120 Gallon RIP Clean Help

[Dragon174]

I have been battling hair algae for some time and nothing seemed to be working. I read about dosing hydrogen peroxide (3%) to the tank. I had already lost most of my corals due to a crash (unrelated) about two months ago, so.... I was kind of at my wits end. Well less than 3 hours after dosing (1ml per 10 gallons) all of my fish are dead.

It is time to restart this tank. I am wondering what is the best way to clean my live rock to get rid of all of the hair algae and keep it alive while I change 90% of the water (all except the little bit to keep the sand alive).

I plan to clean all of my equipment (pumps, sump, skimmer, fuge, etc) and the inside of the tank as well to make sure and get any residue of the hair algae gone so that when I fill the tank back up it doesn't come back. I'm going to remain fishless for a couple of weeks to make sure I don't have a mini-cycle.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[brandon429]

Removed

 

[Pntbll687]

I have been battling hair algae for some time and nothing seemed to be working. I read about dosing hydrogen peroxide (3%) to the tank. I had already lost most of my corals due to a crash (unrelated) about two months ago, so.... I was kind of at my wits end. Well less than 3 hours after dosing (1ml per 10 gallons) all of my fish are dead.

It is time to restart this tank. I am wondering what is the best way to clean my live rock to get rid of all of the hair algae and keep it alive while I change 90% of the water (all except the little bit to keep the sand alive).

I plan to clean all of my equipment (pumps, sump, skimmer, fuge, etc) and the inside of the tank as well to make sure and get any residue of the hair algae gone so that when I fill the tank back up it doesn't come back. I'm going to remain fishless for a couple of weeks to make sure I don't have a mini-cycle.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The absolute best way to get rid of the algae is to get new rock.

If you want to keep the rock you have, I would highly suggest bleaching it or acid bath. This will most likely kill all the algae.

If you want to keep the sand, I would drain the tank and get the rock out and start whatever process you choose for that. Keep a small powerhead in the tank witht he sand to keep the water moving and oxygenated. When you're ready to put the rock back, take the sand out and clean it in a 5g bucket with a garden hose.

I don't think you're going to find a "good" or easy way to keep the rock "alive" and still kill all the algae off

 

[brandon429]

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[Dragon174]

These are all good feedback and I really appreciate it. I really don't want to take all of my rock out and bleach it, but if that is the only way to really get rid of the GHA then that is what I will do. I know I'm starting over so, it is what it is.

Also, I have about 60 pounds of sand in the bottom of my tank (it's only about 1" deep) but I don't have enough buckets to take that much sand out and wash it. How important is it to wash the sand?

 

[Cell]

Washing the sand is a vital step.

 

[Dragon174]

removed

Can you please post these links back please? Not sure why they got deleted. Did I do something wrong?

 

[Pntbll687]

These are all good feedback and I really appreciate it. I really don't want to take all of my rock out and bleach it, but if that is the only way to really get rid of the GHA then that is what I will do. I know I'm starting over so, it is what it is.

Also, I have about 60 pounds of sand in the bottom of my tank (it's only about 1" deep) but I don't have enough buckets to take that much sand out and wash it. How important is it to wash the sand?

If you plan on keeping the tank more than a year, then I think bleaching it acid bath is the way to go. The WORST would be if you didn't bleach and think you got it all, just got it to come back in a couple months.

You only need one bucket to clean the sand. Just get a plastic tote from home Depot or Walmart to put the sand in after you clean it.

 

[MW319]

You can still wash your sand a bucket at a time and once that bucket is clean you can dump it into a garbage bag. Make sure you use several garbage bags so it’s easier to handle.

 

[Dragon174]

What kind of acid bath and is there a link / thread on how to do it? I’ve bleached rock before and know that process but if I’m going to start over I want to do it the right way.

 

[Pntbll687]

 

[Dragon174]

Thanks for the video. I think I am going to plan on doing a bleach cure and not an acid cure. This should kill all of the algae and other things off the rock and then start the curing process to get it ready to re-introduce it back into the system once everything is ready.

While doing the cure, I will rinse the sand, clean all of the equipment and start filling the tank back up with water to get ready to re-build. Going to be a long process. Nothing is ever easy in this hobby that is for sure.

 

[Uncle99]

I have been battling hair algae for some time and nothing seemed to be working. I read about dosing hydrogen peroxide (3%) to the tank. I had already lost most of my corals due to a crash (unrelated) about two months ago, so.... I was kind of at my wits end. Well less than 3 hours after dosing (1ml per 10 gallons) all of my fish are dead.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

While the clean will put you back to restart, is it possible that not knowing what the original cause was will put you back there again sometime in the future.

I note back in January you describe your rock as not very porous. It is possible you don’t have enough surface area?

In general terms, running high nutrients, too intense/too long lighting and/or incorrect spectrum, sunlight hitting tank, real old T5’s which have colour shifted are some contributors to the mess.

It would be interesting to know, what solves you have tried and more importantly, what lighting and what were your water parameters and how long they had been stable.

Just think it’s important to have some thoughts of what needs to change after the restart.

Personally, I never reuse sand.

 

[Dragon174]

The parameters were very stable for about 6 months. My RO/DI cartridge went bad as I didn't have a TDS meter at the time and caused a bloom of GHA to start on one rock. My Nitrates, Nitrites and phosphates took a nose dive from being consumed by the algae. I tried manual removal of the GHA which got most of it off but then it started to spread as a brown type algae around my rocks and other things. I tried to get my nutrients up by dosing neonitrate and feeding frozen food once per day. Things rapidly got worse.

As things started spreading around my tank (including what I didn't know but thought was cyno) I treated the tank with chemi-clean and my tank crashed. Lost most of my corals. Still don't know why as I had treated in the past and didn't have an issue.

The brown type hair algae continued to spread and is all over all of my rocks and even smothered my zoa's.

I don't really want to bleach everything and start over. If there is a way to take the rocks out and maybe clean with a tooth brush in some RO/DI and hydrogen peroxide spray that would be preferred. Taking one rock out at a time and doing this before placing it back in the tank.

I do have this stuff building up on my overflow that I need to try and suck out but was thinking of draining some of my water when I clean all of my equipment and while I have the shop vac out to clean my sump sucking this stuff off the overflow.

At this point I want to try anything I can to not have to start over from square one.