Should i just restart?

[Pvtgloss]

Are you using a wire brush?

I don't have the patience for squirting H²O² on rocks anymore

Just brush it all off in a bucket, rinse, and replace

This must be the way!
I just spent 9 hrs on 3 rocks using dental picks, nylon brush and h2o2.
Most of my coralline is bright pink now- dead? I'm pretty sure the acan is not gonna make it and maybe the branching Cyphastrea. I accidentally scrubbed a zoa frag.
These are the three rocks before scrubbing.

 

[Pvtgloss]

"Tried"?

Past tense

I'm dosing 'clean' bacteria every night. Just like Zeovit method. A half an ml, 8 or 9 different bacteria bottles

As Brandon mentions lighting. Turn up the blues, and turn down the whites, perhaps.

GHA LOVES white light

Brandon, when were your 35% experiments? 2013ish. I turned my entire 40B gilled with GHA white with that 35%, back then. Dues paid in full

Ghost Reef 2013

10 bacteria bottles. [Half of them are probably the same bacteria, dunno]

You dose bacteria every night? What's the yearly cost of this?
This is my light schedule

 

[Pvtgloss]

I scrubbed the rest of the rocks today. They look pretty good. I just don't know what else I can do to keep the algae from growing back. CUC and herbivores have no interest. I don't want to have to take out the rocks and scrub them every week.
I'm thinking about lowering my nutrients ultra low. I did lower my light from 25% to 20%.

 

[brandon429]

it looks great


how bright does that look above compared to this as side by side, I expect some quick regrowth-

but that's still surgical beauty cleaned above, double wow on that dentistry there and preserving what coralline you can. its true peroxide contact lightens it, but it will come back in the spots.


the brightness we are trained to want to see in a reef tank, that's very white light above I'm seeing that reveals every detail in every crevice on your rock, but in Maritza's pic we don't see crevice detail due to huing

that bright setting simply grows plants fast

***strongest warning as a digital reef friend: do not follow the trending of starving out phosphate or nitrate, leave those alone as they present; only manage your issue with physical changes or animals if you like, but not nitrate and p04 jacking. that's dinos if you do. I have never owned those kits in 25 yrs of reefing and never will, it is not necessary to test for phosphates and nitrates in order to carry the corals you have and want. Its a rabbit hole that will lead to uncontrollable dinos, don't do that thing the masses do as they get madder and madder at regrowth. rule it out. rule light dulling / up the blue drop the whites/ rule that in when you're fed up with the current production levels.

you don't have it loaded with sps, and there's lots of zones that are open for taking/no coral mouths so why not lower on down that lighting only if it grows back again

meaning on the next round, after the next scrubbing, truly lower that light if you want to make the next level change. that above has been held for about 5 straight years, corals doing well, it's an option to try that isn't a med, can't burn or hurt anything, as you'd step up your target feeding occasionally for the hungry corals to keep them happy. that light reduction greatly helps in growback

save it for when you're fed up with rip cleans, then apply it. a perfect order of ops.

 

[brandon429]

people don't do the Windex thing because they like it/like the pics with no detail/ they're driven there for algae control and coral growth at that depth simulation setting

what your tank is set to is shore's edge ecosystem setting, bright as heck. I can see the whiskers that your pods have, it's that brightly detailed. since plants hitched in and found a niche in that setting, they aren't easily extricated. that ecosystem can be shifted via Windex method/Maritza's setting by lighting only and that is strongly associated with algae starvation, but, you need to change your setting to that for a long time.

that light setting is the deep blue, where wale songs radiate about and the blue haze doesn't let you discern up v down, you're in the windex.

if you get regrowth under the true blues, you detail the rocks again and hold course. your environment is energy-charged like you're at shoreline brightness levels, let those plant holdfasts starve over time. you're shaving them off dang good, they'll relent, you have a bright setup.

I prefer to look at tanks that super bright detail lighting detail but its a luxury if the balance allows it; when plants are the problem cutting their light is the top sustainable recourse because corals will easily thrive at plant-starve levels we show in microtesting setups.

if you're too plant prone that's the #1 variable causing it based on my honest projection about the unique details for your tank. still a great thread, pure resolution and required tank compliance is shown/earned by laser detailed pics. it's any rip cleaners at home thread.

we don't run our tanks with your type lighting, that's only when pic time for articles.

we run deep blue most of the time in daily runnings, not photo detail worthy running. growth zone running tune is 99% of life. fixing the spectrum to please the gram isn't daily unless someone is very very lucky as a reefer in my opinion. windex is the everyman's best running default. maybe a happy medium exists, yours is still 100% brighter than that comparison pic/something to work towards.

You'll think it will harm corals/be too dim, it won't

that training for us is why we get algae problems, we're trained for 100% too much lighting is my bet.

 

[Pvtgloss]

Still struggling here. Every 3 weeks I pull the rocks out and scrub them. Unfortunately, I'm breaking off corals and ticking them off while doing it.
I added a dozen astreas and trochus Snails and a few urchins and a lettuce nudibranch. They all starved except a few trochus.
I'm barley feeding the tank.
Light is at 8% all blues.
No3 10ppm po4 .03ppm.
Not sure what I can do different.
I'm about to restart the whole tank.

 

[brandon429]

what did you reduce and sustain light levels to, vs the prior setting


are you using the peroxide rasping step

let's see full tank shot (does the sandbed waste feed the issue and the whole tank needs cleaning, vs just aiming at the algae> pic)

let's see the full tank shot curious. you've been working hard a while on this.

 

[Rappa]

Have you tried doing a cleaning, then a lights off blackout period of some duration directly after? A couple days maybe?

 

[Pvtgloss]

what did you reduce and sustain light levels to, vs the prior setting


are you using the peroxide rasping step

let's see full tank shot (does the sandbed waste feed the issue and the whole tank needs cleaning, vs just aiming at the algae> pic)

let's see the full tank shot curious. you've been working hard a while on this.

I've kept it at 8% all blues. I just turn on the whites when I take pictures.

Yeah I'm using peroxide, stiff brushes,picks and metal tools to attack the algae.

I just replaced the sand bed and I rinsed out the sand really good about 6 months ago.

Nothing eats the algae and fluconazole doesn't touch it.

This is after pulling Everything out and scrubbing and breaking off bits of corals.

 

[brandon429]

also your tank might be a great candidate for fluconazole now that you've ripped it clean

fluc really might stop your growback. where everyone takes risks with it is when they use it in fully eutrophic systems, yours will not be after a thorough cleaning. the fluc won't cause a lot of mass to die and rot in the tank because you have removed it before the dose. it will only be used as growback prevention, it works really well for that

 

[slingfox]

If you plan to start over, you may just want to throw out that CaribSea Life Rock since it seems to be a common source of issues in these prolonged battle with the uglies scenarios.

 

[Solo McReefer]

Did you go back and look at your pics of your tank back in the beginning of the thread?

If you start over, you will be going back there

Honestly, it looks like you're winning the battle to me

Turkey baster your rocks every day, keep pythoning your sand

Keep replenishing your CUC. Add some copepods. Add your bottled bacteria each night

 

[tobster]

Still struggling here. Every 3 weeks I pull the rocks out and scrub them. Unfortunately, I'm breaking off corals and ticking them off while doing it.
I added a dozen astreas and trochus Snails and a few urchins and a lettuce nudibranch. They all starved except a few trochus.
I'm barley feeding the tank.
Light is at 8% all blues.
No3 10ppm po4 .03ppm.
Not sure what I can do different.
I'm about to restart the whole tank.

I put some phosguard in my biocube which was having the same issues after a year and half with algae. It definitely helps reduce the algae growth.

 

[Radicalrob1982]

This algae just keeps coming back. It spreads and spreads. I feel like I've tried everything. Lowered the lights, just blues and UV channels.
In January I rip cleaned the whole tank and all the rocks. Replaced all the sand with new sand I rinsed out fit 8 hrs, lol.
Lowered n03 and p04 to 14 and .04.
I've tried every snails, hermit crab, emerald crab, urchins, and sea hares. I'm going broke. Lol. I'm buying them by the dozens every few months. I bought a small yellow tang, saltwater mollies. Nothing eats it.
So I'm thinking bryopsis. I've probably done 7 doses of fluconazole within the last year. I just finished up a single dose for 21 days or so and then hit it with a double dose for another 27 days. Didn't faze it.
I go in twice a week pulling. Once a week with a nylon brush and siphon hose going to a filter sock in the sump. I scrub and siphon meticulous. 2 or 3 hours while siphoning a d blowing off all time rocks. The tank looks good for a few days but of I go out of town for a few days it looks like this.
Should I just pull the corals and put them in spare tanks while break the tank down and bleach the rocks? Or should I just keep what I'm doing and pull time rocks out every few months and rip clean the tank? I feel like I'll waste more effort trying to control it then if I were to just restart. I have extra tanks around to put the livestock in while I restart.
What is this stuff?

What is your true phosphate and true nitrate levels? I had a cyano outbreak on my old tank and the only thing that helped it was not doing water changes for 6 months while I let my nitrate and phosphate build up enough to grow green algae which allowed it to take over the cyano. A result of running too low nitrate and phosphate.

 

[Biff0rz]

I just replaced the sand bed and I rinsed out the sand really good about 6 months ago.

Uhhhh yea, don't do that.

Other than that, just keep pulling the rock, cleaning it, and putting it back. Those rocks are releasing phosphates which is causing this long run. You'll eventually win, it just takes time.

 

[Stevorino]

@Pvtgloss

I remember using Fluconazole with mixed success alongside you this spring..... I wanted to update you on my situation as I have learned a lot since that other thread.

In June, my wife and I decided to move homes. I had to breakdown the entire tank in July and move it 400 miles (not fun, do not recommend lol)

During that move, I put most of my rock into large, cheap coolers with bubblers and heaters..... and 'cooked' them for ~8 weeks. ~30% of my rock stayed with the fish and did not get 'cooked'.

I tested the 'cooked' cooler water after a week, and lo and behold my Nitrates were ~5ppm and Phosphate .12ppm!

I did a ~90% water change, and after another week or two I tested Nitrates at ~1ppm and Phosphate had already gotten back up to .11!

The amount of phosphates that had been bound in my rock was far beyond my expectations. I excessively dosed LaCl daily for the next ~6 weeks and the leeching dropped significantly, but was still leeching.

Earlier this month I finally got the tank rebuilt and put in the rock.

Within two weeks, the ~30% of 'Uncooked' Rock was already covered in GHA and the 'cooked' rock has stayed relatively clean, despite being closer to the lights. My tank parameters were 0 Nitrate and 0 Phosphate. It was clearly a rock problem.

All of this is to say, I'm now a believer that persistent GHA = phosphate-leeching rock, and the only solution is to unbind all of the phosphate over time, or get new rock.

I've now been dosing LaCl to keep phosphates below .02 for almost 3 months and it's still leeching out, but I am seeing progress.

I believe the only three options are:

1) Get new rock
2) Breakdown the tank and 'cook' the rock for an extended period, likely months
3) Dose LaCl or GFO excessively to help strip the rock of phosphate over time. I hypothesize that if you have a GHA jungle, you would have to dose beyond a 0ppm test reading to truly outcompete what the GHA is absorbing.

Good luck!