I just cant keep my rocks clean for the life of me

[MohrReefs]

Alright yall, what am I doing wrong?

Tank age 1 year.
Constantly battling cyano or gha. Cyano goes away, gha explodes, gha goes away I get a little break and then boom cyano.

I have 7 fish in a 44 gallon. Just ordered some extra clean up because maybe I'm lacking in that department (5 hermits and 2 snails).

I feed maybe a half a cube of frozen a day and most if not all of it is eaten.

I have a rimmed tank so I'm pretty much stuck with my eheim canister filter. I change and clean the media regularly. I run gfo to help keep phosphates down and change it often. I do a 20% water change weekly.

But I still have issues with gha and cyano EXPLOSIONS. Cyano is actually easily managed for me, peroxide seems to work very well on thqt. But the GHA, I spent last Saturday removing almost all of it by hand and its even worse a week later. My bryopsis 6 months ago wasn't this bad even.


EDIT: NITRATES 2PPM AND PHOS .08
Please help. Thanks

 

[58e970b2-3f88-4897-87ba-5]

Have you had nitrate or phosphate bottom out?

 

[mdb_talon]

Need to post what your parameters are. I will say a cleanup crew does not fix a nutrient issue other than it recycles it. It may be able to temporarily make things look better...but nutrients are still there in a different form if not exporting adequately via other means(skimmer, refugium, algae scrubber, etc)

 

[CMMorgan]

You know it's coming....
What are your parameters?
What are your phosphates? Nitrates??

I think you are going in the right direction building up the CUC. It's amazing what some snails can do.

 

[1guydude]

You have a rodi water filter?
You are not restricted to an ehiem canister.
I recommend the hang on back refugium skimmer combo or just a noce hang on back skimmer. Save up. Get a nice one if this will be your display.

Some activated carbon charcol in a media bag too after a good stir and wc. Do this month after month. Keep pulling the hair algae u got this.

Cuc should help too. Urchin if your tank is stable enough or your confident.
D

 

[CMMorgan]

You have a rodi water filter?
You are not restricted to an ehiem canister.
I recommend the hang on back refugium skimmer combo or just a noce hang on back skimmer. Save up. Get a nice one if this will be your display.

Some activated carbon charcol in a media bag too after a good stir and wc. Do this month after month. Keep pulling the hair algae u got this.

Cuc should help too. Urchin if your tank is stable enough or your confident.
D

Good points ... an in DT protein skimmer is a good option also...

 

[MohrReefs]

One sec yall, I'll test water for you.

 

[Hermie]

Not even close to enough clean up crew. 2 snails in a 44 gallon that has hair algae issues isn't gonna cut it...

If your tank was new and had barely any "nutrients" built up then a small clean up crew can suffice, but being 1 year old, you definitely need more.

IMO, manually clean the rocks and increase clean up crew so they keep it clean. (Hermit crabs don't really keep hair algae at bay, but snails and urchins do)

 

[ScottR]

Are you sure you don’t have something like dinos? RODI water? Pics of the tank?

 

[LegendaryCG]

Get a couple urchins, if you only have 5 snails that’s really low. I probably have 40 snails in my 55

 

[Hermie]

For the past 3 weeks I've been scrubbing rocks w/ a toothbrush AND siphoning that area at the same time, once a week and it's a relatively huge undertaking. But that's what happens when I let everything "go" for too long. I'm also going to add 12 snails this week (23 gallon), to keep the rocks clean. But in my experience, chemical means to algae reduction only leads to other issues; that's why I'm going natural/manual now.

 

[MohrReefs]

Nitrates 2ppm. Testing phosphates now.

Also I have a rimmed tank and the wall is currently supporting my redsea led90 light since the mount is designed for rimless. Thats why I'm kind of stuck with the eheim unless I scoot my tank off the wall a bit and use the other side for a HOB skimmer.

 

[MohrReefs]

Get a couple urchins, if you only have 5 snails that’s really low. I probably have 40 snails in my 55

I just bought a cleanup crew package from an online vendor, has about 50 or so snails in it.

 

[Dkmoo]

How often do you clean the canister. As a point of reference, filter socks, which serve similar functions in terms of mechanical filtration, should be switched out every 3 days.

 

[MohrReefs]

You have a rodi water filter?
You are not restricted to an ehiem canister.
I recommend the hang on back refugium skimmer combo or just a noce hang on back skimmer. Save up. Get a nice one if this will be your display.

Some activated carbon charcol in a media bag too after a good stir and wc. Do this month after month. Keep pulling the hair algae u got this.

Cuc should help too. Urchin if your tank is stable enough or your confident.
D

I buy from a LFS, they have a rodi.

 

[MohrReefs]

How often do you clean the canister. As a point of reference, filter socks, which serve similar functions in terms of mechanical filtration, should be switched out every 3 days.

I rinse the hard media every month or so but the gfo and carbon are changed more frequently. Carbon every few weeks and gfo usually every other week.

 

[MohrReefs]

You have a rodi water filter?
You are not restricted to an ehiem canister.
I recommend the hang on back refugium skimmer combo or just a noce hang on back skimmer. Save up. Get a nice one if this will be your display.

Some activated carbon charcol in a media bag too after a good stir and wc. Do this month after month. Keep pulling the hair algae u got this.

Cuc should help too. Urchin if your tank is stable enough or your confident.
D

I have coral, I have anemone, I could probably handle an urchin but if its going to pick up my corals and relocate them constantly like I've read on here, I may pass on the urchin.

 

[DE FISH]

We need pics of the outbreak please can you post some ?

 

[MohrReefs]

Are you sure you don’t have something like dinos? RODI water? Pics of the tank?

No dinos 100%. Ill post a pic but its night mode so it'll be hard to see anything.

 

[jda]

If you started with dry/dead rock, then it could take a few years before your tank gets over this. This is the cost that nobody tells you about when buying the stuff.

Urchins and snails can eat it back some, but you still need to remove it by hand if you can to help them out.

Don't sweat the N and P in those numbers - even at 10x lower the algae would still have plenty to not be growth limited. You can help by skimming more, but don't cut back on feeding your fish or your corals can suffer with less ammonia/ammonium for them to get their nitrogen and all of the different forms of phosphate (not just the one that you test for).