Scrubbing live rock

[Danvl1991]

I have had a search on the forum but i couldn't find a definitive answer, im sure its been asked 1000's of times but i am going through 'the ugly stage' and i had fairly high phosphates (over 3ppm) ive managed to get them down to under 1ppm now, i know i have a way to go but the hair alge thats on my rock ive been told if i leave it it will die off by itself when the phosphates get low enough but will then decay and cause high bad nutrients, if this is true, am i ok to take the live rock out and scrub it in old tank water when i do a water change and then put it back in or is that a bad idea, ive been researching and found some people say yes and some say no, ive been picking bits out that i can but most of it and small stuff but completely covering the rocks?

 

[Dom]

ive been told if i leave it it will die off by itself when the phosphates get low enough but will then decay and cause high bad nutrients,

"Bad Nutrients". I've never heard this.

What I can say is this: If you leave it alone, it will eventually die off once you get your phosphates under control. And if you do faithful, weekly water changes, your nutrients will never get high enough to be "bad".

That being said, if your tank is in the 6-9 month old range, you are experiencing a normal progression of stages who's endpoint is tank maturity and stabilization.

If the hair algae is troubling you, use a tooth brush to manually remove the algae just prior to water changes. Doing it in this order will allow you to catch any free-floating hair algae in the water and remove it from the tank.

And while you could pull rock and scrub it in old tank water, you will quickly learn that it isn't worth the trouble as it will grow back within a few days.

So... how old is your tank and what is its capacity?

 

[Danvl1991]

The tank is about 2 months old to me, it was set up about 6 years prior to this and before i knew much about marine i was told that i could just empty enough water out into containers to transport it to my house and fill it back with up again with the containers, but the tank started to cycle again when i moved it to my house, its a 55l nano tank

 

[smartwater101]

Do you have some pics of the algae you have? Its completely covering the rock? If so, its consuming phophate so fast it doesn't show much on test kits. And that means you're still producing too much. Manually remove the hair agea, get some chaeto in your fuge, and adjust your feeding schedule so you're not contributing too much to the nutrients numbers.

I definitely wouldn't waste the time pulling rocks out of the tank. But I always scrub it off the rocks. Think of the fuge/tank as a garden. You have to "pull the weeds" from time to time, because you want the chaeto to be the main nutrient hog in the system. Removal of the hair algae is necessary to allow that to happen. And as time goes on, you'll have to pull the weeds less and less.

 

[Danvl1991]

Its not the worst ive ever seen but i dont know if it will go away by itself, im using phosphate remover and rowaphos to lower the phosphate, its only a nano tank with rear chambers, no sump, so i have no where to put cheato

 

[ColdOceanReef]

Your tank is going thru normal stages.
Though, I've seen reefers removed the rocks and soak them in hydrogen peroxide in the past. So it's do able if you don't have a huge amount of live rocks in your 55L. However, scrubbing/soaking does not solve your problems if you don't upkeep with your water quality. Use a small pump (maxijet) blast the detritus off the rocks before you do your water change.

 

[Danvl1991]

Im currently trying to reduse my phosphates and it going well so far, all other parameters seem to be in tollerance so hopfully once i get rid of it i should be ok, ive just read so many different things about how to do it so i dont know the best way