Someone with an invaded, nutrient imbalanced reef post up for a full rework+ skip cycle reassembly

[brandon429]

xCryOx
I really look forward to your updates on manual control, really detailed pictures as well. This follow up tracking really helps others to be able to see and trust manual intervention before applying it, thanks so much for keeping our works thread on solid ground for sure, keep em coming I'm subbed ha


Agreed with you on lightning, I'm not currently invaded but if I rotated my kessil knob to 10k setting it would begin to bring out green potential/wiry algae my own tank selects for due to random import (but is suppressed with high blues thankfully)

I can clearly see your system has good coralline and now that those areas have been hand guided free of anchored plants, that coralline can begin to take over there as well

 

[brandon429]

We have some big jobs being worked in private message, updates here wont be too long.

So glad to get the thread back on a before pic/after pic analysis vs a technique battle. The truth is, nutrient tuning and using competing organisms, grazers, is natural and the basis of our hobby. This force control technique acknowledges the basis of how tank keeping usually works, slow and steady (most of the time) is ideal- we simply add a physical action point along the way (anytime you don't want to be invaded)



Allowing your tank to be initially seeded with invaders, allowing them to take over real estate and then alternate among trade off invasions as you delay your $ start to reefing, is not the only way.


We think that if someone has an accessible tank in some handy way, and they access early invasive growths to curb them ahead of time vs waiting for anything natural to hopefully occur, they learn the ability to take control over the tank (investment) along the way vs learning strictly reactive reefing.

This thread is a practice in total deliberation. We look at a tank, predict how to cure it without delay, predict how to avoid the mini cycle (always detritus) and then we execute and earn clean after pics...these recent posts about killing red brush algae/anchored growths is really helpful to see-that's one particular organism that doesn't respond well to pretty much any other method other than grazer associations if lucky.

Manual cleaning is nearly required for some invasions...we want to show how broad-spectrum the approach can be.


Tank cleaning is not harsh, mean, or destabilizing.

It reinstates stability, the polar opposite of the initial assumption many have about deep cleaning. Its a reef storm; a period of upset that leads to total export of waste and fresh/oxygenated water + feed put back...not insulting, we show in after pics.

Some people are going to choose to act preventatively, they'll kill out algae on the first rock it pops up on due to what it can become.

Others are going to wait until a takeover or other partial noncompliance from the algae prompts them into action, either way what we study here is simply how to access a tank, how to never cause a mini cycle, and how to arrest any invader in its tracks from dinos to green hair algae. Tools used so far have been boiling water, peroxide, metal scraping of the algae...all very good willingness to force out the invader on the part of the aquarists

The whole spectrum of invaders is handled by taking your tank apart, cleaning it, and putting it back together + a couple known cheats.

This is simply a counter offer to the tried and true method of eventual nutrient tuning compliance (if you don't bleach your corals in the process)

You can still use nutrient tuning and grazers and microbial competition to help your reef-use it after the big cleanup. there's no beneficial reason to keep the clouding detritus nor its associated invader in your reef-clean that out, then make the tank balanced by tuning nutrients and adding your refugium charger kits.

Changing the order of ops on how you approach reefing will uninvade your tank and prevent future takeover of anything but coralline and coral.

What we are doing here is a medical procedure on your rocks, its a mixture of CPR/driving out detritus stores and oxygen-sapping bacterial buildups, along with dental office cleaning of your live rock for its anchored invaders causing your concern (akin to plaque, we rasp it off, treat the cleaned surface after)

this is a whole tank at once thread. We not only kill the target, and remove its ability to collectively gain feed and housing/insulation from attack (one reason nutrient tuning takes forever) but we also clean out that filthy sandbed and have no more waste stores feeding your invasion

The goal is your rock being covered in coralline and various coral flesh and polyps; no room for algae. If your rocks are all algae, we have a reason to begin to act to take back the ground, simple as that. Just because the rocks may look that way in nature (I dive, agree, they do in many zones) doesn't mean we pay to replicate that here.

We know how to force reef tanks to comply vs hoping they will, consider the coming pages.


Examples from messages are coming up~ good works, willing combatants.


xCry just uninvaded his whole tank for our thread in one fell swoop.

Growback work is independent of the initial resolve it took to get uninvaded, he just willed an invaded tank into uninvaded status for our thread, all at once.

The fancy stuff is the prevention part... anyone that has ideas for that / pls chime in. We are open to ALL forms of prevention methodology including nutrient tuning, param tuning and measuring and dosing, and adding charger packs of fancy pods and microorganisms.

We want those added after the work/manual cleaning portion, we're in sync with the natural ways not against them.
B

 

[xCry0x]

Wanted to update things -- I posted last week about pulling rocks from my tank and liberally covering them in hydrogen peroxide.

Its will have been 2 weeks tomorrow. The algae from those rocks is mostly gone. The first time I did this, I poured it on the rocks and probably only left it for 15-20 mins then rinsed it off. The algae eventually turned pink but then recovered in full.

This time I put the rocks in a bucket, and poured about 1/4 a bottle of peroxide on them, 15 minutes later I poured another 1/4 bottle on them, 15 minutes later I pulled them out and rinsed them with tap water, then ro/di and put them back in the tank.

The algae turned white within 24/48 hours. 2 weeks later there is a spot here and there that recovered but easily 95% is gone.

I'll likely pull some more of the accessible rocks out and repeat the treatment.

This unfortunately also removed any coralline on the rock - I ended up with a bunch of bone white rocks. But, I'm at the point where I was ready to go nuclear to fix it.

Snails are also doing work - but slowly. I'v noticed a few new patches here and there that are algae free. I do have a few large rocks I won't be removing. The entire left side of my tank is all glued together with epoxy and has a few chalices that would be broken if I removed the rockwork. So will have to hope the snails can handle that.

Will keep updating - hopefully things keep trending in the right direction =)

 

[brandon429]

Nope
We preserve the biolfiltration and my tank is crawling with pods and sponges and life and no invader cuz I went through his stage (red gelidium ironically) and emerged the victor.

We do crafted buzzsawing thank you very much. To think I'd be so crude as to strip the filter bare~ we are merely target centrics. Any rock in this thread post treatment will pass oxidation testing, only it'll look as sharp as a tux while doing so heh

Acting early in hand guiding means you debride / burn / scrape less area. Act early, don't wait till large coverage but people are never told this as they work their first tanks, I wasn't. I lost a reefbowl to red gelidium and nearly the second one. We are told by people who don't collect restoration work to farm the invader somehow, we collect the reworks here of undoing that unsound advice, we will simply turn out happy reef tanks here. Post surgical pics and analysis.

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...hydrogen-peroxide.187042/page-23#post-5668101

Look at this job on the last page very last post.

I'm jumping for joy and it's not the algae coverage it's the willingness. That reefkeeper isn't joking around, is ready to act without hesitation or aggregating 20 methods we don't want blended

Watch them after pics I think they're going to follow through.

That is a big job, we've predicted every aspect of a tank rip cleaning and they're about to run the method, vs hoping for restoration, they're about to command it with follow through.


We test modeled the kill before upscaling. Regardless of if you don't like the method you gotta admit we're not going crazy in people's reefs, we're doing action matched to targets specifically. We will be replacing all their sand too, reef sandbeds don't have all the fanfare they're made out to have, they're diapers. happy reef w clean bottoms coming up

 

[brandon429]

It’s that they are in it for the after pics not the term detailing.

It’s just more distraction, notice how that’s not been an issue so far? I truly believe the term target centric in this context was clear to you, but you’re struggling for attack points.
Modeling the kill is reviewed page one above, but I’m not really thinking you want to help in discovery so I’d like to not engage with you in work threads unless you want work done

As I run two simultaneous work threads with $ dollars on the line, I guess you can pick up new terminology along with watching accountability live time, we r trying to help others forward a better way of reclaiming challenge tanks.

 

[brandon429]

your point is clear

His job is a full algae coverage the greater recommendation would’ve been to fluconazole it or nutrient starve it, we claim to do better by imparting clean rocks and letting them express pent up detritus over time, vs waiting for just the plant death phase over time. The common approach leaves full detritus loading in the rocks and sand, but we target that detritus first and foremost, we’re about to take it through surgery and back.

Everyone nowadays is using non export algae control means, it’s rare to get these hand reworked examples so we can compare and contrast follow ups against the more accepted options of the day.

Compare coral loss here to the bleached corals we can search out on nutrient starving and gfo threads

Compare follow up work and trade off invasions like cyano in our method vs the common fare we see in algae threads across forums.

 

[xCry0x]

UPdate - I took my rocks - poured full strength muriatic acid on them. I left them for 15 minutes - and rinsed well. Nothing happened. - I left them for 2 days - they were clear of algae. SO?

I reported your post, I don't know if the admins care, but there isn't any reason to be disrespectful.

I'm posting what I did and what the results are. The nature of these forums is that it may prove helpful to someone else in the future going through similar problems.

I have on and off researched how to battle back red turf algae and to date I haven't found anything meaningful anywhere. "Control nutrients", "Add snails", "Emerald crabs!", etc, etc.

So who am I to say that nobody ever would find it helpful to know that you can potentially fight it back by dousing the rocks in hydrogen peroxide?

I think it is worth sharing that peroxide had no impact when dosed system wide. It had no impact when dosed directly and only left for 15 minutes. It had a quick and meaningful impact when dosed directly twice over the course of 30 minutes.

That said, even that wasn't a 100% removal. There are still splotches of the algae all over the rock - the stuff is ridiculously resilient.

 

[brandon429]

I wonder what matched grazers are for it in the wild

Seems it’d have to be urchins or parrotfish, rock biters in some way

I struggle to think of any tangs that just focus on target for the stuff, margarita snails if lucky. Best hand blasted

 

[MnFish1]

I reported your post, I don't know if the admins care, but there isn't any reason to be disrespectful.

I'm posting what I did and what the results are. The nature of these forums is that it may prove helpful to someone else in the future going through similar problems.

I have on and off researched how to battle back red turf algae and to date I haven't found anything meaningful anywhere. "Control nutrients", "Add snails", "Emerald crabs!", etc, etc.

So who am I to say that nobody ever would find it helpful to know that you can potentially fight it back by dousing the rocks in hydrogen peroxide?

I think it is worth sharing that peroxide had no impact when dosed system wide. It had no impact when dosed directly and only left for 15 minutes. It had a quick and meaningful impact when dosed directly twice over the course of 30 minutes.

That said, even that wasn't a 100% removal. There are still splotches of the algae all over the rock - the stuff is ridiculously resilient.

I wasnt disrespectful to you - at all. I gave an expample to @brandon429 - it has nothing to do with your post whatsoever. If I disrespected you - I apologize. That said - There are very few ways I would consider that disrespecting you. I ask you the same thing now.... so? If you had boiled your rocks - you would have gotten rid of algae. If you had left them outside to dry for 10 days you would have gotten rid of algae. was actually trying to get you to say 'why' you chose to do what you did. There are hundreds/thousands of ways to kill algae. - with muriatic acid>???

Again - apologies - nothing personal.

 

[xCry0x]

I wonder what matched grazers are for it in the wild

Seems it’d have to be urchins or parrotfish, rock biters in some way

I struggle to think of any tangs that just focus on target for the stuff, margarita snails if lucky. Best hand blasted

Urchins were something suggested, people reported them cleaning it out quickly. Bought two tuxedos, never made a meaningful dent. Right now I have two tuxedos, 3 giant full sized turbos, another 4 or so more turbos I just got, and a bunch of hermits and trochus snails. In a 65g.

Heck, I built an algae rector to try to help, couldn't grow anything in there though because nutrients are generally on the very low side

 

[brandon429]

Agreed that’s the gamut of stocking options in a 65 the directed manual care was the only clearing option. Now that target mass was mostly removed perhaps their ratios w be helping against growback if any

 

[xCry0x]

Here is a close up shot I took this morning of one of the cleaned rocks -- I think it gives a good view of the current situation.

You can see the maroon/dark red on the rocks -- that is turf algae that survived. It started to really darken back up in the past 48 hours.

You can also see the light pink, specifically towards the bottom of the rock. That is new coralline growing back fairly rapidly.

And another shot of the 3 rocks I cleaned. You can see more of the corraline growth.

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/beeping-green-hair-algae.527285/page-7#post-5724718

Spiritwalker just broke a new record for depth of surgery performed in a large tank, actually sawing his live rock in half to reshape it into shelfs, = wow

recap from his 6 page thread:
-this is an example of everything we do in this thread. he didn't just attack algae, he attacked the base feed (detritus) and pore-plugging aspects that most hands-off reefers impart into their ecosystem. he forced that system clean, he didn't wait for it.

-did he put his rocks back with half dead scum hanging off them? allowing more rot into the system? We never saw that in one example in his thread because that's being partially-acting, its leaving a trail of plants to rot off and become detritus. the waste was removed and disposed of, he's dealing in strictly rock surfaces + coralline and coral which is the idea. ____there was no wait period for his tank to become algae free he made it that way all at once

-100% access with skip cycling. That's not a nano, so whats anyone else's excuse now? he agreed to access his system and he executed and you can't find one single hesitation on all 6 pages, tank surgery works this way he didn't get lucky. he was resolved.

-look at his rock leftovers, no crumbs laying around, no losses, no scum on the walls, just reef. its just reef, he's commanded the whole thing into play by reworking the entire system, not just doing X move against algae. Directed boiling water was his selected tool as the kill step vs peroxide, same ends apparently. He applied a kill step -separate- from his declouding steps, note that and implement this as we make examples here team
B

 

[MnFish1]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/beeping-green-hair-algae.527285/page-7#post-5724718

Spiritwalker just broke a new record for depth of surgery performed in a large tank, actually sawing his live rock in half to reshape it into shelfs, = wow

recap from his 6 page thread:
-this is an example of everything we do in this thread. he didn't just attack algae, he attacked the base feed (detritus) and pore-plugging aspects that most hands-off reefers impart into their ecosystem. he forced that system clean, he didn't wait for it.

-did he put his rocks back with half dead scum hanging off them? allowing more rot into the system? We never saw that in one example in his thread because that's being partially-acting, its leaving a trail of plants to rot off and become detritus. the waste was removed and disposed of, he's dealing in strictly rock surfaces + coralline and coral which is the idea. ____there was no wait period for his tank to become algae free he made it that way all at once

-100% access with skip cycling. That's not a nano, so whats anyone else's excuse now? he agreed to access his system and he executed and you can't find one single hesitation on all 6 pages, tank surgery works this way he didn't get lucky. he was resolved.

-look at his rock leftovers, no crumbs laying around, no losses, no scum on the walls, just reef. its just reef, he's commanded the whole thing into play by reworking the entire system, not just doing X move against algae. Directed boiling water was his selected tool as the kill step vs peroxide, same ends apparently. He applied a kill step -separate- from his declouding steps, note that and implement this as we make examples here team
B

Where do we find the before and after pictures?

I might be dense - but is what you're trying to 'prove' is that you can suck up detritus, re-arrange rocks after scrubbing them, etc - and the biological filter will still be 'ok'? This would be common sense.

That said if he had a tank full of SPS with algae in places or If his rocks were covered with zoos with hair algae surrounding each polyp - what would he have done? without killing the coral? Im not dissing this method - im just trying to figure out 'what is the theory' (i.e. what problem are you trying to solve).

IMHO - the way to solve these problems is to not having tanks cycling for weeks while algae gets a foothold. The more coral, etc that is in the tank, the less problems (IME)

 

[brandon429]

scan his thread for your own takeaways, he acted early before it was blanketed. That's good info about corals I believe they help shade/compete against algae as well given other balances (such as no excessive detritus)

he used jetted boiling water as his kill step, we thought that was standout creative. He didn't use peroxide here, my main go to. we wanted to feature his attitude and follow through and raw trust in what would be the outcome. sooooo opposite of literally every other tank correction thread I can find offhand

his example is the deepest tank rework Ive seen just shy of full sandbed rips. If you polled reefers ahead of time with the steps he implemented, but without seeing a thread first, 100% will state there will be a cycle risk/not as predictable as what he was able to do in using boiling water to guide off -early- growths, precision-wise, and cut his rocks into shapes he wants. he had low detritus to begin with, no sandbed diaper, if we read his thread to find reasons I like it, then it begins to line up with every other tank rescue thread I like to be part of. I like this direct action, forced compliance method and its safe.

I like the irony that corals are safer under this care than months of various dosers while in the presence of full mass invader, plus all the detritus from up unda the invaders could ever want

 

[MnFish1]

scan his thread for your own takeaways, he acted early before it was blanketed. That's good info about corals I believe they help shade/compete against algae as well given other balances (such as no excessive detritus)

he used jetted boiling water as his kill step, we thought that was standout creative. He didn't use peroxide here, my main go to. we wanted to feature his attitude and follow through and raw trust in what would be the outcome. sooooo opposite of literally every other tank correction thread I can find offhand

his example is the deepest tank rework Ive seen just shy of full sandbed rips. If you polled reefers ahead of time with the steps he implemented, but without seeing a thread first, 100% will state there will be a cycle risk/not as predictable as what he was able to do in using boiling water to guide off -early- growths, precision-wise, and cut his rocks into shapes he wants. he had low detritus to begin with, no sandbed diaper, if we read his thread to find reasons I like it, then it begins to line up with every other tank rescue thread I like to be part of. I like this direct action, forced compliance method and its safe.

I like the irony that corals are safer under this care than months of various dosers while in the presence of full mass invader, plus all the detritus from up unda the invaders could ever want

After reading this thread - I did some of the stuff recommended - so believe me - I'm not a 'disbeliever' - just wanted to clarify. I have a Red Sea reefer 525 - so it was also an ordeal. If you look at the pictures from my 'signature' you can see the 2 large Tonga shelf pieced - that were covered with 'dust' - I moved the coral off of them - took them out scrubbed them - sucked up the sand bed - and all good

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...t-to-scrub-that-is-the-question.477814/page-2

Nuclear war, w bleach, we love it. He did the work on his own, I happened to just notice him using surgical techniques on his reef and invader-specific targeting and sandbed declouding. we love it lol. Red turf algae when taking over means action time its not water dose and wait time...act early when dealing with RTA, and house no scum to feed it.


I thought his work was just perfect for our thread because it was indeed skip cycle surgery to the hilt. he also discovered that RTA bleaches out and dies w minimal air contact

 

[brandon429]

Here's one

Resolute rip cleaner alert

No hesitation
Member of the dang round table assembly of tank commanders who predict and follow the heck through taking pics along the way. force is strong here

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/nuvo-10-crash.630156/



Here’s another,

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/turf-algae-nightmare.614936/page-3

Rasp + 12% peroxide post rasp no rinse of sandbed here, it was not problematic and the keeper was building up diversity in it, so no sand ripping. Some brush algae invasion = ripped