Algaefest 2021. IDK what to do. Remove all rock?

[CookieRdReef]

I have a 1 year old mixed reef 75g with a basic setup. I have a HOB skimmer, hob fuge for filtration. I have had a small amount of dinos/cyano in my sandbed turn into a huge outbreak all over my sand and rocks + green turf algae everywhere. I made the stupid mistake of not changing out my RODI for longer than I should. My parameters have all been okay. Current

1.025
DKH- 8.7
PO4 - .09
NO3- 5PPM
CA 420
MG 1250

I have done the following the past month and a half or so:

Added urchin, conchs, snails.
3 day blackout, later a 4 day blackout.
Raised temp to 83 for 4 days.
Dosed hydrogen peroxide 10ml at night x2 wk
Dosed Vibrant - week 2 (will take a while more)
Dosed MB7 x1 week.
Day 2 running Green Killing Machine 24w

This is my first tank and my first big challenge for sure. I'm not really sure what my next move is. I know slow and steady is always best with reef tanks but I am slowly and steadily losing corals and losing this algae battle. I know a microscope would be helpful and I should have started there in hindsight. Any advice from any long time reefers is greatly appreciated! Here are some ugly pictures:

 

[CookieRdReef]

Should I pull it out to H2O2 it directly the put it back? I have heard this only works sometimes and seems like crazy work. Should I remove my rock and start over with live rock?

 

[lapin]

@brandon429

 

[austibella]

I have a 1 year old mixed reef 75g with a basic setup. I have a HOB skimmer, hob fuge for filtration. I have had a small amount of dinos/cyano in my sandbed turn into a huge outbreak all over my sand and rocks + green turf algae everywhere. I made the stupid mistake of not changing out my RODI for longer than I should. My parameters have all been okay. Current

1.025
DKH- 8.7
PO4 - .09
NO3- 5PPM
CA 420
MG 1250

I have done the following the past month and a half or so:

Added urchin, conchs, snails.
3 day blackout, later a 4 day blackout.
Raised temp to 83 for 4 days.
Dosed hydrogen peroxide 10ml at night x2 wk
Dosed Vibrant - week 2 (will take a while more)
Dosed MB7 x1 week.
Day 2 running Green Killing Machine 24w

This is my first tank and my first big challenge for sure. I'm not really sure what my next move is. I know slow and steady is always best with reef tanks but I am slowly and steadily losing corals and losing this algae battle. I know a microscope would be helpful and I should have started there in hindsight. Any advice from any long time reefers is greatly appreciated! Here are some ugly pictures:

Vibrant works great but it takes time. I would do a big water change then start Vibrant. Get LOTS of clean up crew

 

[CookieRdReef]

I recognize brandon from research on this. I may be going this route. I am possibly willing to buy some live rock from kp aquatics to replace my current rock if that makes sense. I will put in the work on my rock but really hate the idea of H2O2ing and scrubbing and blowing up my aquascape for this all to come back.

 

[brandon429]

That is no easy job
disassembly cleaning large tanks is ultimate headache

if we had a one pass cure then this wouldn't be the exclusive science hobby that it is. my brainstorms based on pics and tank size and brightness and layout:

thats a very nice reef agreed and you are acting early for sure, its not bad yet it’s quite natural in fact. Scuba divers see much worse in fact.


so the reason you have that light growth is no parrot fish, no hawksbill turtles to bite it off, reefs produce what you have and animals eat it, don’t starve corals messing with param starving.

drop lighting down 30% off current power no joke it’s handy, only for a week. You don’t need the current power levels to run that reef, a cloudy week on the reef means nothing and we can ramp back up slowly, to see if sandbed growths you remove come back in relation to light modulation.

dont dose peroxide to water yet is my reco, test proof first.

Take out a test rock and hit it with peroxide all around but not on corals, let sit in air for two mins, rinse in saltwater then just set back and chart what this one rock does during your week of light down ramp. We see if the sprayed algae self-dies off and falls off, or if you have to still manually pull it
you are learning about the invasion vs subjecting your whole reef to a guess.

Have your sandbed totally cleaned via top siphon before this begins.

add nothing to the water, a whole tank test that can kill your corals, before this assessment above which cannot.

 

[brandon429]

This reef might require dentistry not a joke, who says it has to be all at once, a few reefteeth a week and bam by spring break u got the grillz

by dentistry am meaning direct surgical target rasping of plaque (anchored algae) and evacuation rinse (peroxide) not aimed at plant mass, that was rasped already, the peroxide goes on cleaned zones as holdfast burn.

this is how you work around a delicate capnella coral and not kill it or change your water params, it’s sitting out on your cabinet getting precision detailed

I can see time and money in place there, those corals are happy. Reef dentistry sitting out on the counter is a sick trick, experiment with one or two. You won’t have to tell us which ones were the test rock in three days, they’d stand out


it would be ideal if we could instantly tame the toughest hobby and make all rocks comply, would you settle for 4% immediate and total compliance (by your hand) as a fair tradeoff

the counter offer is to vastly alter all the chemistry surrounding your corals, sustain it with fingers crossed for weeks. It’s better than you make six rocks comply, without pause. I don’t have a better way that’s safer with quicker delivery, heck one could be done now with a steak knife tip and a trip to the medicine cabinet and back.

test rock, know what works before the upscale, close in on chances.

test dosing from a bucket not your reef~ 5 gallons bubbled, heated with a rock and coral test. one mil of 3% peroxide added into bucket, simulates full tank run but at scale, how does target and nontarget respond after three days dosed once a day—this is a known safe dilution for the main tank but see if growback is worth it first.

do vibrant in a bucket test.

 

[CookieRdReef]

That is no easy job
disassembly cleaning large tanks is ultimate headache

if we had a one pass cure then this wouldn't be the exclusive science hobby that it is. my brainstorms based on pics and tank size and brightness and layout:

thats a very nice reef agreed and you are acting early for sure, its not bad yet it’s quite natural in fact. Scuba divers see much worse in fact.


so the reason you have that light growth is no parrot fish, no hawksbill turtles to bite it off, reefs produce what you have and animals eat it, don’t starve corals messing with param starving.

drop lighting down 30% off current power no joke it’s handy, only for a week. You don’t need the current power levels to run that reef, a cloudy week on the reef means nothing and we can ramp back up slowly, to see if sandbed growths you remove come back in relation to light modulation.

dont dose peroxide to water yet is my reco, test proof first.

Take out a test rock and hit it with peroxide all around but not on corals, let sit in air for two mins, rinse in saltwater then just set back and chart what this one rock does during your week of light down ramp. Have your sandbed totally cleaned via top siphon before this begins.

add nothing to the water, a whole tank test that can kill your corals, before this assessment above which cannot.

I love the idea of testing a single rock before doing anything drastic. I will try lights down too. I turned the whites up to 100 for the pic but they are currently running on. I should borrow a sea turtle. That would be a quick fix! Thanks for the advice.

 

[CookieRdReef]

This reef might require dentistry not a joke, who says it has to be all at once, a few teeth a week and bam by spring break u got the grillz

A younger me with less kids would be putting more time and TLC into this thing. I have a 7yr, 5yr, 2yr, and 8 month old at home taking up most of my time. My reefing is usually done after everybody else is asleep.

 

[austibella]

Vibrant works great but it takes time. I would do a big water change then start Vibrant. Get LOTS of clean up crew

FluxRX is the only thing that works for turf algae .nothing eats it. im on my second time doing it. Read directions carefully. Turn off protein skimmer, carbon, phosphate reactor and bio churn. For 14 days. After day 3 you can use protein skimmer. After 14 days do a water change .if it comes back do it one more time and it will be fine. Keep your uv sterilizer on to kill any algae spores. Change filter socks every day

 

[CookieRdReef]

I was looking into flux. I was unsure if it worked on turf algae or just GHA? Mine is thick and dark green not long and stringy.

 

[austibella]

FluxRX is the only thing that works for turf algae .nothing eats it. im on my second time doing it. Read directions carefully. Turn off protein skimmer, carbon, phosphate reactor and bio churn. For 14 days. After day 3 you can use protein skimmer. After 14 days do a water change .if it comes back do it one more time and it will be fine. Keep your uv sterilizer on to kill any algae spores. Change filter socks every day

Forgot to tell you its Blue Life FluxRX they sell on line pills or I got the powder for larger tanks 7000 mg.treats up to 350 gallon in case you need to dose 2 times its cheeper then pills ..large scoop 1 scoop per 25 gal.. small scoop 1 scoop per 5 gallon mix with R/O water. Works really good .check out videos on utube

 

[brandon429]

Test with flux in a bucket agreed. Dont think the buck ends with that mass though

if you kill that off internally it becomes waste plugging rocks and sand, cyano tradeoff invasions are marked and common in the 200 page fluconazole thread. Always a tradeoff

dentistry has no internal risk, it’s inherently 100% exporting.


it’s tradeoff is un tetrising your tank to effect the win. Always have a pre test in place, old reefs get old because we don’t experiment with the whole thing when coral plating shows happy. We should consider direct, not indirect action. tradeoff invasions get worse you’d be amazed how preferable that above is to dinos

 

[austibella]

I was looking into flux. I was unsure if it worked on turf algae or just GHA? Mine is thick and dark green not long and stringy.

Works on turf algae I battled it for 8 months before finding about it. The more I pulled out the more it took over my tank

 

[CookieRdReef]

Works on turf algae I battled it for 8 months before finding about it. The more I pulled out the more it took over my tank

Thanks I will be trying. I'm willing to have algae/ugly tank but dying corals is another thing.

 

[brandon429]

If I had to pick one water doser that is most likely to help it is that fluconazole flux.

 

[DanConnor]

What kind and how many snails did you put in?

 

[austibella]

Test with flux in a bucket agreed. Dont think the buck ends with that mass though

if you kill that off internally it becomes waste plugging rocks and sand, cyano tradeoff invasions are marked and common in the 200 page fluconazole thread. Always a tradeoff

dentistry has no internal risk, it’s inherently 100 exporting.


it’s tradeoff is un tetrising your tank to effect the win. Always have a pre test in place, old reefs get old because we don’t experiment with the whole thing when coral plating shows happy. We should consider direct, not indirect action. tradeoff invasions get worse you’d be amazed how preferable that above is to dinos

I used it . After i battle turf algae for 8 months in 14 days it was gone with flux rx..but people don't read directions. You have to use filter socks. And I changed them out everyday as far as dino that's easy to get rid of after you get rid of turf algae first

 

[CookieRdReef]

If I had to pick one water doser that is most likely to help it is that fluconazole flux.

I will try. Any benefit to removing all or part of the sand for cleaning? Or replacing rock with ordered live rock? I know there will be algae on it too but a ton more biodiversity and age than mine.

 

[CookieRdReef]

What kind and how many snails did you put in?

3 tiger conchs, Nassarius x 12, Trochus x5
Astrea x10.