HELP! Fighting algae for 5 months!

[TankCandy]

How often do you feed your fish and how much??? I feed every other day and once a week frozen food.

 

[brandon429]

Wow I didn’t see you already tried fluc.

 

[Saltysav96]

I’m really surprised if you used flucanozol properly that it didn’t completely decimate that algae. You sure you didn’t run it with a skimmer or carbon in the system and used the correct dosage for the time period required?
I have never seen it not work on hair, turf or bryopsis.

i put in all 10 pills of the reef flux last monday ( jan 18th) and have not seen any different

i took the cup off the skimmer and removed carbon,
Only thing I forgot to do was pull out the polyfilter which i did the next night (january 19) the polyfilter was already several weeks old so I highly doubt it removed the medication that quick or if even since it was already a couple weeks old . I actually have more reef flux on the way

 

[Saltysav96]

How often do you feed your fish and how much??? I feed every other day and once a week frozen food.

I try to feed once a day to every other day at night when i get off work.
when i feed frozen i only do about a nickel to quarter size

( i have 8 fish; 2 clowns; 2 pajama cardinals, yellow eye kole , lawnmower blenny, royal gamma, and a goby/shrimp pair)

 

[brandon429]

Any new rock purchased will do the same. Even though this stinks, work till it’s won. When algae has been beaten and sustained, then changing out for new rocks won’t matter. Gotta stay until beaten

 

[brandon429]

A very practical changeup is to go from immovable wall arch scape into separate bommies you can lift out again soon, on top of clean sand, and guide by hand. You can use a third of that live rock and it’s still enough for all your fish. Restoring accessibility is #1

its not in a chem, a doser, a param, a snail, it’s us that have final say.

the rules the masses use for algae are opposite, and designed to lead you to retail dependence and trial.

Corals growing on the bommie rocks just ride out stuck to the rock as you work it, like a tide simulation nbd

rocks that are covered in coral mouths, such as this favia rock, can’t grow algae as the coral excludes it from anchor. A reason to manually clean the rocks is to make space so lps and sps can expand and exclude.

 

[LegendaryCG]

i put in all 10 pills of the reef flux last monday ( jan 18th) and have not seen any different

i took the cup off the skimmer and removed carbon,
Only thing I forgot to do was pull out the polyfilter which i did the next night (january 19) the polyfilter was already several weeks old so I highly doubt it removed the medication that quick or if even since it was already a couple weeks old . I actually have more reef flux on the way

Weird it blocks a protein algae need to survive and usually can see noticeable changes within a day or two.

 

[brandon429]

And even if it does kill it, growback is certain or at least most likely scanning any page of the fluconazole thread.

gha is as fitted to reefs as corals, where corals grow so does gha. We’ve been taught that it’s a reflection of something bad but it’s not.

making a tank free of algae is unnatural thats ironic. But we want it that way, so make the stack become removable sections. Even new rocks, trying to avoid direct work is why we lose so many tanks to algae challenges

after months of work, we *may* get lucky and have things balance out. But if not, the tank still looks great because we resolved to cause that condition.

you won’t have to rip clean the sand for a long time, future access lift-outs can be fast and easy, with clean sand removing rocks and setting back won’t harm. In the current setting, it will because that kicks up more gha feed from down below.


the sandbed is inextricably tied to the gha issue here.

 

[codycolina707]

I try to feed once a day to every other day at night when i get off work.
when i feed frozen i only do about a nickel to quarter size

( i have 8 fish; 2 clowns; 2 pajama cardinals, yellow eye kole , lawnmower blenny, royal gamma, and a goby/shrimp pair)

I beat mine in 3 weeks with brightwell razor dosing followed by big water changes sucking out everything that was loose and dying from the brightwell razor all my rock is ultra clean now

 

[brandon429]

Just as a heads up, check out this vibrant thread.

Vibrant Killing Corals..

Interesting thread, I've never used vibrant specificly but my experience in general with bacteria type products is that you should always start with a much lower dose than manufacturers recommendations to see how your tank reacts. Usually if it's a weekly recommendation I try about an eighth and...

www.reef2reef.com

rip cleans have a zero loss rate, big work has the edge on safety we show.

 

[Treefer32]

I have a 340 gallon display with phosphates (from an ICP test this past week) at .55692 mg / l. 8-9 times what they should be and I have no algae on any rocks. It grows in on the glass within hours of scraping it. but that's all. I see your phosphates are at .04. To me, what's happening is your algae on your rocks is consuming your phosphates. Your phosphates are probably through the roof. Now where they're coming from I can't tell you. The most common issue is food. Pellets and flake have a lot of phosphate. Cut them out and go with rinsed frozen food would be a good change at least temporarily. I say that, but, I don't use pellets and my phosphates are high.

Next, I have an algae turf scrubber. Try adding an ATS or refugium as you scrap your rocks and clean them, you need the phosphates to be consumed somewhere else. I sincerely believe my 340 gallon would look like yours if I didn't have an ATS. It grows a softball sized ball of hair algae every 6-7 days. My phosphates are still high, but it seems that because it grows there it can't take root in my display.

Next, I'm curious if you dosed fluconozole properly and long enough. I used it to kill off an algae problem I had early on (2 years ago). It took 4-6 weeks of repeated doses to kill off all of the nuissance algae in my display. As it died I hand pulled it. (It also killed the algae on my scrubber. ;( ) I then had to wait a couple months for my scrubber to kick back in and consume the nutrients that had been consumed in the display. I won even with having through the roof phosphates.

I know this is depressing! Trust me, I've been in this situation a few times. It is beatable. I'm investing in phosphate removing resin to make sure this doesn't happen to me in the future after I do some major water changes to bring my phosphates down.

I highly recommend you verify the phosphates in your water change water. If your DI resin is expired, RO membrane is aged, or something with your new water is adding phosphates in the algae will perpetually grow.

 

[Saltysav96]

i dont see where the sand rinsing would be that hard, except the final rinse in RODI ,thats not something i have that is pressurized like tap water which would take HOURS to rinse using a small stream out the RODI unit .that is not even remotely close to my aquarium lol

 

[vetteguy53081]

First check and verify phosphate and nitrate readings and see if they’re elevated.
Pull as much as you can by hand and reduce white light intensity.
add fluconasal (flux) and treat
After day 5, siphon tank and add the following snails:
4 turbo
4 astrea
3 trochus
4 nassarius
4 cerith
8 blue leg hermit crabs (they’re tiny)

ARE YOU USING RODI WATER OR TAP WATER FROM FAUCET?

imIs tank at or near a window ?

 

[Aqua Man]

score algae off with a knife back to clean, rinsed in saltwater, takes hours, price of following the common practice leading up

So many nooks and crannies in rocks. I’ve used a knife. Does work. Takes a long time though.

How about a wire brush? Totally new one of course.

 

[Treefer32]

Otherwise as a temporary fix.. You could see about renting a Sea Hare. It would probably devour that algae in a few days. That doesn't solve the problem. Just mitigates the ugliness of it. You still need to find a good way to export the nutrients in your water. Or you could see if you grow algae fast enough for the Sea Hare to make your aquarium its forever home.

 

[Saltysav96]

First check and verify phosphate and nitrate readings and see if they’re elevated.
Pull as much as you can by hand and reduce white light intensity.
add fluconasal (flux) and treat
After day 5, siphon tank and add the following snails:
4 turbo
4 astrea
3 trochus
4 nassarius
4 cerith
8 blue leg hermit crabs (they’re tiny)

ARE YOU USING RODI WATER OR TAP WATER FROM FAUCET?

imIs tank at or near a window ?

Not to be a butthole,
But did you read my entire post?
I have used fluconazole
I have lowered white lights
I also stated that i am using RODI water Have posted the ICP results from the RODI as well

Also will add i have changed ALL my RODI filters since battling this problem and i stil have GHA .
i am running 3 stages of DI
canton, anion and mixed.

 

[t5Nitro]

Not to be a butthole,
But did you read my entire post?
I have used fluconazole
I have lowered white lights
I also stated that i am using RODI water Have posted the ICP results from the RODI as well

Also will add i have changed ALL my RODI filters since battling this problem and i stil have GHA .
i am running 3 stages of DI
canton, anion and mixed.

I've tried all of the recommended methods as well without much success. Everybody's trying to give some helpful advice but I think it just doesn't work for everyone's particular tank being slightly different. Mine is bare bottom with 80x turnover flow rate. There isn't much of anything settling as a need for rip cleaning. Its just so individualized. I might try the peroxide dips and scrubs one rock at a time just as a method to visually improve the tank periodically.

I should be using my ATS but it clogged in the waterfall pipe and sprayed out the side and flooded my floor and had my ato going to my tanks SG of 1.023. Terrified to restart that thing.

 

[Topekoms]

I would recommend vibrant I had a small issue about 8 months ago. Cleared it right up

 

[t5Nitro]

Have to take extreme caution with vibrant. Weakens GHA to where its easier to siphon. Killed my euphyllia corals. Look at photo above to see how that worked. Would strongly advise against it unless you can move coral to a new tank while treatment is underway.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Vibrant at 80% recommendations is safe range
Is tank at or near a window??