help with my algae issue

[Barnabie Mejia]

the reason you do a simple test rock, without fixing the whole tank, is because in a few days after you will know what works and doesn't work for your system. you can pull 3 test rocks, and apply 3x methods to them, outside of tank, not having to subject your whole tank to wild parameter changes for extended periods of time. by test-rocking, you pre model what works and then only apply that.

I already know that a steak knife debriding run + peroxide on the cleaned zone, after scrape, will wipe the algae gone quickly and it wont hardly grow back. its what a grazer would be doing if it was there, this is just the chemical cheat form, utilizing the easy access a smaller nano provides. you have a way to simply command and demand a new tank by Wednesday, using all the same materials you currently have, minus any clouding. its ideal to do the rasping and de clouding as the tank is taken apart during the move. if its held off a little while, a few mos, redoing it isn't hard in a nano its excellent marine biology surgery practice indeed. being able to implement these moves at any time and pre call the outcome means your tank will have no limit biological lifespan, only a hammer or footballing-in-the-home incident could fell it lol

so when i pull a test rock it wont hurt the rock any being out of the tank and the tank water? i'm super new to this (if you cant tell). then i scrap off the algae with a steak knife and then dip it in 1/2 Hydrogen poroxide 1/2 tank or RODI water for 1-2 min then rinse and place it back in the tank, correct? and I would do this to 1 rock per week?

Im pretty excited to try this!

 

[brandon429]

we should work in small increments so its paced and planned really easy / no losses. we wont dip the rock its all outside on the counter type work, it wont harm corals or rock to be in the air a couple mins. I have a video of me draining my tank 30 mins here.

the first step is lift out a rock without making lots of waste in the tank. lift it out, set on the counter. use a steak knife to scrape/the point of the knife/away the algae from the places its lodged. Like a dentist exacts the teeth and gums, pick out the algae with the knife and debride it all clean in a given test area on the rock. rinse with saltwater only, rocks only get worked in saltwater. so as this rock sat a few mins on the counter, you just scraped and dislodged and rinsed with saltwater all the algae out of the cracks on a given spot, its barren and algae free now.

still sitting there, take a couple drops peroxide from a dropper and place them only on the cleaned spot. let sit 2 mins. you put algae on a spot already cleaned with a knife, this kills the anchors and cells leftover from the scraping, and the scraping was done with the knife point so that its detailed and not taking off layers of coralline etc, its a target-specific work.

rinse that section off with saltwater and put the rock back, watch in 3 days how it stays clean and all the rest of the tank stays as-is. this is how the whole tank will work when its done, but we start with only one rock. the sand cleaning comes later. this first run doesn't risk your tank, or kick up a bunch of waste or change any water. its lifting a rock out, killing algae, putting rock back test.

 

[Subsea]

@Barnabie Mejia

While Branden & I don’t always agree on his vendetta against detritus, in your scenario he is right about a rip clean. Who recommended 50% peroxide dip? I have been using a 10% peroxide bath for 10 minutes for many years with good results.

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

@Barnabie Mejia

While Branden & I don’t always agree on his vendetta against detritus, in your scenario he is right about a rip clean. Who recommended 50% peroxide dip? I have been using a 10% peroxide bath for 10 minutes for many years with good results.

I just read it on another thread this morning.... they said take a bucket that is 1/2 3% hydrogen peroxide and 1/2 tank water/ or RODI

 

[Subsea]

I just read it on another thread this morning.... they said take a bucket that is 1/2 3% hydrogen peroxide and 1/2 tank water/ or RODI

That is very concentrated to soak a live rock and expect it to stay alive. You should stick with Branden’s recommendation to spot treat only.

 

[ScottB]

the PO4 Reading is from a Hannah ULR Phosphate Checker, and I will be sure to be checking it before the water changes! I will look into the Red Sea testing kit for NO3. does the carbon in the reactor do anything for the nitrates? the reactor that I have is a dual reactor so they have independent of each other, not sure if that's better or not.... what could I do to keep the NO3 in check when that time comes Cause I don't want to be in the other thread! haha

Activated carbon alone won't remove NO3, but as you are digging around with old sand and rock, it is not bad to have running. It does help remove nasties from the water, but not nitrate to my knowledge.

Lets us know when you get a nitrate reading before we chose a method. In my mind, solving for 160ppm vs 25ppm call for different methods. Some of which are best used in conjunction with a skimmer which I recall is not presently installed, correct?

 

[brandon429]

none of my writing is for dipping rocks, we think that's a bad option because it exposes nontargets to the peroxide. mine is all dental-detail scraping and one drop at a time on the spot type work, outside of tank. there are other posts people made about applying peroxide into water, I just never do it. we run tight controls on tank cures, that's why every page is clean pics and no dead animals. veering from the recommended course can work better, worse, or no change in efficiency. if you'll do all external cleaning detail work, then 100% of the time the rock can be set back in the tank with no loss

by doing one test rock in the method above, you haven't opted out of using anyone else's method. You merely are driving one test rock to absolute compliance, amongst a bunch of guessing and waiting to see what happens. whether or not you upscale that work to the whole tank ranges person to person. its at least knowing how to make things comply, if you want to.

if the rocks are cleaned alone and the sand + detritus / organic waste loading is the same, then regrowth is faster vs cleaning out the sandbed + killing the algae. either way is ok to choose, one sustains the clean condition longer. if you leave the detritus in the tank or remove it, there's successful reefs showing both ways agreed.
cleaner reefing via cloud control has less successive invasions as a benefit, and the opposite/traditional way of leaving the waste in allows for more diversity in the system, feed and pods, including as well a few different types of invaders who may choose to set up shop for a while. we rid those groups by being clean as one care option

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

Activated carbon alone won't remove NO3, but as you are digging around with old sand and rock, it is not bad to have running. It does help remove nasties from the water, but not nitrate to my knowledge.

Lets us know when you get a nitrate reading before we chose a method. In my mind, solving for 160ppm vs 25ppm call for different methods. Some of which are best used in conjunction with a skimmer which I recall is not presently installed, correct?

I sure will, I’m anxious to get home and test those levels to see where they are... and you are correct, I don’t have a skimmer running right now, no room and the sump isn’t built yet for the 75g... I was considering using it for the mean time on this tank until the big one is done....

none of my writing is for dipping rocks, we think that's a bad option because it exposes nontargets to the peroxide. mine is all dental-detail scraping and one drop at a time on the spot type work, outside of tank. there are other posts people made about applying peroxide into water, I just never do it. we run tight controls on tank cures, that's why every page is clean pics and no dead animals. veering from the recommended course can work better, worse, or no change in efficiency. if you'll do all external cleaning detail work, then 100% of the time the rock can be set back in the tank with no loss

by doing one test rock in the method above, you haven't opted out of using anyone else's method. You merely are driving one test rock to absolute compliance, amongst a bunch of guessing and waiting to see what happens. whether or not you upscale that work to the whole tank ranges person to person. its at least knowing how to make things comply, if you want to.

if the rocks are cleaned alone and the sand + detritus / organic waste loading is the same, then regrowth is faster vs cleaning out the sandbed + killing the algae. either way is ok to choose, one sustains the clean condition longer. if you leave the detritus in the tank or remove it, there's successful reefs showing both ways agreed.
cleaner reefing via cloud control has less successive invasions as a benefit, and the opposite/traditional way of leaving the waste in allows for more diversity in the system, feed and pods, including as well a few different types of invaders who may choose to set up shop for a while. we rid those groups by being clean as one care option

I really like this approach and it will be used first. They way I see it, it can’t really hurt or put me in a worse situation.... if I add something I think I have more of a risk doing something to the tank that could take weeks or months to correct and still end up at square one.

@brandon429 would I have to pull all the sand out and rinse to do the treatment or do sections and overlap desired sections to make sure I hit the most of it? Cause in my head I’m seeing taking the livestock out and placing it in a Tupperware bin adding flow and filtration then redoing the tank to get a good start...

 

[brandon429]

I recommend no partial action on the sandbed per our sand rinse thread, the only safe mode is removing animals and doing the bed all at once where they are not around, and rinsing so well that zero cloud exists upon setup so they’re put back in a cloudless setup. Before that serious part though we can see how the dental treatment of the rock works to lose the algae, that’s a no risk test there. Doing the sand in sections might allow clouding to upwell and cause a mini cycle

 

[brandon429]

howdy good morning

also as you are working you'll be able to spot detritus clouding if any. when you lift the rock up, does it swirl from underneath

not that it means any big deal but it counts towards the overall assessment of feed, nutrient stores etc. anytime someone analyzes a lake or river for the state/management these exact factors are taken into acct and many others, so its helpful to use them in our tank assessment as well. some systems store up waste some don't, know where yours stands as you lift out rocks for test work. none of this is dangerous work so far, merely assessment

it is possible to run a nano reef without any testing other than temp and salinity, that's the mode we're in. At any point you can still test, adjust params, we're not blocking any other method. merely detritus removers, true grazers. to spot kill algae by cheating and lifting out the rock and to have a clean sandbed like it was when it was first set up (or cleaner) never harms any reef...it allows for massive feed input actually/system is hungry for protein, and the corals grow quickly. then the waste compounds....we're back to square one decision again about what to do with the cloud. its all cyclic

why are roller mats all the rage= people willing to spend 500$ to remove detritus so they don't have to do big work in big tanks. roller mats are solely for detritus mgmnt for example

bare bottom tanks, stirred sandbed tanks are all options to avoid big takedown work due to accumulations. the 90s was solely about storage and internal mitigation but nowadays its changing to throughput, and strong feeding, low continual cloud storage. neither way is bad its just the evol of the hobby

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

Thanks Brandon! Well last night I took a turkey Baster and blew my rocks down to loosen up stuff up there and I decided to hit the sand, and the tank was extremely cloudy when I was done. So I think it’s safe to say my sand bed needs a cleaning! Flying to Indiana for the week but when I get back I’m going to hit the rocks...

@ScottB

On another note, my nitrates were at 10-15ppm going off the color chart with the API test kit.
But I’m sure after the sand being stirred up last night the values are going to change....

Thanks guys!

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

none of my writing is for dipping rocks, we think that's a bad option because it exposes nontargets to the peroxide. mine is all dental-detail scraping and one drop at a time on the spot type work, outside of tank. there are other posts people made about applying peroxide into water, I just never do it. we run tight controls on tank cures, that's why every page is clean pics and no dead animals. veering from the recommended course can work better, worse, or no change in efficiency. if you'll do all external cleaning detail work, then 100% of the time the rock can be set back in the tank with no loss

by doing one test rock in the method above, you haven't opted out of using anyone else's method. You merely are driving one test rock to absolute compliance, amongst a bunch of guessing and waiting to see what happens. whether or not you upscale that work to the whole tank ranges person to person. its at least knowing how to make things comply, if you want to.

if the rocks are cleaned alone and the sand + detritus / organic waste loading is the same, then regrowth is faster vs cleaning out the sandbed + killing the algae. either way is ok to choose, one sustains the clean condition longer. if you leave the detritus in the tank or remove it, there's successful reefs showing both ways agreed.
cleaner reefing via cloud control has less successive invasions as a benefit, and the opposite/traditional way of leaving the waste in allows for more diversity in the system, feed and pods, including as well a few different types of invaders who may choose to set up shop for a while. we rid those groups by being clean as one care option

Wanted to give you an update @brandon429 I have been pulling rocks and cleaning them up with my son and it hasn't come back on the cleaned rocks! tank looks a lot better! I did notice that when I was manually pulling the GHA off the rocks it felt like it was less rooted on the rock. I noticed this when the parameters were where they needed to be, kinda like it was starting to die off but not ready to kick the bucket. when I pulled the rock and cleaned it, it looked much better and I did notice that when it was placed back in the tank the CUC went to town on it! almost as if the length of the GHA was too much for them to handle. but none the less the tank is looking better again. I also am cleaning the glass less often. we have one more rock to clean and that one is going to be hard cause I have an anemone footed on it and I don't know if im going to be able to get him off it and have him foot back on it again after it is cleaned.

what are your thoughts on that?

 

[brandon429]

hey did you use peroxide in the process as a cellular kill cheat

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

hey did you use peroxide in the process as a cellular kill cheat

on some spots I did, I wanted to clean the entire rock but didn't want to put too much peroxide on one rock at one time but I haven't seen any grow back. there is one rock that has a touch of algae on it but I saw the hairs stick up as soon as I finished placing the rock in there so it was a spot that i missed haha gonna have to pick it off as soon as I can move things around in there cause its hard to reach and really cant be seen from the front of the tank...