Tearing my (green) hair (algae) out- it's driving me bananas!

[ceruleanspiral]

Just out of curiosity, what is your magnesium level reading? Whenever I run into this when starting a new tank, I raise the magnesium between 1500 to 1600, and it dies off on its own. I used to believe the Kent Magnesium was the best to use for use, but I've been using Continuum or Brightwell with the same success.

Me? My mag has been 1350-1410 since September, last one being only 1260 on 11/7 after I switched to mixing salt at home. I was supposed to test again today but I’m going to do it tomorrow before the water change.

 

[ceruleanspiral]

Not If you used nothing but real live rock from the ocean with no die off. It's available. Not many here take advantage of it. That's why these kinds of threads are on here daily. Unless you totally neglect your tank, if you use real live rock from the ocean these threads would disappear.

You would just see a lot more threads asking about hitchhiker identification. A bunch of ugly mantis shrimp and Bobbit worms eating fish. The last time I went to the beach someone had a huge like 8” mantis shrimp in their bucket. I recommended that they not stick their hands in it and to just throw-dump the bucket far away from toes.

 

[DirtMcGurt]

My tank looked like that at about the 1 year mark. I had to manually remove as much GHA as possible and used H2O2 after. Then kept my water parameters as stable as possible. I had to stop adding anything Live, other then a few cleaners to pick at algae left. Something that help my corals and kept diatoms and cyano away was dosing Phosphate. My phosphate stays around 0.06 - 0.08 N03 is about 8 ppm and Alk is around 9-9.5. It takes time and you have to go slow but it can be turned around.

 

[brandon429]

Wow!

 

[brandon429]

ceruleanspiral
hey did you get the test rock done

 

[ceruleanspiral]

To deal with palys, just take em out back it’s no risk outside. Set on a table and work around them with the knife tip, debriding off algae and sw rinsing. Rinse well before you go back in, this cannot aerosolize or contaminate family, wear gloves and eye protection.

i worked with brown paly rocks for years in the same room as my small daughter, no gloves no eye protection, I absolutely do not believe in their danger other than direct contact or rock boiling. I never did brush things, was always a rasper but that is safer than brushing to avoid aerosolization

it’s ok to be careful / outside work is ok and still prudent.

I did a peroxide rinse today. Just straight peroxide on the rocks and then rinsed them in fresh salt water in a bucket before putting them back in the tank. I did 3 rocks, 2 small and one regular. I did a zoa rock but didn’t scrub with a toothbrush. I picked off what I could and used a pipette to get peroxide into the clumps, including the zoa base. It was making squeaking bubble noises.

 

[Ling_Thing]

Api algaefix saved my reef! Last resort but all coral were up phased and algae melted in a week. Check out my thread

 

[brandon429]

Cerulean
You will like the dieoff speed of the non diluted run

and if it doesn’t stay gone I’d recommend trying fluconazole/ similar dosers but truly only if you wind up taking time to clean out the system fully.

Searches in the fluconazole thread, 200 pages by now, show that killing gha in the system with no prior de clouding/sandbed cleaning + the new algae mass death results in extended cyano challenges. Other dosers indeed may have a targeted kill and not be related to cyano, but that cloudiness feeds the current invasion (likely factors in growback) and it will feed another one in the future. Systems that skew towards eutrophic plant dominance are best ran cleaner/no pent up waste that clouds when disturbed

 

[PhreeByrd]

It is impossible to remove algae by brushing it with a toothbrush. This will remove the big visible stuff, but it will not remove the algae that is attached to the rock. In the process of scrubbing, you also fragment the algae and spread it around, and no amount of rinsing can remove all of those tiny little pieces of it, which can then start growing anew. Scrubbing the rock will also damage or kill desirable life such as sponges which would compete with the algae for nutrients. No matter how often it's been suggested or attempted, this is a complete waste of time.

Anything that kills the algae but does not immediately remove it from the system results in its nutrients being released back into the water, fueling new algae growth. So chemicals, including peroxide, are not a panacea, or even a solution in and of themselves. Peroxide will also kill the beneficial bacteria that we want for natural filtration and nutrient uptake.

Physically removing the algae removes the pest along with its bound nutrients, and although this does not immediately result in an algae-free display, with stable parameters and good husbandry, eventually the algae that remains will burn itself out. Yes, it takes time for this to happen. But if you want instant gratification, this is not a good hobby anyway.

A healthy reef includes algae. It is normal and necessary to the health of the ecosystem. I agree that overgrowth is a problem for us, but the goal of having a completely algae-free system is neither realistic nor desirable.

 

[ceruleanspiral]

I had gha for months did weekly toothbrush sessions 2/3 hours etc
Then 1 week it all went away
Must have been new tank uglies ?

Ugh, I can only hope. I've had the tank running since January and feels like I've had this algae forever.

 

[ruskimax]

Fluconazole, Fluconazole, Fluconazole. Only one shot mystery chemical solution I use and have had success and ZERO issues with. You’ll get over this algal phase soon enough, but when my livestock was being overrun and suffocated I turned to Reef Flux.

 

[Wolfman238]

I would stick with the vibrant it worked for me takes time been running it for about a month and a half and GHA is just disappearing just have one small patch left and it is getting smaller.

 

[brandon429]

Phree

See links below. No filter bac harm by peroxide, I’ll let you search and find instances bac were harmed in comparison

The exhaustive testing we’ve done on filtration bac is logged for ten years now...

We have some very specific nitrifer testing in our pest algae challenge thread here (linked in it is 200 pages of algae work) plus, for anyone being prudent Lee’s peroxide thread stickied up top in the gen forum for ten years shows how many filter bac problems occur with peroxide, and those are all tank dosing to the water vs outside work.


From your post I can’t discern listed steps that end with a saved tank, or links to one.

attempt just one work example...they’re so humbling~

 

[pasquale petrovia]

My 225 looks worse then yours. I took 80% of the rock outside and power washed it and 3 weeks later it is worse than it was. always RODI all water. Changed 150 gallons, used phosphate remover, chemi clean did stop cyano, peroxide, lowered photoperiod and still cant stop it. I have emeralds, snails, 6 tangs, urchin and tried sea hare.Tank was perfect for a year until power outage siphoned 150 gallons on floor. I cant get it back. Keep working on it though. If it was easy everyone would have one. Good luck my friend

 

[brandon429]

In my opinion that is the #1 reason to use test rocks before upscaling to the whole tank. Only after a couple test rocks are made to comply/ no growback would the whole tank be worked

We can use 5 gal buckets and test rocks to measure water doser options, and we can test manual controls outside the tank using sample rocks....this saves the tank from being one giant experiment.

Rasping with a metal tool hasn’t been modeled, consider it in future options for the test rocks it’s really powerful as an anchor dislodge

Using knife tip removes and unanchors the algae off the rocks, without chems. The direct peroxide on the cleaned spot is for cellular cleanup then rinse off and put back totally algae free.

The aquarist can then start fresh no algae, and arrange the tank to prevent growback much better. If not, repeat.

C
If that palythoa rock is considered so dangerous it can't be rasped, why own it

It's forcing you to keep fragmenting algae for the rest of the tank

If it's a required piece, direct peroxide will blanch it by tonite most likely. If not, then you're dealing with a selected strain and rasping is next step or can try the water dosers


Skim the fluconazole thread, they get growback often. Am aware many dont

Just advising the blend of methods that get the least growback in work threads...distillation of best practices.

Check this work thread out, it's one of ten old peroxide threads that give before and after pics before any job begins. Lots of palythoa were handled inside, no protections. Effects on filter bac literally do not exist, even in gross overdoses. Threads have chat and bulk filler type but like gold flecks in a river they also have patterned before and after pics, happy owners vs unhappy ones, no tank ever lost, no corals killed etc. patterns are free for the taking

Peroxide saves my Tank! With pics to Prove It!

www.nano-reef.com

 

[pasquale petrovia]

What ever you do, Do not dose tank with peroxide. Some say 1ML per 10 gallons. I dosed mine and within 12 hours the whole tank went red with Cyano bacteria. Killed 3 SPS frags

 

[brandon429]

What about this thread, all tank doses

Dinoflagellates my experience......h2o2 reefing tool!!!!!

This is a huge thread, can we get a summary of recommended dosing and any issues. I have a 375 I may dose.

www.reef2reef.com

You need custom planning for peroxide algae dosing, based on a before full tank shot

Where we see details about your sandbed, rock loading, bioload, light balance

agreed it harmed your system but we could have prevented it. We would only do to your tank what works in test buckets, never testing on the whole tank.

we wouldn't have dosed your tank 1:10 with dirty sand in place or places the tank had cloudy detritus locked in the rocks, pre cleaning before treatment would be the right order of ops. I never add it to the water in my work threads but wanted to show people who do, for pattern analysis.

 

[DirtMcGurt]

My 225 looks worse then yours. I took 80% of the rock outside and power washed it and 3 weeks later it is worse than it was. always RODI all water. Changed 150 gallons, used phosphate remover, chemi clean did stop cyano, peroxide, lowered photoperiod and still cant stop it. I have emeralds, snails, 6 tangs, urchin and tried sea hare.Tank was perfect for a year until power outage siphoned 150 gallons on floor. I cant get it back. Keep working on it though. If it was easy everyone would have one. Good luck my friend

Where where your nutrient levels when your tank was doing good, and where are your nutrient levels now? By "nutrients" I mean Nitrate and Phosphate. I'm just curious.

 

[DirtMcGurt]

I have to 2nd @brandon429 and this H2O2 method. I posted my before and after shots. However, I believe you need to also keep parameters stable and find out what is causing the growth as well as cleaning it out. I scrubbed all my rocks and then sprayed them with full strength 3% peroxide and let them cook for 15 or 20 mins outside of the water. Also vacuumed my sand thoroughly and did a large water change. That killed 90% of my GHA. Then I think balancing my N03 and P04, along with other parameters, kept the algae away.

 

[brandon429]

would also relay for transparency that our problem/challenge is grow back, not everyone has nice permanent stoppage but it worked in my tank so it seemed like a nice option to share.

I like to think where the direction of peroxide headed was into total safe application measures, no loss or recycles as priority, and if some targets got killed along the way we could photograph then that's excellent fringe benefits. In the least, it's a quick reset back to day one but with all the rock still able to handle bioload, how we arrange for growback prevention ranges tank to tank. When peroxide first began everyone was just astounded at the intitial kill. We'd never seen bryopsis go ghost white overnite heh

Reefmisers thread above showed me peroxide in a work thread for the first time. It saved my reef one thousand percent.