Rookie Mistake was made; I crashed my tank. Seeking advice as I move forward. Help with Damage Control.

[Cfellini91]

Two weeks ago I made the worst mistake to date when it comes to my nano. I went to dose my iodine (Lugol's) and did 2 drops instead of one. Then I dose double the amount of trace elements. I had planned to do a 20% WC the following morning. It seemed to be too late. My zoas, green stars, lepto, and montis, and a majority of my CUC died within a week. What is strange, something I have never seen before, is I found on of my green emerald crabs extremely bloated and floating at the top of the tank, almost as if he was boiled. I did a 10% WC every day proceeding the 20% WC the day after. No luck. I then went out of town for a few days and when I came home my tank was plagued by green hair algae. Over the past 2 days I have done 20% WC's . I removed the remaining green stars, which I hoped would come back, and now need help moving forward. I have little green hairs over all of my rocks. I scrubbed them in the tank right before WCs and cant get them clean. Should I dose with Hydrogen Peroxide? (1 ml per 10 gal). Should I take the rocks out and bleach them? Replace them? Take them out and scrub them with a wire brush? What is the best method, without further killing anything else in the ecosystem, to clean them? I am down to 3 tiny hermits on my CUC, I aim to get more members for the CUC by Saturday.
Currently I have my UV on in the refugium. I do not have any PhosGaurd in, as I think I may try PhosBan. Opinions?
I just finished my WC so I will post my levels tomorrow morning.

Tank Specs
25 gal
2 clowns
1 wrasse
1 clown goby
1 Green hammer (ready to be fragged)

HOB Reef Octo Skimmer
Return pump, IceCap Grye flow pump 1k, small power head - all three on
UV Light in one chamber of Refugium
Just put in a new bag of DeNitrate. No other filtration except HOB PS and Carbon sponge.

What is the best way to get these rocks clean and eradicate the algae on the floor bed and rocks?

 

[Suohhen]

Best way to get the rocks clean without nuking them is to take them out and spray the algae with h2o2. Nano tanks are tuff, I'd recommend you start with something a little bigger if you can.

 

[davidcalgary29]

I'd suggest dosing phyto, if anything. I had a persistent GHA and cyano problem in my Evo until I started doing just that...and it either worked wonders or has just been a marvelous coincidence. The tank is five months old and I have a mix of softies, LPS and some acro.

May I ask why you feel dosing trace elements is necessary if you're doing regular water changes?

 

[Azedenkae]

Two weeks ago I made the worst mistake to date when it comes to my nano. I went to dose my iodine (Lugol's) and did 2 drops instead of one. Then I dose double the amount of trace elements. I had planned to do a 20% WC the following morning. It seemed to be too late. My zoas, green stars, lepto, and montis, and a majority of my CUC died within a week. What is strange, something I have never seen before, is I found on of my green emerald crabs extremely bloated and floating at the top of the tank, almost as if he was boiled. I did a 10% WC every day proceeding the 20% WC the day after. No luck. I then went out of town for a few days and when I came home my tank was plagued by green hair algae. Over the past 2 days I have done 20% WC's . I removed the remaining green stars, which I hoped would come back, and now need help moving forward. I have little green hairs over all of my rocks. I scrubbed them in the tank right before WCs and cant get them clean. Should I dose with Hydrogen Peroxide? (1 ml per 10 gal). Should I take the rocks out and bleach them? Replace them? Take them out and scrub them with a wire brush? What is the best method, without further killing anything else in the ecosystem, to clean them? I am down to 3 tiny hermits on my CUC, I aim to get more members for the CUC by Saturday.
Currently I have my UV on in the refugium. I do not have any PhosGaurd in, as I think I may try PhosBan. Opinions?
I just finished my WC so I will post my levels tomorrow morning.

Tank Specs
25 gal
2 clowns
1 wrasse
1 clown goby
1 Green hammer (ready to be fragged)

HOB Reef Octo Skimmer
Return pump, IceCap Grye flow pump 1k, small power head - all three on
UV Light in one chamber of Refugium
Just put in a new bag of DeNitrate. No other filtration except HOB PS and Carbon sponge.

What is the best way to get these rocks clean and eradicate the algae on the floor bed and rocks?

Hi there.

Sorry to hear about everything going wrong.

My suggestion is probably gonna be different from everyone else's. I'd suggest doing a 100% water change. Yes normally it is bad and I'd normally not suggest this, but after an accidental overdose and everything seeming to go haywire, what I think is best is if you reset the water parameters, so to speak. 25 gal is not too much water, so that should be possible.

After all, sub-20% water changes honestly don't do as much as one'd think. It's good for general maintenance and replenishing of trace elements, but bad at actually reducing any overly high parameters to a reasonable point.

Yes a 100% water change can be a bit of a change in parameters that could temporarily stress your live stock, including any level of elvated iodine, or nitrates/etc. that is elevated, but at this point, is that gonna cause that much damage compared to what bad parameters can cause? Imo, no. I mean, the outbreak of algae also implicate increased nutrients, which likely came from all the deaths.

Anyways, with hair algae, I would just manually pull it out where possible, then use a toothbrush to brush off whatever I can and use a net to remove as much as possible floating in the water. Do the same thing over and over until there is such low nutrient availability that algal growth is stunted.

Sure you can take the rocks out of the water and soak in hydrogen peroxide or otherwise sterilize it, but is it really that great of an idea? The rocks are where all your nitrifiers live anyways.

At this point it's not like you have that much coral or stuff left anyways, and personally? I'd rather maintain the filtration capacity of the rocks to ensure the remaining fish are fine, rather than risking reduced nitrification capacities.

 

[Cfellini91]

Best way to get the rocks clean without nuking them is to take them out and spray the algae with h2o2. Nano tanks are tuff, I'd recommend you start with something a little bigger if you can.

Just to clarify, are you saying to take the rocks out and spot treat them out of water with Hydrogen Peroxide? Do it completely out of water, or should I do it in a little tub with RODI?
And yes, I agree. I have had the nano for 3+ years. I am ready for a much larger tank, but have to wait just a tad longer, sadly.

 

[Cfellini91]

I'd suggest dosing phyto, if anything. I had a persistent GHA and cyano problem in my Evo until I started doing just that...and it either worked wonders or has just been a marvelous coincidence. The tank is five months old and I have a mix of softies, LPS and some acro.

May I ask why you feel dosing trace elements is necessary if you're doing regular water changes?

Phyto, as in PhytoPlankton? I dose with ocean magic tho I have never used it as algae control, if anything I go in the opposite direction. Perhaps I am misunderstanding tho.
And with some of the corals I used to have the trace helped keep them more vibrant and healthy. Though, now, with just the dendro and hammer, there is not much a need.

 

[Suohhen]

Yep out of the water on a piece of plastic or something so you don't make a mess and spray away. It will kill the gha on contact and is gentle enough to not do too much collateral damage but don't go over the top with it. Afterwards dunk them in some saltwater to get all the junk off and they can go right back in.

 

[Cfellini91]

Hi there.

Sorry to hear about everything going wrong.

My suggestion is probably gonna be different from everyone else's. I'd suggest doing a 100% water change. Yes normally it is bad and I'd normally not suggest this, but after an accidental overdose and everything seeming to go haywire, what I think is best is if you reset the water parameters, so to speak. 25 gal is not too much water, so that should be possible.

After all, sub-20% water changes honestly don't do as much as one'd think. It's good for general maintenance and replenishing of trace elements, but bad at actually reducing any overly high parameters to a reasonable point.

Yes a 100% water change can be a bit of a change in parameters that could temporarily stress your live stock, including any level of elvated iodine, or nitrates/etc. that is elevated, but at this point, is that gonna cause that much damage compared to what bad parameters can cause? Imo, no. I mean, the outbreak of algae also implicate increased nutrients, which likely came from all the deaths.

Anyways, with hair algae, I would just manually pull it out where possible, then use a toothbrush to brush off whatever I can and use a net to remove as much as possible floating in the water. Do the same thing over and over until there is such low nutrient availability that algal growth is stunted.

Sure you can take the rocks out of the water and soak in hydrogen peroxide or otherwise sterilize it, but is it really that great of an idea? The rocks are where all your nitrifiers live anyways.

At this point it's not like you have that much coral or stuff left anyways, and personally? I'd rather maintain the filtration capacity of the rocks to ensure the remaining fish are fine, rather than risking reduced nitrification capacities.

Thank you for this. I thought about doing this, but as you have said, I have had a lot of reservations. I have been thinking of just changing out 15 gal. vs the full 25. As far as pulling, I have did that, and I used a toothbrush to clean the back wall and the rocks. I actually just bought an electric toothbrush and went to town on it just prior to this post. I did that then set up the UV in the back. Since then, all of this evening, my protein skimmer is producing a lot of gunk, which is nice to see. Your point on rocks is also solid, again, hence why I have my reluctance. What are you thoughts on getting more live rock and cycling them in my QT (need to set it back up) for a couple weeks, then just trading them out? Thank you again, this was invaluable to read.

 

[Cfellini91]

Yep out of the water on a piece of plastic or something so you don't make a mess and spray away. It will kill the gha on contact and is gentle enough to not do too much collateral damage but don't go over the top with it. Afterwards dunk them in some saltwater to get all the junk off and they can go right back in.

Thank you. I may give this a shot one rock at a time, with some time lapses in between, as not to disturb the rocks filtrating inhabitants.

 

[davidcalgary29]

Phyto, as in PhytoPlankton? I dose with ocean magic tho I have never used it as algae control, if anything I go in the opposite direction. Perhaps I am misunderstanding tho.
And with some of the corals I used to have the trace helped keep them more vibrant and healthy. Though, now, with just the dendro and hammer, there is not much a need.

There are a number of threads attesting to the use of live phytoplankton in helping to control/clear nuisance algae. It's certainly been a help in my builds, and I'd tried a number of other controls (such as Vibrant, which did nothing for me) before that.

 

[Azedenkae]

What are you thoughts on getting more live rock and cycling them in my QT (need to set it back up) for a couple weeks, then just trading them out? Thank you again, this was invaluable to read.

It could absolutely work, though I feel like by the time a couple of weeks had rolled by, your aquarium may have already been relatively back on track.

With that said though, no harm cycling a QT - since you need to set it back up again anyways, right? So yeah, if it turns out you'd want to swap the rocks, then that works. If not, well now your QT is set up, so win-win either way.

 

[Cfellini91]

There are a number of threads attesting to the use of live phytoplankton in helping to control/clear nuisance algae. It's certainly been a help in my builds, and I'd tried a number of other controls (such as Vibrant, which did nothing for me) before that.

That is new news to me, so thank you so much for informing me of that. I will do some more research on this and keep it at the top of my list! Thank you!!!