To rip clean or not, that is the question

[brandon429]

There's plenty of fringing reef areas not covered in gha I've seen them in the caymans. Those hairy places you dived in HI aren't worldwide

There are places of sheer coralline, walls abutted with corals and calcareous attachments and no plants easily seen... high flow energy, low / no waste storage and high suspended protein diversity with low dissolved nutrients

Oligotrophy is a brief but beneficial condition afforded in the rip clean. The keeper gets a skip cycle start over with no cost other than for new water, then they can make opposite choices this next round to avoid winding back up invaded. We use this clean time to feed more to corals, increasing suspended protein diversity and the rip clean itself ejected most if not all waste material destined to become dissolved waste compounds along the breakdown route when left in tank.


We're a visit to the reef dentist, a clean mouth is a happy mouth

 

[brandon429]

Shadow k's fish like the new clean condition, without the rotting material and exudate released in the water from dying invasion cells

Eutrophic bland color palette
Drab life not vibrant:

Oligotrophic after condition-
Sharp clean water no waste compounds above or below-
Vibrant pop of colors-
Increased surface area for waste control; gha surfaces are clogging micro channels and changing the rock to a storage sink for whole particles and phosphate sinking vs high flow, low retention coralline- heavy zones which exclude plant attachment.

 

[Dan_P]

It is perfectly normal and natural, but it is incredibly unsightly with no options left to me to kill it.

I am wondering whether a restart is the only option when confronted with such a resilient alga.

 

[brandon429]

Do the test rock Yanni vs the full tank

Take out one rock and set on counter

Using a steak knife, debride with rough scrapes all the algae off and rinse it away using saltwater down the sink. Make a clean test rock, with precision work around any attached corals on the test rock

Rinse off
Put peroxide on the rasped zones now cleaned, that's far less target cells to burn for the peroxide given, an amplification effect.

After a few mins peroxide cooking rinse that off and set this cleaned reef tooth back in among the others for comparison. Upscale as needed.


If you notice, most remediation offers in reefing involve you leaving the tank wrecked, and working backwards somehow to then starve the invasion plus let it rot in the system then export the waste or let the sandbed catch and retain it

We're opposite of that, so our after pics shine

Beginning from the uninvaded condition, and then maintaining that condition is better. You're free to try all manner of fancy chemistry or adding pods and all legit dinos options to hopefully stop growback.

And then if growback occurs, you're responsible for undoing it when it's small now, vs a whole reef tank like last time. Learning to stop being permissive with reef real estate is the benefit of a rip clean. Rip cleans directly pep up any reef.

The difference was in our approach, the initial effort to show up to reef bootcamp tidy is required. We start from the clean condition not the invaded condition.

 

[yanni]

Do the test rock Yanni vs the full tank

Take out one rock and set on counter

Using a steak knife, debride with rough scrapes all the algae off and rinse it away using saltwater down the sink. Make a clean test rock, with precision work around any attached corals on the test rock

Rinse off
Put peroxide on the rasped zones now cleaned, that's far less target cells to burn for the peroxide given, an amplification effect.

After a few mins peroxide cooking rinse that off and set this cleaned reef tooth back in among the others for comparison. Upscale as needed.


If you notice, most remediation offers in reefing involve you leaving the tank wrecked, and working backwards somehow to then starve the invasion plus let it rot in the system then export the waste or let the sandbed catch and retain it

We're opposite of that, so our after pics shine

Beginning from the uninvaded condition, and then maintaining that condition is better. You're free to try all manner of fancy chemistry or adding pods and all legit dinos options to hopefully stop growback.

And then if growback occurs, you're responsible for undoing it when it's small now, vs a whole reef tank like last time. Learning to stop being permissive with reef real estate is the benefit of a rip clean. Rip cleans directly pep up any reef.

The difference was in our approach, the initial effort to show up to reef bootcamp tidy is required. We start from the clean condition not the invaded condition.

Hey Brandon, I really appreciate your help. Thank you for the thorough explanation, as well as the thought process. My plan of action is to take out my small island with the big lobo spot on it, follow your instructions as to how to clear it, and then let it sit in the tank again for a fortnight. I’ll watch it, and if that seems to resolve it and stop lobo growing back, I will take out my entire aqua scape and follow suite.

How does that sound? While I’m doing the rock, I might also peroxide all my snail shells that have lobo on them as well. Eliminate it from the sources, try and reduce it even having a chance to take hold again.

If this doesn’t work, I will most likely rip clean and start afresh.

 

[MnFish1]

Leave the thing alone. Perfectly normal and natural. A ripped clean tank is not natural and will give you nothing but problems. You are trying to cultivate bacteria, not kill it.

This IMHO - is not correct (completely) - nor was the statement about a fish not being 'happy' (paraphrased) in a clean tank. ON the other hand - I don't see huge problems in the pictures. The good news about bacteria - is that they grow logarithmically - if 90 percent of bacteria were killed - they would re-populate quickly. As we know - from the experiments done - even with scrubbing in chlorinated water - there is no significant loss of ammonia removal. My guess is that if the nitrifiers are not affected - the majority of the rest are not going to be either.

As to whether it's natural or not - its kind of to each his own, right. Some people like a clean tank - they spend thousands of dollars on gadgets supplements, monitoring - that are IMHO - not really needed. There are plenty of areas on the reef - where - it's completely covered with coral.

 

[MnFish1]

Shadow k's fish like the new clean condition, without the rotting material and exudate released in the water from dying invasion cells

Eutrophic bland color palette
Drab life not vibrant:

View attachment 2741362


Oligotrophic after condition-
Sharp clean water no waste compounds above or below-
Vibrant pop of colors-
Increased surface area for waste control; gha surfaces are clogging micro channels and changing the rock to a storage sink for whole particles and phosphate sinking vs high flow, low retention coralline- heavy zones which exclude plant attachment.
View attachment 2741363

I might suggest that contrary to some opinions - Fish do not care about PVC pipe. They do not care about Fake rocks. They do not care about having a Mountain View - (i.e. a window looking out into a large landscape). They care about 2 things. 1. Water quality - and 2. Food. IMHO - again - I know it's heresy.

 

[Blake423]

Hi,

How's your lobophora situation? Are you in Sydney, if so I think we went to the same lfs for the snails and ended up with lobophora.

I fought bryopsis with fluconazole, but it seems it took care of lobophora as well. You may want to give it a try.
BUT couple of months later, it seems it is coming back at the moment