How ugly was your Ugly Stage?

[vetteguy53081]

This was my 660g when it had developed dino about 5 years ago.
After 4 days was again clear and after day 9 totally clear and have never seen dino since then

Dino:

Day 4:

Day 10:

I Prepared by blowing this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphoned up loose particles. Then I Turned lights off (at least white and ran blue at 10-15% as I had light dependant corals) for 5 days and at night I dosed 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off. During the day I dosed 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as micro bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons. I Cleaned filters daily and didnt as you dont want to FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX which fuel dinos
You can feed fish as normal and if doing blackout, ambient light in room will work for them

 

[slogan315]

This was my 660g when it had developed dino about 5 years ago.
After 4 days was again clear and after day 9 totally clear and have never seen dino since then

Dino:

Day 4:

Day 10:

I Prepared by blowing this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphoned up loose particles. Then I Turned lights off (at least white and ran blue at 10-15% as I had light dependant corals) for 5 days and at night I dosed 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off. During the day I dosed 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as micro bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons. I Cleaned filters daily and didnt as you dont want to FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX which fuel dinos
You can feed fish as normal and if doing blackout, ambient light in room will work for them

How long does it take to turkey baste 660 gallons?? I bought a maxi jet after turkey basting my 60g once you either have an efficient turkey baster or forearms of steel

 

[vetteguy53081]

How long does it take to turkey baste 660 gallons?? I bought a maxi jet after turkey basting my 60g once you either have an efficient turkey baster or forearms of steel

Youre blowing this loose and not cleaning coral. This is a general loosening. Keep in mind I had plenty of flow to supplement this. In a tank this size, I ran 4 neptune WAV pumps, two gyres and had 7 return nozzles with random flow generators

 

[Bj’s Reef]

I deleted the pictures of my tank during the ugly phase. It was so bad my wife asked if I shouldn’t go back to fresh water. That was eight years ago. The tank settled down. The ugly phase went thru it’s phases. I learned a lot. Now I’m ready for a new tank. Don’t give up, you have to go thru things to get what you want. The ugly phase isn’t permanent. IT WILL PASS.

 

[itsdarrow]

whats annoying is the first year it feels like its multiple ugly stages, things improve then some other algae/bacterial outbreak happens.

 

[slogan315]

whats annoying is the first year it feels like its multiple ugly stages, things improve then some other algae/bacterial outbreak happens.

It just so happens that since I made the post, the fluconazole has started melting the GHA. A golden film has taken its place where the light wasn’t getting past the algae. We’ll see if it’s some sort of diatoms, Dinos, or something else. It never ends… but then again problems are a good reason to justify more gear to your wife

 

[etcee]

I don't have any pictures of my 20g going through its ugly stage, but honestly, not that bad. It lasted maybe 3-4 weeks. I also started with live rock rubble in a filter bag in my AIO which maybe is why.

 

[Andreas' Reef]

The green slime cyano was the ugliest stage for me. Fortunately, dosing pods and nutrients slowed its spread, and manual removal cleared it up quickly.

I wish GHA blew off in sheets just as easily…

Green cyano is some tough stuff man… it had me frustrated

 

[Mrussell]

Ugly stage seems to happen no matter what for me especially without live rock. I have had multiple over the past 4 years after a couple of tank crashes. Each time it happens the only thing I change is to make sure I’m doing monthly water changes and make sure my clean up crew is sufficient and wait it out. No changes just keep it consistent and it will bounce back.

 

[fat_tactical]

It got worse than the image shown with diatoms and hair algae. Tested the water and had 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates. Added microbacter7 and 5 gallon water changes every other day over the course of about 2 weeks, added 1 bottle of live pods a week for 2 weeks, lowered the amount of full spectrum light from 12 hours/day to 8 hours/day. Diatoms and hair algae cleared up after the 3rd week and I tested my water again. Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite 0ppm, Nitrate 10ppm, Phosphate 0.5ppm. Everything’s looking good now. I rearranged the rockwork about 2 weeks ago and replaced the stock hood with an AI Prime and added a Nero 3 for extra water circulation. Picked up some peppermint shrimps and an emerald crab to assist the hermits and snails I have throughout the tank. Tank is about 4 months old now.

 

[slogan315]

Ugly stage seems to happen no matter what for me especially without live rock. I have had multiple over the past 4 years after a couple of tank crashes. Each time it happens the only thing I change is to make sure I’m doing monthly water changes and make sure my clean up crew is sufficient and wait it out. No changes just keep it consistent and it will bounce back.

how long between the two pictures? Really nice to see bare rock -> reef transformations.

 

[spicyshrimp]

Oh boy, this thread was practically made for me, so strap in folks!

Starting out, I was still in middle school, with no real understanding of the stability required to maintain a good reef (or anything for that matter). And so, I just started throwing in random chemicals like Vibrant and Prime to “kill the algae” that kept showing up everywhere. Eventually, that only led to me acquiring less-than-desirable algaes like hair algae which refused to die, and eventually bubble algae. This isn’t the greatest picture but the algaes on the rocks should give you an idea of what I was dealing with.

At some point, I upgraded from a 42g to a 65g, and decided to use that opportunity to deep clean every rock and equipment (and destroy any development of a stable microbiome :/ ) with soaking in boiling water and letting dry in the sun for days. Again, I had no idea what I was doing, and the concept of a robust CUC was foreign to me. I also happened to buy a baby Humu trigger which ate every snail or crab I tried to put in, but liked the fish too much to do something about it.

About a month in to a fresh looking tank, I get hit with a wall of diatoms.

At this point, I let it blow over, knowing (hoping) that it would eventually go away. However, I failed to realize that you need a CUC to manage the algae, even during the ugly stage, because then I got hit with cyano annd hair algae. And oh my god.

At this stage, my tank was so horrific I just refused to even look at it as I was so embarrassed. I tried manual removal daily and weekly water changes, but it would just come right back within 36 hours. I tried Chemiclean, but I had been poorly using it for so long the cyano built resistance and it didn’t have an effect anymore besides continually knocking back my tank’s microbiome, making future recovery even more slim. My only chance at recovery was essentially a full system restart, and eventually I did that, cleaning off every rock and draining the tank and replacing the sand. Afterwards, my tank went through the uglies as normal:

But on my birthday that year, I got a handful of Astreas and a tuxedo urchin, as well as getting rid of the trigger. And when the time for hair algae arrived, they ate it all so fast I couldn’t even find any if I looked. This is my tank about 2 months after getting the urchin:

And here it is now, with the accumulation of my knowledge and proper husbandry:

While I still fight annoying algae from time to time (like dinos a month ago) now I can safely say I’ve finally beaten the ugly stage.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

What do you mean was? It's a matter of what is next

 

[BaliReefBox]

Well never had a ugly phase per say...lots of real, straight from the ocean live rock and live sand...minimal lighting in the first months and seemed to avoid it. tank cycled almost immediately..Now that being said I cant keep an SPS alive to save myself... after a year ....waiting ICP OTW

 

[slogan315]

Oh boy, this thread was practically made for me, so strap in folks!

Starting out, I was still in middle school, with no real understanding of the stability required to maintain a good reef (or anything for that matter). And so, I just started throwing in random chemicals like Vibrant and Prime to “kill the algae” that kept showing up everywhere. Eventually, that only led to me acquiring less-than-desirable algaes like hair algae which refused to die, and eventually bubble algae. This isn’t the greatest picture but the algaes on the rocks should give you an idea of what I was dealing with.

At some point, I upgraded from a 42g to a 65g, and decided to use that opportunity to deep clean every rock and equipment (and destroy any development of a stable microbiome :/ ) with soaking in boiling water and letting dry in the sun for days. Again, I had no idea what I was doing, and the concept of a robust CUC was foreign to me. I also happened to buy a baby Humu trigger which ate every snail or crab I tried to put in, but liked the fish too much to do something about it.

About a month in to a fresh looking tank, I get hit with a wall of diatoms.

At this point, I let it blow over, knowing (hoping) that it would eventually go away. However, I failed to realize that you need a CUC to manage the algae, even during the ugly stage, because then I got hit with cyano annd hair algae. And oh my god.

At this stage, my tank was so horrific I just refused to even look at it as I was so embarrassed. I tried manual removal daily and weekly water changes, but it would just come right back within 36 hours. I tried Chemiclean, but I had been poorly using it for so long the cyano built resistance and it didn’t have an effect anymore besides continually knocking back my tank’s microbiome, making future recovery even more slim. My only chance at recovery was essentially a full system restart, and eventually I did that, cleaning off every rock and draining the tank and replacing the sand. Afterwards, my tank went through the uglies as normal:

But on my birthday that year, I got a handful of Astreas and a tuxedo urchin, as well as getting rid of the trigger. And when the time for hair algae arrived, they ate it all so fast I couldn’t even find any if I looked. This is my tank about 2 months after getting the urchin:

And here it is now, with the accumulation of my knowledge and proper husbandry:

While I still fight annoying algae from time to time (like dinos a month ago) now I can safely say I’ve finally beaten the ugly stage.

This is some determination!

 

[slogan315]

Well never had a ugly phase per say...lots of real, straight from the ocean live rock and live sand...minimal lighting in the first months and seemed to avoid it. tank cycled almost immediately..Now that being said I cant keep an SPS alive to save myself... after a year ....waiting ICP OTW

Most answers so far have been of the sentiment, “live rock is magic and solves all problems”. (Exaggerating I know…). Interesting to see a situation where it hasn’t solved something that only tank maturity tends to do…keeping sps.

Hoping your ICP solves the problem for you. I have lots of algae/uglies but have been able to keep acros. Well, a few started STNing after an alk spike combined with non existent phosphates.

I guess if we didn’t always have some problem to fix, it wouldn’t be a hobby. Just a TV with 1 channel that you have to feed twice a day.

 

[Mrussell]

how long between the two pictures? Really nice to see bare rock -> reef transformations.

Between these about 3.5 years. Was fully out of the ugly phase after about a year.