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we'll all then know what "dosed 20ml" means.
20 ml for my tank volume should be right around 0.5 ppm of the NO3 portion according to the calculator. here's how I set it up.
Screen Shot 2017-05-22 at 12.57.54 PM.png
 

MasonReef

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Nice tank!

Yours looks just like what I had. Growth became noticeable after the 'forever' diatom bloom. I just associate it with large amounts of silica and po4 leaching from new(or mined) rocks. The addition of astrea or trochus snails would benefit too, with keeping rocks clean.

Thanks! I do have astrea snails, but they seem to do a much better job of eating it off the glass than the rocks. I need to try the trochus, I have heard good things from others as well.

I've been following your plan, but am having a hard time removing all the Chryso manually, there is just so much of it. I'd say I was able to remove 70% of it after turkey basting and toothbrush scrubbing for about an hour yesterday.

I'll be removing GFO in about an hour, as well as changing out the canister filter and filter socks. I've also raised my nitrates up to 3 ppm.
 

reeferfoxx

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Thanks! I do have astrea snails, but they seem to do a much better job of eating it off the glass than the rocks. I need to try the trochus, I have heard good things from others as well.
Astrea are fine. They will eat it when it gets to a more manageable state.
I've been following your plan, but am having a hard time removing all the Chryso manually, there is just so much of it. I'd say I was able to remove 70% of it after turkey basting and toothbrush scrubbing for about an hour yesterday.
Yeah, it's going to be a crazy mess at first. That is why I recommend GFO after the tank clears. I ran into issues where the GFO was clogging and making its presence ineffective.
Just let the canister filter and socks filter all the big clumps.
 

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I've been following your plan, but am having a hard time removing all the Chryso manually, there is just so much of it. I'd say I was able to remove 70% of it after turkey basting and toothbrush scrubbing for about an hour yesterday.

This is a worthy step, but not worth stressing over, IMO. Do what you can. :)
 
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Quick update: I just finished a test of phosphates and nitrates (7:30 pm 5/22) I measured 0.08 ppm PO4 and again 0 NO3 so I decided to up the game and give the tank what it needs and see where I end up in the AM. I dosed 80 ml KN03 - into Sump that should bring my NO3 up to 2 ppm. I can't keep testing and dosing like this... on top of regular feedings I fed 1 cube of frozen mysis, 1 nice chunk of Nori and broadcast fed corals after lights out. I really hope I still have Nitrates in the AM. So far the Phosphates seem to be holding stable on their own. Did I mention I took my skimmer off line today? I must have a huge amount of hungry bacteria still in the tank!
 

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So now that I'm with you on ppm's, your dose has been really low. :)

I think I shot for 5 ppm initially....it spiked a little over that if I recall correctly.

I dunno if you've looked at the calculator link I sent, but I think these general recommendations are all detailed there in a reasonably concise manner. Same in the R2R thread I think I posted too.

(I did post those links here, right? So many threads, so few brain cells!!!!)
 
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Day 8 - continued (5/22)
Measured 0.08 ppm PO4
Measured 0 NO3
D
osed 80 ml KN03 - into Sump - that should bring my NO3 up to 2 ppm.

Changes:
Fed a whole cube of frozen Mysis shrimp
Fed 1 nice chunk of Nori
Fed corals broadcast feeding of BenePets BeneReef after lights out
Turned Skimmer off
Turned UV off

Observations:
Corals are fully open and look great
Chrysophytes turning dark brown and fading away

Day 9 (5/23)
Measured 1 ppm N03 - looks like it's just over 1 ppm
Measured 0.04 ppm PO4 - when it's this low it's so hard to tell the shades of yellow apart on the Red Sea test kit
Dosed 120 ml KN03 - into Sump - should raise No3 by 3 ppm, bringing my total up to 4 ppm
Dosed 10 ml P2O5 - into Sump- should raise PO4 by 0.07 ppm, bringing my total up to 0.11 ppm

Changes:

Turned on Skimmer

Observations:
Chrysophytes turning dark brown and fading away not growing and spreading. Corals continue to improve.

Notes:

My nitrates dropped from 2 ppm to just above 1 ppm overnight. This gives me a good baseline to know how much is being consumed in 12 hours that the refugium is lit. I'll check the level again tonight to see how much is used during the day for a full 24 hour perspective.
 
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I wish you could change the title of your post to:

Chrysophytes un-battle

;)
Deff the Un-battle... It's been 10 days since I started dosing KNO3 and Phosphorous and keeping my numbers above 0... one cleaning, one 24hour treatment of GFO and one 20% water change... there are no signs of these little jerks returning! I want to take some time to thank my mentors @mcarroll @reeferfoxx and @saltyfilmfolks for all of the great advice and help!

Just to make it official... heres Day 10 stats
I didn't do anything more on Day 9... no testing and no dosing

Day 10 (5/24)
Measured 1 ppm NO3
Measured 0.04 ppm PO4

Changes:
Skimmer is back online
Small water change to see if I can get my Mg up.

Observations:
No changes in the status of Chryso's
Corals continue to improve.
I think I might see my first signs of green coraline. I'm sure once my Mg is back to normal it will explode.

I've decided to look back at the Mike Paletta's article "Tank Parameters Of Some Masters"
here's a sample of Jason Fox's params Alk 8-9, C 400, Mg 1400, NO3 5-10, PO4 .08-.10, Sr 9 and temp 77.
While my tank is still struggling to have the proper Mg levels I decided to attempt to raise my NO3 up to 5 ppm as this was one of the lowest params in the article as some were up to 25 ppm or more. I'll also attempt to keep my PO4 at 0.08 ppm where it seems low enough, most stable and easiest to read on the Red Sea test kit.

Dosing 160 ml of my KNO3 mix to bring me up to 5 ppm NO3
Dosing 20 ml of Flourish Phosphorous to bring me up to 0.08 ppm of PO4

I'll only be dosing as my tank as it is still young and has an abundance of bacteria to keep params in check. I've been overfeeding everything everyday and my numbers still drop. Once the tank matures a bit and finds its own balance I won't be dosing it. I Hope to find that balance as soon as possible. I'll begin to do less testing and dosing. After todays dosing i'll test again maybe on friday. My only fear is letting the PO4 drop back to 0.

For now I think I'm done with this thread. I hope someone else finds this information useful.
 
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reeferfoxx

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Deff the Un-battle... It's been 10 days since I started dosing KNO3 and Phosphorous and keeping my numbers above 0... one cleaning, one 24hour treatment of GFO and one 20% water change... there are no signs of these little ******** returning! I want to take some time to thank my mentors @mcarroll @reeferfoxx and @saltyfilmfolks for all of the great advice and help!

Just to make it official... heres Day 10 stats
I didn't do anything more on Day 9... no testing and no dosing

Day 10 (5/24)
Measured 1 ppm NO3
Measured 0.04 ppm PO4

Changes:
Skimmer is back online
Small water change to see if I can get my Mg up.

Observations:
No changes in the status of Chryso's
Corals continue to improve.
I think I might see my first signs of green coraline. I'm sure once my Mg is back to normal it will explode.

I've decided to look back at the Mike Paletta's article "Tank Parameters Of Some Masters"
here's a sample of Jason Fox's params Alk 8-9, C 400, Mg 1400, NO3 5-10, PO4 .08-.10, Sr 9 and temp 77.
While my tank is still struggling to have the proper Mg levels I decided to attempt to raise my NO3 up to 5 ppm as this was one of the lowest params in the article as some were up to 25 ppm or more. I'll also attempt to keep my PO4 at 0.08 ppm where it seems low enough, most stable and easiest to read on the Red Sea test kit.

Dosing 160 ml of my KNO3 mix to bring me up to 5 ppm NO3
Dosing 20 ml of Flourish Phosphorous to bring me up to 0.08 ppm of PO4

I'll only be dosing as my tank as it is still young and has an abundance of bacteria to keep params in check. I've been overfeeding everything everyday and my numbers still drop. Once the tank matures a bit and finds its own balance I won't be dosing it. I Hope to find that balance as soon as possible. I'll begin to do less testing and dosing. After todays dosing i'll test again maybe on friday. My only fear is letting the PO4 drop back to 0.

For now I think I'm done with this thread. I hope someone else finds this information useful.
Congrats!
 

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Bumping this thread to get some more advice on battling the chrysophytes in my 240g tank. I received some good advice from this thread a couple weeks back. This is what I have been doing:

I've been maintaining nitrates using stump remover at 5ppm since 5/21. I have been having trouble consistently raising phosphate to a detectable level. At first I tried drastically increasing my feeding (went from 1/2 cube a day to 3, and added coral food) with no results on the Hanna Checker. I went ahead and purchased some Seachem Phosphorus and since dosing it have managed to maintain a reading between .02 and .03ppm for the past 2 days. I will continue to increase my dosing until I can get a .05ppm of phosphate and try to maintain it there.

I have also been manually removing the chrysophytes every other day, running GFO for 24 hours then taking offline, and running filtersocks & canister filter. I have also done a 4 or 5 40g water changes when I didn't think the filters would be able to remove all the free floating chryso. I'm about at my limit on doing this, work manually removing the stuff is getting tiresome and very time consuming. We won't talk about how many corals I have knock off their plugs while doing this. ;Facepalm

So far I haven't seen any reduction on the chrysophytes growth. I have noticed cyano to appear in more quantities though.

My question is if I am still on the right path? How long should it take to start seeing a reduction of the chryso?
 

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My question is if I am still on the right path?
Yes.

Plan of action is also dependent of severity.

Are you filtering the chrysos with a canister filter?
Are you using a toothbrush to scrub rocks?
 

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Yes.

Plan of action is also dependent of severity.

Are you filtering the chrysos with a canister filter?
Are you using a toothbrush to scrub rocks?

Yes, I have been following the plan you gave me at post #59 on this thread, using an Eheim canister filter with filter floss in it and using a toothbrush and turkey baster to scrub the rocks.

I did run out of GFO on Monday (running a batch for only 24 hrs uses up quite a bit), but I have ordered some more. Besides that, I've been following it exactly, with the exception of memorial day where I was out of the house and did not do any maintenance that day.

As for severity, the chryso is covering pretty much every inch of rock that gets light by the time I start manually removing it again. However my corals are not being negatively impacted by the chryso as far as I can tell (acros are still growing).
 

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Yes, I have been following the plan you gave me at post #59 on this thread, using an Eheim canister filter with filter floss in it and using a toothbrush and turkey baster to scrub the rocks.

I did run out of GFO on Monday (running a batch for only 24 hrs uses up quite a bit), but I have ordered some more. Besides that, I've been following it exactly, with the exception of memorial day where I was out of the house and did not do any maintenance that day.

As for severity, the chryso is covering pretty much every inch of rock that gets light by the time I start manually removing it again. However my corals are not being negatively impacted by the chryso as far as I can tell (acros are still growing).
Good! Knowing your tank isn't being stressed is a good sign. I think we can incorporate a more invasive approach. I don't like suggesting this because of the stress risk on coral. If your tank didn't have coral I would have suggested this with your maintenance regiment.

One other thing we know about chrysos is they are photosynthetic. So following the the same plan, after cleaning rocks, turn your lights off.
I want to recommend 3 days of lights off along with cleaning and filtering. One that third day morning, if growth has slowed or is significantly reduced, then add GFO for 24 hours.
Dont perform a WC after but monitor growth again.
Then lets us know here your progress. Then we can decide whether a WC is necessary or if repeating another rock scrub and filter is needed.
 

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Good! Knowing your tank isn't being stressed is a good sign. I think we can incorporate a more invasive approach. I don't like suggesting this because of the stress risk on coral. If your tank didn't have coral I would have suggested this with your maintenance regiment.

One other thing we know about chrysos is they are photosynthetic. So following the the same plan, after cleaning rocks, turn your lights off.
I want to recommend 3 days of lights off along with cleaning and filtering. One that third day morning, if growth has slowed or is significantly reduced, then add GFO for 24 hours.
Dont perform a WC after but monitor growth again.
Then lets us know here your progress. Then we can decide whether a WC is necessary or if repeating another rock scrub and filter is needed.

OK, I will try the lights out. I will probably need to put cardboard around the tank, as the tank does get some sunlight in the mornings. I am leaving out of town Tuesday - Friday next week for business, but if I start tomorrow it may be okay.

So I would go lights out Friday, Saturday. Sunday morning, if growth slowed/reduced, add GFO. Are lights still off for Sunday's entirety?
 

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OK, I will try the lights out. I will probably need to put cardboard around the tank, as the tank does get some sunlight in the mornings. I am leaving out of town Tuesday - Friday next week for business, but if I start tomorrow it may be okay.

So I would go lights out Friday, Saturday. Sunday morning, if growth slowed/reduced, add GFO. Are lights still off for Sunday's entirety?
Yes sir. You would go back to normal light schedule on monday. Now, if you do see more growth that sunday morning, again try and turkey baste and toothbrush those rocks. GFO only impacts regrowth. So it is always best to have a clean "canvas" before limiting regrowth.
 

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Yes sir. You would go back to normal light schedule on monday. Now, if you do see more growth that sunday morning, again try and turkey baste and toothbrush those rocks. GFO only impacts regrowth. So it is always best to have a clean "canvas" before limiting regrowth.

Ok. Thank you again for the help, I will report back.
 

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Ok. Thank you again for the help, I will report back.
No problem. Fwiw I applaud you for your efforts on such a large tank. Sorry for the struggle! I also wish there was a magical cure. If there was one, i would for sure let you know! Good luck
 

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No problem. Fwiw I applaud you for your efforts on such a large tank. Sorry for the struggle! I also wish there was a magical cure. If there was one, i would for sure let you know! Good luck

If only there were a magical cure!

Dealing with this on a large tank definitely is not fun, but I'm at the point where I'll try just about anything and put as much work as needed to get rid of the stuff.

Chrysos were in the tank from the very beginning a little more than a year ago. I thought they were diatoms at first, then I thought they were dinos for the longest time and just recently found out they are chrysophytes (which seems quite rare, as no one in the reef community in the Austin area seems to have heard of it). I'm just glad I'm finally able to do something target directly at getting rid of the chryso, as I haven't been able to enjoy this tank yet without it.
 
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