I’m very confused what I’m doing wrong. GHA

[14 foot reef]

I was battling Dino’s and I turned my skimmer on 12 hours and removed carbon to raise nutrients to kill Dino’s. Bought a UV sterilizer and I got rid of the Dino’s but then my nitrates rose to about 10 I got green hair algae. ( I didn’t do a water change for 3 weeks in my 20 gallon). I then did a water change and removed the green hair algae and added my carbon back and turned skimmer on 24/7 over a period of a week. It seemed to get better but now I’m having it come back and I retested. My nitrates are 2.5 and phosphates are 0.04. I have been pushing my water changes to every two weeks because my nitrates never go over 10 I only have 3 fish ( 2 clowns and a royal gamma and 8 snails/hermits and one cleaner shrimp. Why is this coming back ? Thank you. I understand the algae may be consuming the nitrates. So does that mean I need to do more frequent water changes and more manual removal ? I’m worried to lower my nutrients too much they are all ready so low.

Have you thought about Fluconazol..... It has worked wonders on my 850 gallon system with zero negative side affects to my corals. Here is a link to the most cost effective source that I have found. Read instructions and follow them.

After..... and before shots

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[brandon429]

14 foot reef remember that time I tried to talk you into deep cleaning your whole reef admit that was moderately funny/ can't be accused of inconsistency at least. it would have worked though
it would have taken hours of micro diving using spare airs in your tank, so you missed the fun factor as well heh

 

[Cell]

As is typically the case in this hobby, there are many ways to arrive at the same point. Where they can really differ is the cost, amount of labor necessary, and time needed to see results. Often times the size of our tanks helps guide which solution we choose. With smaller tanks, brandon429's thread(s) have shown you can have a sparkling tank that looks brand new, without not losing any of the beneficial bacteria already present, in a few hours if desired. But there are also less aggressive ways to tackle the issue, though they may take longer or require treatments that cost money. Personally, I've had success using Vibrant and have recently started vodka/vinegar dosing for long term maintenance.

 

[christwendt]

It looks like you have a cyanobacteria/dino problem - not GHA. Is it easy to remove it from the sand or ist very attached to the sand. Can you take a better photo of the problem.

Sincerely Lasse

I’m going to take a sample of this stuff and make sure it’s not Dino’s in 30 mins. Here are better pics it’s noticeable worse today and it’s starting to cover my corrals. Does not look like my original Dino’s but I will confirm shortly. Here are pics along with lighting schedule. Btw it’s difficult to remove from the sand. It is growing off the sand. There are bubbles all over my tank now.

 

[christwendt]

Have you thought about Fluconazol..... It has worked wonders on my 850 gallon system with zero negative side affects to my corals. Here is a link to the most cost effective source that I have found. Read instructions and follow them.

After..... and before shots

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PetMountain is the best pet shop for all your pet's needs. We offer high-quality food, toys, treats, and pet supplies at competitive prices. Our pet experts can help you find the right products for your pet. Shop today and see why PetMountain is the best place to find pet products to keep your...

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I have no tried that stuff. I understand it’s considered safe but I’m ideally trying to avoid adding chemicals and medications if possible. I had a bad experience dosing bacteria before.

 

[christwendt]

I have sampled the stuff and this is what it looks like. I tried finding distinguishing stuff but it’s hard I don’t see Dino’s like I did before unless this is Dino’s and that’s what these triangles are.. I think it’s green hair algae algae ?

 

[Lasse]

The triangular cells may be diatoms from the genus Triceratium.

The other "hairy". The way you describe it, the growth rate and the forming of oxygen bubbles make me think of some species of cyanobacteria - maybe from the genus Calothrix or Lyngbya. The basic structure of many cyanobacteria is sticks and many of them exude a slime that in some species can be seen as "hairy". There is many forms of cyanobacteria - not only the classic red or green mats

Sincerely Lasse

 

[christwendt]

The triangular cells may be diatoms from the genus Triceratium.

The other "hairy". The way you describe it, the growth rate and the forming of oxygen bubbles make me think of some species of cyanobacteria - maybe from the genus Calothrix or Lyngbya. The basic structure of many cyanobacteria is sticks and many of them exude a slime that in some species can be seen as "hairy". There is many forms of cyanobacteria - not only the classic red or green mats

Sincerely Lasse

Thanks for the reply. Would you warrant a dose of chemiclean ? If it’s cyano that stuff should work well.

 

[Topekoms]

And you have no idea what's going on?




That´s one way - nuke everything. But with all "nuking" tools - there is a problem when the system should restart - all is gone - even the good guys - the system is in imbalance and as normal in such a system - the bad guys will have a favour.

Chose way - treat it like an ecosystem or treat as a battle field.

Sincerely Lasse

Dear Lasse

I hope you are not referring to me about nuking. Neither method I used is a Nuke. In fact NOPOX is a carbon dose which is no different then people using vinegar or vodka. And three doses of vibrant is less than the recommended so again not a nuke. I see if as tools at hand that should be used full nuke would be tearing your tank down or pulling rock and bleaching it.

 

[Lasse]

For me - there is different form of nuke´s - strategically and tactically. Use of all chemicals or undocumented "bacteria" strains are tactical nukes - IMO. I know what NoPoX is - a very strong organic carbon source - a form of DOC for heterotrophic bacteria growth. I have been using ethanol for many years. But all of these product kills without you knowing what it kill or promote a growth that you do not know where it will end. They disturb the normal microbe environment and the natural diversity. For me it is important to rebuild the diverse community of microbes - all type of pest is a normal ecosystem that have turned into a monoculture there one organism take all resources and space. All microbes we name pest is always present in every aquarium - often doing a good job for the stability. However - if create an environment that favour on group and they will dominate - you get a monoculture and problems.

With all of the different chemical treatments available (shortcuts or nuke tools IMO) you create a real desert and leave the field open for the next pest (read monoculture)

Thanks for the reply. Would you warrant a dose of chemiclean ? If it’s cyano that stuff should work well.

I do not know if it is Cyanobacteria or not - I can´t give a advise of that. But chemiclean is nuking for me too. The only advises I can give - that have worked for me many times - is the ones I have tried to outline in my post in this thread. Be sure your NO3 is over 5 and your PO4 between 0.04 and 0.1. Do mechanical cleaning - bringing down the biomass of the monoculture - be sure you have decent and diverse CUC and a new advise. Bring down the intensity of your lights - it means that you will lower the growrate of your "pest" and give mechanical cleaning (and your CUC) a desen chance to diminish the "standing stock" of pest organism. Lesser standing stock - lesser production of pest biomass per day.

Modern LED light normally have an "adaption mode" I know persons that put down the intensity to lower than 50 % of the normal and slowly during a month rise it up to natural levels. I have done it by myself against cyanobacteria.

IME - 70 - 80 % of cyano/dino outbreaks is not caused of to high nutrients concentrations - in fact they are more likely caused of low concentrations and/or wrong ratio between the two most important N and P.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Dustinc1983]

How about water flow ? Has that been mentioned or considered ? I had a 20 nano for a few years with similar issues and tried lots of the above tips and remedies. All had a decent result (took 6 months or so) but I also added another power head and changed up the rock work to help eliminate dead spots and never really had gha or cyano again.

 

[brandon429]

thats a good offer to try. the key difference though is whether or not we apply those changes in the invaded vs uninvaded condition, here we are ramping up to clean the system top to bottom first and then instate the changes that hopefully reduce this work.

the rationale is, if the above attempt didnt work and he does it in the invaded condition, he's still invaded. all current methods other than rip cleans have persisting invasion as the risk

but with a manually cleaned reef its all fixed up w no possibility of being invaded, unless thats allowed again. cleaning a reef has nothing to do with ways we run them that cause algae, cleaning is the bottom line not the preventative.
we are slowly reversing in this hobby the allowance to lose tanks by invasion.


no nano has to accept that, they can all be rip cleaned and be uninvaded.

there's a new responsibility in reefing, and thats to force out invasions until we can keep them at bay through more reasonable means, but losing corals isn't acceptable since cleaning is a viable and well-documented option.


smaller reefs stock with animals that produce whole waste pellets but rarely any animals that cast them back up into suspension to be removed by the filtration (sandbed fauna dont eat detritus, they produce it, only busy fish like gobies or diving wrasses kick it up truly for export) so that means most nano reefs are storage-prone and not export prone.

a neat way to test is to lift up any rock from any nano reef and twist it midwater at night, shining a flashlight into the tank. a massive cloud of waste (gha feed) will cast off unless the nano is kept clean regularly, or has flow designs and filtration set to remove suspended waste. most dont

or we can reach in and grab sand and drop it, and a massive cloud results that could kill the whole nano.

we clean to reverse those conditions, no doser, med or clean up crew member removes waste they add to it.

 

[christwendt]

How about water flow ? Has that been mentioned or considered ? I had a 20 nano for a few years with similar issues and tried lots of the above tips and remedies. All had a decent result (took 6 months or so) but I also added another power head and changed up the rock work to help eliminate dead spots and never really had gha or cyano again.

So I have a mp10 on 70 percent and 385 gph powerhead. I don’t notice any dead spots where fish poop accumulate. I did in the past but moved rock work around. I think the partial issue is my clean up crew. I have no sand movers or a algae eating fish.

 

[Lasse]

clean up crew member removes waste they add to it

This is wrong IMO - and you know it

The compounds that end up as waste are from the food you add (or dead organisms that YOU have put in). The amount of waste is totally depended of the external input. CUC or other organisms do NOT contribute with new waste - instead they cycle the compounds in the food YOU put in once again. And in this cycle - they pick up around 20 % of the waste as biomass. Every little loop of food left over, detritus and algae you create - will diminish the waste with around 20 %. Many CUC will eat the organic waste - other demand that algae and other organisms convert inorganic waste into algae and bacteria biomass that can be consumed of the members of the CUC.

(sandbed fauna dont eat detritus, they produce it, only busy fish like gobies or diving wrasses kick it up truly for export)

Wrong again - IMO - detritus eaters will eat organic detritus - that´s their food - however mineralized detritus is no food - and not either a bioload - its just minerals like the rock and sand. Its the end of a long circle of small food webs in your aquarium and is no food or fuel for any organisms at all. Mineralized detritus does not need to be cleaned out of any biological reason at all - its jus minerals. Observe - dissolved (not particular) mineralized compounds like different nitrogen and phosphate ions will contribute with new growth of photosynthetic organism but that "waste" (in reality - it is a resource) you can´t see. The mineralized "waste" you can see does not contribute to the biological load in a system - it is the endpoint of the break down process.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[brandon429]

I always feel insulated against critique by having work thread links matching the subject in debate. Someone might be lucky for two pages, but seventy pages means a strategy can be tested and patterns can be observed. I appreciate getting to see links that show someone’s opinion on a reef subject, and not formal links. -Work they've done in others tanks- where accountability exists for claims.





Five years of sandbed pictures, examples, close-ups, post analysis with clean up crews, and sandbeds still need direct cleaning.
Did clean up crews remove detritus here below or did we?

someone please find and link a different sandbed help thread for comparison. Any single one you can find it would be neat to see the outcomes (not an article, a direct work thread of before and afters)

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

Not only do I love that job, I did it in my vase :) so it’s been modeled already/ done your job is just bigger. I’m going to link a thread where nobody listens regarding aiptasia removal, apply this to your mushroom tank. the sand cleaning is already covered here / ridding newly cleaned rocks...

www.reef2reef.com

Here's gha work, years in one place to draw these conclusions above

Reef2Reef Pest algae challenge thread hydrogen peroxide

Thank you for the quick reply and guidance. it Is a Waterbox 100.3 so a take down is fairly easy. Went through it to get all the fish out a month ago and is no problem. All corals on plugs aside from the nem so that is also a non issue. Conchs, snails, hermits, fire and cleaner shrimp is all...

www.reef2reef.com

I know those don't change your position, just wanted to show work behind the claims.



following 20 year sandbed info is causing reef tanks to have sandbed problems it seems. Im aware its not all, just the majority have trouble with the hands-off sandbed approach --- for sure its feeding GHA issues across thousands of reefs.

 

[Lasse]

@brandon429

No sandbed cleaning, no cleaning of remote DSB, no cleaning of the runoff chamber, no cleaning of the sump - bu only for 4 years - I will not come up to your standard yet - but maybe some day.......

​

Sincerely Lasse

 

[brandon429]

thats your tank, nice one.


wheres the other 249 reefs for comparison / consistency/ unstated outcomes we watch live time
we never know if a single point example is disclosing subtle care details....but with hundreds of forum reefs in tow, we can see if they have been by the patterns.

 

[Lasse]

There are tens of thousands tanks around the world driven by biological principles - looking like my tank and thousand times better. It is the experiences from tens of thousands people around the world that have make it possible to run this type of tanks.

I will never be able to create a wonderful tank in another persons home in the other side of the world. I would never be able to guide a person in that. But what I can do - is to transfer the basic knowledge, principles and way of thinking that have help me to create my tank in my home. With that - everyone can use their own mind and observations and create their dream tanks. Every tank is different, every tank have different ecosystems but the basic principles are the same.

I can´t claim that just looking on a picture I can tell if the tank is cycled or not - I´m glad that someone think he can but I have my doubts.

Behind my 15 tips to create a good reef tank is more than 50 years of personal experience plus a lot of experience from others. I have try to describe how and why these steps are important. Following these steps - it works very good. And its not my invention - this principles have been used for many, many years before internet - the only thing I have done is to bring these experiences up to the surface again.

My comments to people that have problems with their tanks is not - I´ll fix it. Instead - it is - the only person that can fix that - is you - I can help you with knowledge - but you have to use your own head - not mine.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[brandon429]

overall this is good to hash out it drives the hobby evolution. push and pull is driving us forward its a nice collective team effort. experienced forum posters do a great service to the hobby by preventing snake oil and fly-by-night practices from taking hold, I want everything recommended harshly filtered for truth thats for sure. the way I sift for truth is through web post patterns

 

[Cell]

Not sure a years old mature tank is an apt comparison for how to manage algae in a new/young tank.