NUKE it or let it eventually kill everything?

[DeniseAndy]

I am waiting on a live rock order. Hoping to add these (after some curing) and some of my algae free rock (from sump) to get my DT looking good. Order of course is on standby as the virus has shut everything down. For now, hand picking.

 

[Bernie King]

I just think algae is natural part of the reef and will always be there! So I have a sea hare that live between my main DT and my coral hospital tank! She has lots of food and both tanks look good! Also the algae is good for the little creatures Copepods rotifers and amphipods. All making good the biodiversity in your tank! My point is that algae does not have to be your enemy

NUKE may be a strong term but it's what I'm calling it.

Have you ever battled algae so much and so long that nothing and I mean nothing has worked besides an all out onslaught that may hurt or even kill coral? Let me refer to this as "nuking" your tank. By that I mean using whatever means necessary to eliminate the algae.

In my case I think I have recently done that and have lost most of my acropora. The relentless hair algae had already smothered several acros and it was either pull out all the stops or let the algae KILL EVERYTHING! For me I'm finally beating the hair algae and it's white and almost gone from most places. The frag tank is almost 90% clear now and the main display about 75% clear.

What did I do? I made a cocktail of Reef Flux, Vibrant and GFO and hit it hard. I still have a few acro colonies that look to be doing fine and my other corals show no signs of distress so nuking may be a strong term but let's think about it. If you try every natural means necessary to remove algae, to no avail, do you continue to just let your tank turn into a swamp and kill everything or do you take extreme measures to save what you can? Let's talk about that today!

1. Would you take drastic measures to kill algae even if it means killing coral?

2. Have you ever had to "NUKE" your tank to save it?

I

NUKE may be a strong term but it's what I'm calling it.

Have you ever battled algae so much and so long that nothing and I mean nothing has worked besides an all out onslaught that may hurt or even kill coral? Let me refer to this as "nuking" your tank. By that I mean using whatever means necessary to eliminate the algae.

In my case I think I have recently done that and have lost most of my acropora. The relentless hair algae had already smothered several acros and it was either pull out all the stops or let the algae KILL EVERYTHING! For me I'm finally beating the hair algae and it's white and almost gone from most places. The frag tank is almost 90% clear now and the main display about 75% clear.

What did I do? I made a cocktail of Reef Flux, Vibrant and GFO and hit it hard. I still have a few acro colonies that look to be doing fine and my other corals show no signs of distress so nuking may be a strong term but let's think about it. If you try every natural means necessary to remove algae, to no avail, do you continue to just let your tank turn into a swamp and kill everything or do you take extreme measures to save what you can? Let's talk about that today!

1. Would you take drastic measures to kill algae even if it means killing coral?

2. Have you ever had to "NUKE" your tank to save it?

 

[KWSanders]

I would get the nutrients under control and install the largest algae scrubber possible . The hospital I cover on weekends has the world’s largest algae scrubber in the lobby

 

[Nathan80]

That’s 100% my point - I think you can get there with dry rock, it Just takes more patience and time.

I think it helps if you already have a very well established tank to seed any new dry live rock in the sump for a few weeks - personally I reckon that’s a lot better than using anything like ATM or Dr Tims

 

[725196]

With enough patience and good husbandry practice(I.e. no snake oil, short cut, miracle cure) there is NO need to nuke a tank on purpose. Take the time and do it right.

This may not be popular of a sentiment, but if you can’t afford do it right ( I don’t mean having the most expensive of everything) then try fresh water fish.

 

[WallyB]

With enough patience and good husbandry practice(I.e. no snake oil, short cut, miracle cure) there is NO need to nuke a tank on purpose. Take the time and do it right.

BINGO!!!

Tough to do (if one is impatient)... but it works (eventually), WITHOUT "side effects" that need other remedies....

You have to STABILIZE or get rid of the CAUSE, not the SYMPTOM. For the symptom to be Properly Eliminated.

I Just waited out a Cyano outbreak (Improving Tank Husbandry...ROOT CAUSES). Took 2 months, but since it went away slowly/naturally on it's own, I know the Tank (system) is in Better Condition (avoiding a re-occurrence, or other negative symptoms).

AND since I was Patient, and slowly Tackled the ROOT CAUSE (without Snail Oil Chems)...., not only did I save the ACRO's, they are ALL Doing Like Never Before. (I mean like never before in last 2 years of trying to get SPS to survive)

I always (in Past over last few years) did the Quick, Hasty, Drastic, Fast Remedies, that may have not NUKED THE whoe TANK, but NUKED my SPS (slowly or quickly, one by one).

HERE IS PROOF of the Benefits of Patience (Happening right now...Cyano ending, SPS coloring up and blooming)....
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/★★★-project-genesis-ii-2020-★-re-engineered-reboot-★-sps-110g-★★★.694515/page-6#post-7436053

I am actually pleasantly stunned that things are finally going right. Finger Crossed, Knock on Wood, that it continues.

 

[Forshurley]

the battle with aptesia has made me consider calling it quits and main reason for new build. My concern is even though I have coral QT I will still infect my new tank from old tank with the buggers

 

[WallyB]

the battle with aptesia has made me consider calling it quits and main reason for new build. My concern is even though I have coral QT I will still infect my new tank from old tank with the buggers

Don't give up.
I felt like the end of the world after my Copperband Died, and the Aptasia absolutely infested every part of my Tank, Sump, refuge. It was a plague!!! My Rocks look horid.
The big one's I tackled with Joe's Juice.
Threw in some Berghia Nudibraches (Five for a 110G Tank), got another Small Copperband who could fit into all the places they were.
Few months later ZERO Aptasia left. Not One (Sump, refuge, and DT).
The Berghia's ate them all (I put in Sump-Refuge, then escaped and got into DT...No idea how).
NOTHING WORKS LIKE BERGIA's. They die from Starvation after Aptasia gone, since that is all they eat.

 

[Acskippy]

Never nuke... prob the reefers fault not the reefs!

 

[Birddog61]

Had to vote other. Nutrient and algae management has been going on for many years long before miracle in a bottle was avaliable

 

[GibsonGuitars]

No, doesn’t make sense to nuke, but I am a noob for sure. I was at week 12 in the hobby when green hair algae exploded in my tank. 3”-4” long covering everything in a matter of a coupe of days. I drove to 3 LFS, bought every sea hare they had on hand, and by the next morning the thick mops of green hair looked like mowed grass. I started working on the water Parameters over the next two week. As it started dying back I slowly donated the sea hairs back to the LFS, and most gave me store credit for returning them, so all it costed me was some time, a few extra cleanings and water changes, gas money, and $60 for the Red Sea algae control test kit and the algae control solution. Again, I am a noob, but to me it would seem the larger the tank, the more sea hares you would buy. I kept one hare for good measure, and as soon as the hair algae was under control I had a huge bloom of Coralline!

 

[Jay Hall]

I’ve been using Vibrant Reef from underwater creations soon as my tanks have cycled... and I seriously wish I used it when I had my first marine tank!!! The stuff is amazing I have not had any issues with algae what so ever!! Tank has been up and running for last 4 months (I know it’s still very new) but haven’t had any outbreaks of anything!!!

As for Params it’s only a small tank.. so trying to keep at optimum level is a task on its own!!! is it worth getting a dosing system for the redsea nano?

 

[medtoad]

This is a false choice. It is perfectly easy to “NUKE” your tank with Diflucan (fluconazole) which would easily kill all the algae but will not harm any of your corals. It may make your Chaeto in your sump really sick, but that will probably recover if you do not put much light on it.
Done it, no sick corals.

NUKE may be a strong term but it's what I'm calling it.

Have you ever battled algae so much and so long that nothing and I mean nothing has worked besides an all out onslaught that may hurt or even kill coral? Let me refer to this as "nuking" your tank. By that I mean using whatever means necessary to eliminate the algae.

In my case I think I have recently done that and have lost most of my acropora. The relentless hair algae had already smothered several acros and it was either pull out all the stops or let the algae KILL EVERYTHING! For me I'm finally beating the hair algae and it's white and almost gone from most places. The frag tank is almost 90% clear now and the main display about 75% clear.

What did I do? I made a cocktail of Reef Flux, Vibrant and GFO and hit it hard. I still have a few acro colonies that look to be doing fine and my other corals show no signs of distress so nuking may be a strong term but let's think about it. If you try every natural means necessary to remove algae, to no avail, do you continue to just let your tank turn into a swamp and kill everything or do you take extreme measures to save what you can? Let's talk about that today!

1. Would you take drastic measures to kill algae even if it means killing coral?

2. Have you ever had to "NUKE" your tank to save it?

 

[Tommy's Reef]

@revtree you've been battling this for a while now!
I feel like you just got bad rock and its leaching everything out.
I've shut down many tanks because of bad rock issues!
Put your corals in separate tank and start fresh in your display with new rock?
Big job but would be worth it.

 

[Greg Goby]

steps to avoid arriving at the crossroads:
1. abandon hands off reefing which is only using water actions/param changes/indirect means to control algae. its what we've all been taught. it works terribly.
2. when building a reef, design the rocks for direct access, on your counter one day. That may be inconvenient or nonstandard, you might not get a Saxby wall, you might have to be creative with coral bommies if your tank is huge, but external is external and that's opposite than water-only methods that kill thousands of tanks which started well. scan work threads in the nuisance algae forum here, imagine you have ten years of sps in place and you get algae and you refuse to lose it, whats your next step option? plan ahead. super huge tanks can employ a crank and pulley system where rocks can be lifted up somehow, outside of tank and at least worked in the air, they don't have to just sit there on the bottom of the tank for forty years.

if someone paid you $750,000 to design a reef tank where the rocks could be lifted to the surface and beyond just a bit, could you do that? then make it happen in your own reef which will be worth five grand before you know it.

3. the uglies phase in reefing is the worst advice we circulate. purposefully self-invading any reef is counterproductive; a shocking turn of events. be hand guiding your reef,

when we moved into a new home did we purposefully entertain the uglies in the lawn? did we let dandelions go rampant so they'd eventually starve out? we do that in our reefs though> we circulate info in reefing, from our teachers, that makes us get invaded. plan oppositely is best course. the teachers are getting to also sell bottled cures for profit not by intent but by beneficial coincidence.

4. animals and grazers wont take responsibility for access and can't replace it. access to your rocks on the counter is the best approach we have until a for-cost doser dose a better job. counter surgery allows you to not contact corals with algae attacks, it separates the jobs and forces you to plan for access.

5. in no way are params responsible for GHA problems, like the masses would say. I don't see lots of work in the nuisance algae forum to impress me with param control.

6. Go cure some gha tanks that are not your own in the nuisance algae forum as live time jobs where they post feedback pics on your suggestions. This is the prime way to prevent your own reef from becoming infected by will. you don't have to take on whole reefs at once, that's what water dosers do. You can test model sections of total control...lift out a five pound rock + target and learn to directly control it, on the counter, and put back. when that holds, then upscale to the large tank. Quit farming algae via the uglies and you'll never have an algae problem. any gha tank here can be made gha free overnite, if they choose to.

7. your filthy sandbed: reverse that.




doing opposite of steps 1-7 leads right to the crossroads of loss.

internal locus of control vs external locus of control, the classic conflict. all GHA invasions are psychology well before biology. you either want dandelions or you don't.

the truth is ive been that neighbor. possibly more often than not. but Id never do it in my reef tank I do have standards.

Your posts empower me and make me smile. You're my hero!

 

[Cory]

Anywhere you have space for algae it will grow.

Id suggest placing a large plating coral overtop of the worst spots. The lack of light will kill the algae.

 

[brandon429]

Perfect agreed

coralline rejects algae attachment by and large, in work thread pics we see gha anchoring in between coralline zones


coral flesh is the best excluder of algae we have, two points:
1. in the Netflix movie about corals algae came when corals retracted / receded and when grazers left. The water always carried the potential to grow algae, farm runoff and nutrients weren’t the cause it was when heat killed off coral flesh that algae choked the sps

2. all work threads online show nobody getting algae on the flesh of a brain coral for example...if algae grows it’s on exposed septa or skeletal points with no flesh. A growing favia or mussid for example totally excludes algae even in overfed poor param waters. The algae will abut right up until zero surrounding space is available but not on the flesh see this picture example from Reefmiser, nano-reef.com

when we manually remove algae by force, by intent and by precision, live rock pores are re-opened, the algae can’t wick in its own feed, and the system begins to restore into coralline and flesh

surgery + post clean peroxide application

 

[Golfer2002]

Hi everyone i had an outbreak of algae really bad to the point of nuking then i went and got a prescription for flucozanole and dosed 1pill per 10 gallons of water no skimmer no carbon just let it do its thing for 2 weeks and i dont have any algae in my tank now. At the end of the two weeks i did a 50% water change and its been smooth sailing ever since.

 

[code4]

I had GHA for a couple of years. Pulled and pulled most nights. Changed out water to many times to count. Carbon dosed. That helped alot. Then I remembered in the beginning back when my starfish was over 5 years old. What changed from then to now. I stopped blowing out the rocks and vacuuming the sand bed. I knew I could not do it all at once. So I stopped carbon dosing and started cleaning house again. While the rocks were not to bad. Maybe from carbon dosing. The sand is terrible. I plan on adding some more CUC soon.

No nuking for me. Just more dedication.

 

[Jordan Prather]

Have I considered it yes will I go through with it no. Just hooked up an ats the other day added a fox face tomini tang and sailfin to get a few more grazers thinking about getting 10 or so mexican turbos and a couple urchins also may remove all the rock on the right side and replace it with new rock. Heres what I'm dealing with more algea then rock and coral unfortunately.