GHA outbreak followed by diatoms/dinoflagellates!

[Tony R.]

Hello all, its been quite a while. Some of the photos below are not for the faint of heart! I had my tank in minimal maintenance mode for a month while I was away collecting field specimens for my research and returned to a complete take over of GHA! The GHA was proliferating and dying so quickly it must have just destroyed the water chemistry and killed dozens of corals and even a fish.

Since I had high surface area ceramic bricks in the sump area and wasn't too worried about biological filtration deficits, I went nuclear and removed all of the afflicted rocks. I then did a large water change every other day until I replaced the total volume. From here, I put in clean dry rock I had from other projects and dumped a bottle of Frtiz bacteria start in so the fish and shrimp wouldn't be too freaky. I chiseled what corals I could salvage and placed them on a plastic frag rack just to see if anybody could survive. This was on March 4th.

All in all the purge of rocks went alright and was surprised to see the surviving corals rebounding. Slowly however I could see that sparse GHA and more abudnant diatoms/dinos were encroaching onto the new tank real estate.

All the while I was preparing in the background for a tear down and bleach out depending on the turn of events. So I purchased 40 lbs of caribsea life rock and 25 lbs of caribsea arag-alive sand.

Now I'm unsure how to proceed, should I blackout the tank then remove the temp rock and replace it with the new rock? Should I remove the old sand and replace with new sand? I'm kind of lost here in terms of how to manage the following:
1. Rid myself of the algae in general, 2. What order to add the new rock, and 3. What to do regarding the new/old sand.

I have an at home RODI system and had great results with it since I started, it seems like successive massive overfeeding of pellets in my absence could have tipped the tanks balance.

Please see my build thread for exact specs but the short end of it is Nuvo 30gallon long AIO and Aqamai LRM lighting.

Your help and guidance would be greatly appreciated!

 

[brandon429]

For the first time in a while, a sandbed that isn’t a contributor it seems

natural reefs will develop that encroachment without matched grazers, I think if you had true systemic water param issues that sandbed would be worse, the glass locked in green micro algae especially at top zone / brightest

we can do most experimenting with current sand in place, and save a big sand clean till later if required.

*we want to pause just for a week or so and hold your new rocks and sand ready for blending in a bit. This tank here can be steered back easily, your initial mass cull was 100% indicated


You’ve been shown what type of invader selects for your tank in a worst case condition hands off mode, and it could be far worse. what you have is totally peroxide sensitive, a test outcome prediction.


Taking time to beat this means if/when whiskers come up in a new assembly, total dominance has already been modeled. We should micro practice kicking this invader right out. You’ll be ready for future battles as you lock the non-eutrophic reef into place with sps antlers.
the modeling we need is threefold:

one rock with growth is removed and just pour peroxide across the tufts, if coral is attached pour around it. Wet target, let wick in. May or may not fizz, doesn’t matter. Don’t hand remove any algae just wet

after 2 mins burn, externally treated wet with peroxide, rinse rock in saltwater outside the tank, set it back in place with target attached. Chart it’s declination coming over three days.
another rock is removed, model the step up intervention.

*use pocket knife and or steak knife rasping tools as dentist, and debride in detail/ scrape off the target this one is detail effort. Dislodge all the growth by precision. Take some substrate out, you‘re a parrotfish beak in action but missing all the corals, non target areas. Metal to rock makes this test section free of algae, before you put back. Not brushing, that pestles targets into the surface area. Rasping with a knife tip digs in and up, flushes target away in saltwater rinse

* peroxide goes on this target rock only in the clean condition, former anchor zone, that you detailed like a dentist avoiding gums/coral flesh. This allows you to precision clear right up to implanted corals

peroxide burns the cellular cleanup, not the main target. Less to work on means peroxide clears more for you. It does NOT harm filtration bacteria it’s a perfect reef tool. Waiting for Fluconazole to melt that isn’t worth it, it’s rotting mass will crud up the tank. Where we are heading, your tank will be laser clear.

we are about to pick a range of action that will represent the least work we can get away with while still getting mass kill. We will only upscale what the models show to be the best. No guessing. The target will die
once we beat the invader, hand clean things so your rocks are liberated from plugging mass vs filled up, their biofiltration will be totally restored.
We should keep these rocks, not ditch em. We can add on top or to the side your new rocks, after this worst case scenario challenger is beaten


nice to meet you. I’m going for a super long e bike ride I’ll bb in two-adventure time!
B