About to give up.

[Those2clowns]

It sounds like you’re likely just going through normal tank maturation (especially if you started with dry rock). Do you have some pictures so we can see what exactly you’re talking about.

One important thing to remember with fluconazole, is that it can up to 2-3 months to completely kill some algae (GHA being one of the types that takes longer).

Its your tank and your life, but IMO, it would be a shame to give up on a fairly young tank because of some algae, especially if it’s not really affected your corals.

I posted the pic for you. From some research I have done before it seems like it will take years before the rock is fully mature. For example Tampa bay rock leaves their rocks out in the ocean for 2 to 3 years

 

[CanuckReefer]

This is probably the best pic I could get with just normal setting. Unfortunately my biggest regret is starting with dry rock. If I could do it again I would do live rock but it is so dang expensive in my area that as an 18 year old senior in high school I didn’t really want to spend the money on it

It's not so bad at all... yet somebody suggested the rip clean. SMH....

 

[Those2clowns]

Huh? The anti clean up crew? Why is it always RIP CLEAN with you? It hardly sounds like it needs it....it's been less than a year and they say the corals are doing well....some pics would help, but I've seen tanks recover in weeks with a good CUC .

Agreed. I prefer the natural way of doing it if I can with a solid cuc.

 

[DungSl1nger]

This is probably the best pic I could get with just normal setting. Unfortunately my biggest regret is starting with dry rock. If I could do it again I would do live rock but it is so dang expensive in my area that as an 18 year old senior in high school I didn’t really want to spend the money on it

I have had live (KP Aquatics) and dead, I did like the live but as you you said its expensive. to be honest my rock was much worse than that. I did use the snake oils to clean it up with some labor and adjusting my feeding.

 

[CanuckReefer]

I posted the pic for you. From some research I have done before it seems like it will take years before the rock is fully mature. For example Tampa bay rock leaves their rocks out in the ocean for 2 to 3 years

Fully mature? Well yes.... able to handle your bioload and be an important factor? Much earlier than that!

 

[Those2clowns]

Fully mature? Well yes.... able to handle your bioload and be an important factor? Much earlier than that!

Yes true. The rocks continue to leach stuff out of them though as they mature

 

[CanuckReefer]

Agreed. I prefer the natural way of doing it if I can with a solid cuc.

I'm gonna be totally honest with you here. You are expecting too much based on the pic I saw of the rock. It's getting there, gradually and the GHA is not out of control. If you haven't the patience, figure out a way to develop some. A few days of neglect here or there isn't going to doom you either. It's when you have the time, what you put into it. This is a tank that needs a bit more time, and a little bit of husbandry....if the corals are fairly good, we are on our way. You are taking the longer path but one worthwhile.

 

[MaxTremors]

I posted the pic for you. From some research I have done before it seems like it will take years before the rock is fully mature. For example Tampa bay rock leaves their rocks out in the ocean for 2 to 3 years

I don’t think it looks too bad at all. It’s a little unsightly, but I think if you beef up your CuC (a variety of snails and hermits, I recommend 0.75-1 snails per gallon and 0.5 small blue leg hermits per gallon fighting conch, some stomatellas if you can get them, and I know some people don’t like them, but ‘asterina’ stars), and continue with regular maintenance (use a turkey baster or toothbrush to blow/scrub it off when you clean/do water changes - I sometimes rubberband a tooth brush to some airline tubing and use that to siphon out what gets scrubbed off) .

Also, if you haven’t seeded your rock with some real live rock, I would really suggest doing that (even just a pound or two). That will help you to develop a biome of microfauna that will help clean up the tank and introduce bacteria and coralline that will colonize the rock and hopefully out compete the nuisance algae.

After seeing the photo, I’m pretty confident you can get it whipped into shape within a couple months. If that doesn’t work, I would try fluconazole again, but give it a couple months. I ran fluconazole for some Cladophora several months ago (my current tank is around the same age as yours). Here’s the before (Aug) and today (still have some green matting algae that blows off easily here and there, but the cladophora and GHA is gone):