) from the prior eutrophic state. It's not that a tank in eutrophic state is ruined, it's that we can command it right back.

It was a ramp up to get there, a busy ramp down over a month or three to get back and the end result is the cruise control setting you want.

Since your tank is big this detritus persists a few more weeks or mos vs a pico reef that we could rip clean in one setting, rip clean the entire sandbed 100% and set the reef up as brand new. That's a two hour phase in that setting...but for big tanks we just work it out over a few more mos but the peroxide cheat made you wait a zero days for the enjoyment to return even if you'll be busy spot cleaning five gallons at a time until July.

brandon429 · May 21, 2016

thread below is on sandbed rinsing, new or old sand if you ever do go off the deep end in cleaning which is quite a beneficial thing to do for oligotrophic restoration * but possibly not required for your tank, the sand didn't really indicate accumulations I could see.

If you are truly curious, stick small siphon hose into corner of sandbed and siphon a quarter cup then test the extraction water for nitrate, compared to the top water tank reading taken before the siphon removal. That will tell you the state of the sandbed without a guess. My own sandbed will pass it at all times.

http://reef2reef.com/threads/the-of...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445

brandon429 · May 21, 2016

I'm happy you were serious enough about the restoration to run it right now.

mostly we talk about it but it gets ran later/behind the scenes but the reality is this challenge is common, these are the steps to take when it just starts on a single rock, and the pic documentations you post are valuable points of reference for our threads w link them soon.

Key points in my opinion so far: we don't mind what your nutrient levels are and haven't asked, because it's possible to cure and sustain full tank restorations not knowing them.

Higher nutrients don't even mean you will be working everytime to keep things clean...but they certainly help suppress most algae issues so there's no harm in maintaining ideal params

John.M.Cole on here can verify my own waters are two to three times higher in po4 (due to my rocks being in an unskimmed tank since 2006) but the measurable impact of that is zero. I don't treat for algae for years unless I bring in news frags and typically have to scrape off valonia

Nutrient controls are not part of tank restoration, scraping your hands on vermetid shells and getting small nicks and scrapes and hoping you don't catch vibrio while attacking benthic growths with a reef-friendly algaecide is the ideal restore, but I'm pretty biased.

When params are detailed after this phase is done in a month or so, then we'll work less or none to maintain the oligotrophic state.

midtnmike41 · May 21, 2016

I am just grateful that you guys are willing to stick with this and help me through it. I am trying to do all I can without asking too many questions but I really have no experience doing this .... YET. I just did another test rock. I had a very small rock sitting on top that was covered, i just sprayed it, let it sit, rinsed it, and put it back in. No scrubbing. I just want to see how it reacts. Hopefully I can get all the rocks done in 3 or 4 sessions. Time is my only roadblock, having an infant in the house. It NEEDS to be done though.

brandon429 · May 21, 2016

Excellent. When I had an motile infant of two years old in the house we'd turn on a song called music box dancer and blast it over a giant PA system and dance around lol raising little girls is easy. Right up till sixteen then where's the manual for that, where's the order of operations

tthouston · May 21, 2016

IMO, remove all BAD rocks out and stored in big bucket with the pump and put every single rock back in th DT AFTER clean and just ENOUGH for the tank. Rest of the rocks in the bucket will cook after clean. Cook meant put back to big bucket with the lid on top and keep dark 30 days with a pump inside the bucket. Add rodi water every night (keep out of light as much as possible )