Tank Reboot due to algae

m.kristoff

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Thinking about a Tank reboot. Tank is just over a year old and started with used Dry rock. I have an algae problem that I can't kick.
I have issue with having ultra-low nutrients and have tried correcting the levels with over feeding and dosing. still have almost 0 no3 and po4. I am dosing but can't maintain any levels above 0 for very long. I even tried dosing H202 with little success.
I add a turf scrubber and can grow algae in it like crazy. I am sure that is some of the reason for the Ultra low readings but with the growth, the algae in the main display should have burnt out by now. I believe the source is phosphates leaching form the rock as It continues to grow.

My corals are not looking good due to no nutrients so I am going to pull the rock and go with carbisea Liferock. I have never been happy with the rockscape and now is the time to do it. also thinking of going bare bottom. I'm sure this will impact the tank and probably cause another cycle. Not sure what to do with my existing coral. I can dump microbacter7 in and put the coral back in it or should I just sell off the coral and restart later. Any advice is appreciated
 

Lavey29

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So you started with dry rock and now are going to start again with dry rock and head down the same path?

Get yourself a few good size pieces of real live ocean rock to mix with your dead rock. You can redo your scape with a few pieces live rock and not have to reboot your whole system.
 

J_Gard88

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and if you're wanting to go bare bottom just do it over the course of a few weeks. remove a 1/4 to a 1/3 when doing water changes. I did that and am having much better results with my tank.
 

bushdoc

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I second Lavey29.
I had to brake down my tank 5 months ago due to majano infestation.
Used mixture of Marco Rock and Tampa Bay Live Rock and Ausie Live Rock.
No ugly faze so far and few frags I managed to save and some new ones I bought are happy.
 
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m.kristoff

m.kristoff

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So you started with dry rock and now are going to start again with dry rock and head down the same path?

Get yourself a few good size pieces of real live ocean rock to mix with your dead rock. You can redo your scape with a few pieces live rock and not have to reboot your whole system.
So let me clarify. I did start the tank just over a year ago with Dry rock form an unknown source. It did come from my LFS but I don't know the history of it. I bleached the rock for 5 days to clean it. I did seed it with several pieces of live rock so been there done that! tank seemed to cycle as normal. Now over a year into it, I believe that the dry rock is leaching PO4 so adding more live rock will not fix the problem. I could be wrong, but there are plenty of posts for algae control and nothing seems to work.
 

Dburr1014

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So let me clarify. I did start the tank just over a year ago with Dry rock form an unknown source. It did come from my LFS but I don't know the history of it. I bleached the rock for 5 days to clean it. I did seed it with several pieces of live rock so been there done that! tank seemed to cycle as normal. Now over a year into it, I believe that the dry rock is leaching PO4 so adding more live rock will not fix the problem. I could be wrong, but there are plenty of posts for algae control and nothing seems to work.
Lanthium chloride

Take the rocks from the unknown origin and soak them.
Or, Muratic acid bath. Don't forget your PPE.
 
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m.kristoff

m.kristoff

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Lanthium chloride

Take the rocks from the unknown origin and soak them.
Or, Muratic acid bath. Don't forget your PPE.
I have looked into Lanthium chloride. If I understand what it does, it removes PO4 to kill it off. Are you suggesting that I remove the rock and soak it in Lanthium chloride?

I have a bunch of coral I need to keep alive so that is why I am considering a reboot with new rock
 

mxreef887

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I just rebooted my 225. Vermitid snails took over and I've been wanting to redo rock for a couple years then pandemic hit and I kind of let it go and the snails looked like colonies of birdsnest.

I got 4 boxes on the Liferock (mix of trees and islands) and have had them cycling in a large tub for the past couple months. Put them in the weekend and got water in and love the way they look. Haven't put the lights back on it to really see the structure yet though.

About 12 years ago, I bought a used 90 gallon reef with all the rock. The guy had the rock sitting outside in the sun. I did a muriatic bath as I was worried about leaching. Seemed to work good as I never had an issue and some of that rock was with me up to this tank.
 
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m.kristoff

m.kristoff

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I just rebooted my 225. Vermitid snails took over and I've been wanting to redo rock for a couple years then pandemic hit and I kind of let it go and the snails looked like colonies of birdsnest.

I got 4 boxes on the Liferock (mix of trees and islands) and have had them cycling in a large tub for the past couple months. Put them in the weekend and got water in and love the way they look. Haven't put the lights back on it to really see the structure yet though.

About 12 years ago, I bought a used 90 gallon reef with all the rock. The guy had the rock sitting outside in the sun. I did a muriatic bath as I was worried about leaching. Seemed to work good as I never had an issue and some of that rock was with me up to this tank.
I am considering the same process. cycling the liferock for a month or so. I also found some Vermitid snails there is that also.
 

Dburr1014

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I have looked into Lanthium chloride. If I understand what it does, it removes PO4 to kill it off. Are you suggesting that I remove the rock and soak it in Lanthium chloride?

I have a bunch of coral I need to keep alive so that is why I am considering a reboot with new rock
Yes I am. You would of coarse take the coral off the rock.
I also did a Muratic bath on 20+ year old rock. It's much harder than simply using LC.
After a Muratic bath, you need baking soda to neutralize the acid. Then soak them again.
With LC, you can leave them in salt water. Just change it out as needed.
 

reddogf5

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IME once algae is established on the rock, you can't get rid of it in the tank. Adding live rock won't help, my first tank was TBS and wound up this way.
First, you need to identify how you got to this stage. Is your tank cleaning insufficient, do you not have enough algae eaters in the tank, not enough nutrient export? In my case it was all of these. You need to have a plan to rectify this first, to prevent algae from establishing itself on your rock.

I believe once algae does get established on the rock, and grows to the point the algae eaters in the tank won't touch it, you are lost. In addition to the possibility of phosphates leaching from the rock, the bacteria colonies can cleave it from the rock for their use. They also harvest ammonia from the water. And as the bacteria die off, they release all their internal fertilizer either under or right next to the algae. If this is what is happening in tanks with algae completely taking over the rock, it can't be addressed in the sump or anywhere else, the algae needs to be killed off the rock, one way or another.
 

Lavey29

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IME once algae is established on the rock, you can't get rid of it in the tank. Adding live rock won't help, my first tank was TBS and wound up this way.
First, you need to identify how you got to this stage. Is your tank cleaning insufficient, do you not have enough algae eaters in the tank, not enough nutrient export? In my case it was all of these. You need to have a plan to rectify this first, to prevent algae from establishing itself on your rock.

I believe once algae does get established on the rock, and grows to the point the algae eaters in the tank won't touch it, you are lost. In addition to the possibility of phosphates leaching from the rock, the bacteria colonies can cleave it from the rock for their use. They also harvest ammonia from the water. And as the bacteria die off, they release all their internal fertilizer either under or right next to the algae. If this is what is happening in tanks with algae completely taking over the rock, it can't be addressed in the sump or anywhere else, the algae needs to be killed off the rock, one way or another.
So you take out the most heavily impacted rocks and replace them with live ocean rock adding an incredible amount of biodiversity and microfauna to the tank. This way the ecosystem already established in the tank is not impacted by completely starting over. Yes, manual cleaning and diverse cleaner crew will still be needed.

I do agree with your statement about identifying the sources of the algae problems and making corrections.
 
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m.kristoff

m.kristoff

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IME once algae is established on the rock, you can't get rid of it in the tank. Adding live rock won't help, my first tank was TBS and wound up this way.
First, you need to identify how you got to this stage. Is your tank cleaning insufficient, do you not have enough algae eaters in the tank, not enough nutrient export? In my case it was all of these. You need to have a plan to rectify this first, to prevent algae from establishing itself on your rock.

I believe once algae does get established on the rock, and grows to the point the algae eaters in the tank won't touch it, you are lost. In addition to the possibility of phosphates leaching from the rock, the bacteria colonies can cleave it from the rock for their use. They also harvest ammonia from the water. And as the bacteria die off, they release all their internal fertilizer either under or right next to the algae. If this is what is happening in tanks with algae completely taking over the rock, it can't be addressed in the sump or anywhere else, the algae needs to be killed off the rock, one way or another.
Thanks for the Reply
As for export
I have a Reef Oct 250 External Skimmer, a 4 square Aquatics Turf scrubber and a UV sterilizer. I have also ran GFO. My equipment is working without issue.

For the last 6 months or so I have been dealing with very low No3 and PO4. That would cause dinos and cyno. I didn't overreact as this would be typical of a new tank that is maturing. I was able to get past that stage. I still have issue with low nutrients and would notice spikes of po4 and then back to 0. This was due to the algae using it up. The tank has been up down with NO3 (never over 5ppm) and PO4 at its highest 0.10 and normally around 0.02 or less. Now that the tank is just over a year, I would expect that it would be balanced, and these problems could be handled naturally.

For inhabitants I have turbos and cert snails. Hermits and 3 urchins. I also have a Naso and a sailfin. they will not touch the stuff because it has grown too long. H2o2 seemed to help but now it is just exploding again. Spent many days wiht a tooth brush and blowing off the rock.

I agree that pretty much all of my rock probably needs an acid bath at this point. I would also think that my substrate needs go as well since it is probably absorbing PO4.
 
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m.kristoff

m.kristoff

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I do agree with your statement about identifying the sources of the algae problems and making corrections
Have had a lot of conversation, researched and believe that I have taken all steps to identify and rectify the source. I am left with the opinion that it is the rock itself leaching. I could do a soft reboot as you are suggesting but my coral are taking a hit since I can't get NO3 and PO4 stabilized.

If I do go with new liferock, I will cycle it separately with good live rock to seed it. then tear out the old rock

another interesting observation is it all exploded when I added my ATI stratton. It was ramped up from 50 to 70 percent intensity slowly. I had Radions on it and had 0 issues. its also a plausible explanation. maybe the spectrum is off with that fixture. could be a combo of both leaching and the light
 

reddogf5

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So you take out the most heavily impacted rocks and replace them with live ocean rock adding an incredible amount of biodiversity and microfauna to the tank. This way the ecosystem already established in the tank is not impacted by completely starting over. Yes, manual cleaning and diverse cleaner crew will still be needed.
To be clear, I started with live rock from Tampa Bay. It started like this:
2-28-2010.jpg

And ended like this:
DSC_0633.JPG

"Biodiversity" is a buzzword, not a solution to algae covered rocks. Once the algae gets to the point where the algae eaters won't touch it, the only working solution I see is to remove the rock and kill the algae, however one wants to do it.
 

Lavey29

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To be clear, I started with live rock from Tampa Bay. It started like this:
2-28-2010.jpg

And ended like this:
DSC_0633.JPG

"Biodiversity" is a buzzword, not a solution to algae covered rocks. Once the algae gets to the point where the algae eaters won't touch it, the only working solution I see is to remove the rock and kill the algae, however one wants to do it.
I wish I had pics of my GHA jungle in my tank between months 5 and 9. It was as bad or worse then yours and I started with dead rock. I took a variety of natural steps to address the problem a long with elbow grease. I avoided harsh chemicals completely. It was a battle that lasted months but the end result was GHA gone and coralline replaced it. Just part of the maturing process for the tank and as I hit the one year mark the tank went through an evolution and became much more stable and predictable. I just view starting over as eliminating one problem but walking down the same path and eventually seeing the same problem again and at what cost? You lose your tanks ecosystem, maybe requires new cycling, fish go where then? Corals im sure will not like the big environment change. I guess on nano tanks it seems more reasonable to do a rip clean or replace method but on medium to large tanks I do not think it makes sense to reboot. Just my .02
 
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m.kristoff

m.kristoff

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To be clear, I started with live rock from Tampa Bay. It started like this:
2-28-2010.jpg

And ended like this:
DSC_0633.JPG

"Biodiversity" is a buzzword, not a solution to algae covered rocks. Once the algae gets to the point where the algae eaters won't touch it, the only working solution I see is to remove the rock and kill the algae, however one wants to do it.
that is pretty much my tank. looked great for months and now its past the point or return.
 
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m.kristoff

m.kristoff

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I wish I had pics of my GHA jungle in my tank between months 5 and 9. It was as bad or worse then yours and I started with dead rock. I took a variety of natural steps to address the problem a long with elbow grease. I avoided harsh chemicals completely. It was a battle that lasted months but the end result was GHA gone and coralline replaced it. Just part of the maturing process for the tank and as I hit the one year mark the tank went through an evolution and became much more stable and predictable. I just view starting over as eliminating one problem but walking down the same path and eventually seeing the same problem again and at what cost? You lose your tanks ecosystem, maybe requires new cycling, fish go where then? Corals im sure will not like the big environment change. I guess on nano tanks it seems more reasonable to do a rip clean or replace method but on medium to large tanks I do not think it makes sense to reboot. Just my .02
I would agree with rebooting isn't optimal. My tank is pretty much following the same path as yours did. But Its over 1 year old now and getting worse instead of getting better. My corals are suffering so I have to do something.

I do appreciate everyone's comments. its good to discuss and maybe find the needle in a haystack that could be causing my problem
 

Lavey29

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I would agree with rebooting isn't optimal. My tank is pretty much following the same path as yours did. But Its over 1 year old now and getting worse instead of getting better. My corals are suffering so I have to do something.

I do appreciate everyone's comments. its good to discuss and maybe find the needle in a haystack that could be causing my problem
Well best of luck which ever route you go. This is a very challenging hobby and hurdles like you are experiencing will just make the end result that much more satisfying.
 

Dom

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Thinking about a Tank reboot. Tank is just over a year old and started with used Dry rock. I have an algae problem that I can't kick.
I have issue with having ultra-low nutrients and have tried correcting the levels with over feeding and dosing. still have almost 0 no3 and po4. I am dosing but can't maintain any levels above 0 for very long. I even tried dosing H202 with little success.
I add a turf scrubber and can grow algae in it like crazy. I am sure that is some of the reason for the Ultra low readings but with the growth, the algae in the main display should have burnt out by now. I believe the source is phosphates leaching form the rock as It continues to grow.

My corals are not looking good due to no nutrients so I am going to pull the rock and go with carbisea Liferock. I have never been happy with the rockscape and now is the time to do it. also thinking of going bare bottom. I'm sure this will impact the tank and probably cause another cycle. Not sure what to do with my existing coral. I can dump microbacter7 in and put the coral back in it or should I just sell off the coral and restart later. Any advice is appreciated

You are getting low nutrient readings because of the algae growth in the tank. The nutrients are fueling the algae growth.

Rebooting the tank for an algae issue isn't necessary. Ultimately, it comes down to finding and eliminating the source of the nutrients.

If your dry rock was not cured before placing it in the tank, the organics in the rock will cause a huge algae bloom. But if the rock is already placed, you might as well ride it out. Eventually, it will clear up.
 

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