I'm going insane

[Ro Bow]

I'm close to quitting the reefing hobby. I've been reading and browsing R2R every day looking at everyone's successful reefs and its frustrating me because my tank has been under control by GHA and Bryopsis for literally 8 or 9 months. Since then, every day I have been manually removing. I've taken out any rocks I could (some have feather dusters glued to them so that's impossible), and scrubbed them clean. In a few days the GHA pops back. I have tried Flux RX, 100% sump water changes, gravel vacuuming my sand, adding layers of black construction paper on the sides of the tank, blackouts, etc. I bumped up my CUC a ton too; adding dozens of blue legged hermit crabs, conch, pincushion urchin, 6 turbo snails, 10 astrea snails, and more. My parameters are and have been for a long time, spot on. Ill post exact parameters below.

Unless anyone has some ideas, I think the last thing to try is to do a "rip clean" method by @brandon429 . I want opinions from a few other people too if thats alright. For those that have done this and had it work, did you give your fish, corals, and inverts to the lfs for them to watch them while you drain the whole tank? I read that sometimes you should drain all water and spray it with vinegar or something. Also just to confirm, live rock in aquariums wont lose their beneficial bacteria after being dried and stuff right? Same thing with sand? Finally, if I drain all the water, should I put it in a barrel to keep it, or make new water? If I make completely new water wont I need to re-cycle my tank and wait weeks until I can get my fish back in the tank? My tank is already almost a year old so I dont want to do that again - I'm finally at the point that if I get rid of the algae my param's are perfect so I can add my dream corals.

My parents want to give away everything in the tank and make it a freshwater one because they think its too much work for me but I really don't want to do that. I just want my tank to finally be beautiful to look at, not make my parents sigh when they look at it. What is there I can do? I'm starting to go crazy lol.

I'd really appreciate it if somebody could answer the questions I have above - I'm willing to do the rip clean but I just want to confirm the methods... Thanks so much

 

[Ro Bow]

Param's:

Nitrate: 0-1
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Alk: 8.5
SG: 1.025
Temp: 78 F
Ca: 420
PO4: 0 -0.1

 

[Ro Bow]

Heres the tank during christmas time (2021):

Tank February 2022 - better, but now its like christmas time again

 

[Lavey29]

Your parameters aren't good. You have no nitrates and phosphate so your GHA is consuming it and any beneficial bacterium in the tank starves along with your corals. Cut lights back to 6 hours all blue and uv with no whites. Manual removal daily. Help the cleaners get ahead. Stop dumping chemicals into your tank. Raise nitrates to 10 and phosphate. 07. Raise magnesium to 1500.

 

[Karen00]

I think your nitrates and PO4 are too low. I'm sure others will chime in but I think that's your problem. GHA started to take over in my tank when PO4 bottomed out and my nitrates dropped to near zero. Now that I have gotten those up the nasties are starting to recede but I'm still probably a couple months off until they're gone so it's manual removal for me. I'm probably into my fourth month. My tank is about 11 months old.

 

[KatesReef13]

I understand your pain. I had a very similar thing happen to me when my main tank was that old. Do you have or have access to a microscope? I kept treating mine like GHA but it turned out to be chrysophytes.

It's possible your parameters aren't showing you what gets bound up in the algae too. Or it's not acting like that it is, I have a nano tank that's got dinos AND high nitrates and phosphates :/

In the end on the main tank I got my LFS to take care of my maintenance so that it was consistent (single mom life haha). He did my water changes every 2 weeks for months and even he didn't understand, but one day it just didn't come back after the WC and it's been gone since. Aside from a bit of cyano here and there.

Oh and I also got rid of the bio balls in my sump they were just a nutrient factory.

Don't give up, it will be worth it in the end!

 

[Ro Bow]

I think your nitrates and PO4 are too low. I'm sure others will chime in but I think that's your problem. GHA started to take over in my tank when PO4 bottomed out and my nitrates dropped to near zero. Now that I have gotten those up the nasties are starting to recede but I'm still probably a couple months off until they're gone so it's manual removal for me. I'm probably into my fourth month. My tank is about 11 months old.

Your parameters aren't good. You have no nitrates and phosphate so your GHA is consuming it and any beneficial bacterium in the tank starves along with your corals. Cut lights back to 6 hours all blue and uv with no whites. Manual removal daily. Help the cleaners get ahead. Stop dumping chemicals into your tank. Raise nitrates to 10 and phosphate. 07. Raise magnesium to 1500.

I agree with the nitrates and phosphate being too low. From the advice I've gotten from my lfs (saltwater city WA and Barrier reef aquariums) they said my parameters are fine and that I need to focus on manual removal and CUC, so thats what I did. They said its normal for the nitrates and phosphates to be 0 during algae outbreaks since like you said its being consumed by the algae. Because you both said thats the problem, I will look into methods to raise PO4 and Nitrate

I understand your pain. I had a very similar thing happen to me when my main tank was that old. Do you have or have access to a microscope? I kept treating mine like GHA but it turned out to be chrysophytes.

It's possible your parameters aren't showing you what gets bound up in the algae too. Or it's not acting like that it is, I have a nano tank that's got dinos AND high nitrates and phosphates :/

In the end on the main tank I got my LFS to take care of my maintenance so that it was consistent (single mom life haha). He did my water changes every 2 weeks for months and even he didn't understand, but one day it just didn't come back after the WC and it's been gone since. Aside from a bit of cyano here and there.

Oh and I also got rid of the bio balls in my sump they were just a nutrient factory.

Don't give up, it will be worth it in the end!

I do have access to a microscope. I can triple check the algae under it, but I've already done so at the lfs who used their microscope and confirmed it as Bryopsis and GHA.

 

[Ro Bow]

sorry if I seem impatient here, I'm in 8th grade and am stressed because of the tank. Sorry

 

[Lavey29]

I agree with the nitrates and phosphate being too low. From the advice I've gotten from my lfs (saltwater city WA and Barrier reef aquariums) they said my parameters are fine and that I need to focus on manual removal and CUC, so thats what I did. They said its normal for the nitrates and phosphates to be 0 during algae outbreaks since like you said its being consumed by the algae. Because you both said thats the problem, I will look into methods to raise PO4 and Nitrate

I do have access to a microscope. I can triple check the algae under it, but I've already done so at the lfs who used their microscope and confirmed it as Bryopsis and GHA.

How old is your tank? I had a GHA briopsis jungle in my tank far worse then yours but my parameters did not bottom out. I had to double dose neophos and neonitro to maintain numbers. Raising magnesium to 1500 weakens GHA and turns the ends white so it is easier to manually remove and cleaners to eat. The light in your pics is way to white. No white for the tank just blue and uv if you have corals for 6 hours. Get nitrates and phosphate up and maintain those numbers along with magnesium.

 

[Ro Bow]

How old is your tank? I had a GHA briopsis jungle in my tank far worse then yours but my parameters did not bottom out. I had to double dose neophos and neonitro to maintain numbers. Raising magnesium to 1500 weakens GHA and turns the ends white so it is easier to manually remove and cleaners to eat. The light in your pics is way to white. No white for the tank just blue and uv if you have corals for 6 hours. Get nitrates and phosphate up and maintain those numbers along with magnesium.

11 months. I made the tank white just for the pic normally it isnt that white.

Thanks for the advice on the light time and parameters

 

[L240]

"Finally, if I drain all the water, should I put it in a barrel to keep it, or make new water? If I make completely new water wont I need to re-cycle my tank and wait weeks until I can get my fish back in the tank?"

Cycling isn't some magical process. IMO its a myth. you will not need to wait weeks to cycle if you restart your tank (which is what I suggest). the "cycle' process can be easily complete within a day by adding bottled beneficial bacteria to the new tank, and I always suggest buying live sand because it's cheap too. even if you don't use live rock, along as there is no initial huge load of fish, your tank will be just fine. Do not keep the old water. do small water changes in the beginning to prevent algae taking over.

 

[Lavey29]

11 months. I made the tank white just for the pic normally it isnt that white.

Thanks for the advice on the light time and parameters

I had my outbreak around 7 months maybe 8. What size is your tank? If it's 40 or less then rip clean is an option but unless you get stability with good parameters the problem returns.

 

[Ro Bow]

I had my outbreak around 7 months maybe 8. What size is your tank? If it's 40 or less then rip clean is an option but unless you get stability with good parameters the problem returns.

65 gallons

 

[Ro Bow]

65 gallons

Plus a 15 (or 10 Im not completely sure) gallon sump

 

[CookieRdReef]

That rock is pretty hairy. You could buy a young foxface to help clean it up for a few months. He would need a new home at some point.

 

[encrustingacro]

What is your lighting schedule? Your lighting might be too bright that it is causing algae to grow.

 

[brandon429]

Algae Identification

Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?

www.reef2reef.com

be sure and study this thread above. know the procedure inside and out to save your tank

rocks and sand aren’t dried during a rip clean and we don’t use bottle bacteria

*Im impressed you keep a large saltwater tank in eighth grade, when I was in eighth grade I couldn’t even keep guppies alive very well

 

[gbroadbridge]

Heres the tank during christmas time (2021):

Tank February 2022 - better, but now its like christmas time again

As your LFS said, your Nitrate and Phosphate are measuring low because they are being consumed by the algae leaving nothing measurable in the water column.

Without the algae they would measure quite high.

Apart from manual removal which you are doing, you need to aim to reduce the amount nitrate in the tank, primarily by water changes and by reducing how much you feed.

The phosphate will have bound to the rock and calciferous substates which are forming a reservoir for the algae to feed on.
Removing bound phosphate is difficult and requires the use of GFO to remove from the water as it leaches out of the rock. Easiest would be to replace some (not all) of the rock together with GFO or something like Phosguard.

Also reduce white/red/green light and just run Blue, to starve the algae of usable light.

 

[ZoWhat]

I actually dose vodka AND tropic Marin bactobalance, for over a year now. LR and corals have never looked better.

The only way to beat nuisance algae is to STARVE it

Watch this vid

 

[Timfish]

Here's my thoughts and I have to apologize in advance as I haven't had time to read through everything here. First, be patient. Second, don't stress out, or at least don't make decisions based on feeling you need to do something because what you've tried hasn't worked yet. If you follow Brandon's instructions his RIP clean method should help your system (I will add I've never had to go to that extensive of an overhaul) Reef systems are verycomplex and it takes time to change the equilibrium so corals thrive and algae stays in check. Here's a thread I did on hte local forum dealing with hair algae with just water changes and manual removal and I'd note nutrient levels rose as the algae disappeared. ALgae is better than corals at scavenging nutrients and from what I've seen over the decades reading and keeping reefs and being active on multiple forums for over a decade is starving a system hurts corals more than algae.

Hair Algae, a second case study

Nuisance algae in reef systems is pretty much a ubiquitous problem, and one that is a common source of frustration for reef aquarists. It is also one I've learned to view the problem very differently than what is generally portrayed and it just takes a few rather basic steps, and patience. (This ...

www.austinreefclub.com

These links I've found to help a great deal in understanding the roles of corals, algae and all the microbial stuff in reef systems:

"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" This video compliments Rohwer's book of the same title (Paper back is ~$20, Kindle is ~$10), both deal with the conflicting roles of the different types of DOC in reef ecosystems. While there is overlap bewteen his book and the video both have information not covered by the other and together give a broader view of the complex relationships found in reef ecosystems