I'm lost and in need of help

rayn · Aug 13, 2016

I'm not new to the hobby, not even really new to R2R, but I'm in desperate need of help here.

Little back drop, tank was started early this year IIRC and things seemed to be going okay. Then I began to have algae appear. I ran gfo, I tried vodka dosing, I have a larger skimmer then needed even. But nothing worked, and the algae took over. This is nothing like j have dealt with before. Snails don't touch it, urchins don't touch it, rabbit fish don't touch it. Then came summer. I work construction and am still working 60+ hours a week. I have little time with the family, and even less for the tank, so the tank slid. I kept up on water changed for a while, but even they started slipping. Now I top off and feed very sparingly.

So I need some help to reboot this system and get my tank back.

Here's the list...120 with bean overflow. Bashsea skimmer and bashsea media reactor. TLF phosphate reactor. Light are MH 250 watt running 8 hours a day. Heater, lights, return, everything ran off apex. Three clownfish and one rabbit fish are the only tank inhabitants.

So how do I proceed? Start over or can I save it somehow?

Also I need to know what I'm dealing with here.

Thanks in advance R2R!

wkscott · Aug 13, 2016

I'm on a smartphone so I have a small picture, but it sure looks like Bryopsis to me. If nothing is eating it, it is almost positively Bryopsis and you have a battle on your hands.
I had Bryopsis a few years ago and completely eradicated it within 2 weeks using Kent Marine. I used this to raise my magnesium to 1900 and it browned and started to dissolve. My protein skimmer had to go into overdrive to remove all of the gunk. I didn't have anywhere near as much as you do so it would probably be best to manually remove as much as possible before starting a chemical treatment. Scrub the rocks in a bucket of aquarium water. Scrape the sides of the tank and siphon out as much as you can.

Since you don't have any photosynthetic creatures, TURN OFF the halides. They are wasting electricity and fueling the plague.

rayn · Aug 13, 2016

Is bryopsis brown?

There are a few corals in there, I just didn't mention as I don't think they add to the bio load in the tank. I can move them though.

Lionfish Lair · Aug 13, 2016

Whoa Doug. I had issues with one tank a long time again that I couldn't fix. No matter what I did, the fix seemed temporary. I took the stuff all out and started over and I haven't had an issue since.

Elementalj · Aug 13, 2016

Agree with the lights off idea. The fish can use something small for lighting. Glove up, scrape and siphon. I'd also change the media in the reactors. Are you topping off with tap?

wkscott · Aug 13, 2016

In my tank the Bryopsis was a dark green so if your algae is brown, maybe it's not Bryopsis.
If you have corals, you'll need to keep the lights on.

Elementalj · Aug 13, 2016

Sorry, I didn't see any in the photo. [emoji53] I'll bet there's some silicate at play though.

Jenaleigh1 · Aug 13, 2016

I have just won this same battle after about 18 months of trying everything I could to get rid of it. Hydrogen peroxide. This is tough stuff, so you're going to need to put in some elbow grease. Take all the rock out of your tank and scrub it extremely well. Dip in clean saltwater until all the detritus and algae is off. Clean every hose, nozzle, filter media, etc. in your tank. Take apart your pump and clean it inside and out. Once you get everything scrubbed and back in the tank, you're going to see that crap start growing back. The second it does, grab a syringe and fill it up with hydrogen peroxide. Get at the root of the algae and shoot it on the algae. You'll see no change immediately, but by day 3 it's gone. Yes, you may get some bleaching of your corraline, and there are a couple of inverts that may be sensitive to it, but it's no cost but a 2 dollar bottle of peroxide and some sweat equity. I'm sure you are using rodi water, a good filter media like chemi-pure, etc. so that's what worked for me after spending tons of
money and time on getting rid of algae. Good luck to you!

Humblefish · Aug 13, 2016

I think you've got multiple issues in play here. Dinos mixed in with something else. You could try lights out for 3-4 days, and see what kind of impact that has. I would even use black garbage bags to keep out any ambient light.

Humblefish · Aug 13, 2016

Also, how old are your MH lamps? Are you only using 0 TDS RODI?

wkscott · Aug 13, 2016

I guess there is more than one solution. In any case, you'll have to scrub everything down.
If you go with the Tech M solution, have the Tech M in hand and start using it immediately after the scrub down. Again, this worked for me in less than 3 weeks, over 3 years ago and it never came back.
H2O2 does work but it's much more labor intensive and takes longer.

Sabellafella · Aug 13, 2016

If i had to give advice for the most easiest effective way of cleaning this up, due to the relative short amount of fish i see in the photo. Just buy some new live rock and take out+ clean the old, try to rid the glass and such of it. And hope everything turns out for the best. Or you can tear the tank down and just restart

wkscott · Aug 13, 2016

Sabellafella said:
If i had to give advice for the most easiest effective way of cleaning this up, due to the relative short amount of fish i see in the photo. Just buy some new live rock and take out+ clean the old, try to rid the glass and such of it. And hope everything turns out for the best. Or you can tear the tank down and just restart

He's got some coral in the tank. If any Bryopsis spores remain on the coral base, the new tank will become infected.

rayn · Aug 13, 2016

Halides are roughly six months old.

Restart to me seems the easiest honestly. Tear down, clean with disassemble and reassemble of everything. Even as far as new plumbing. I have other rock sitting so I could recycle the tank.

I may do a muratic acid bath on it first though as it is currently dry. I just need a place to move everything to.

Triggreef · Aug 13, 2016

Looks like brown hair algae. have you tried a sea hare?

I agree if not many corals you should be able to just move them and put lighting down to 5hrs or less a day. It will go away.

Lionfish Lair · Aug 13, 2016

If I lived closer to you, all of that would be in a HD orange special by now.

Sabellafella · Aug 13, 2016

@rayn does the brown stuff go away at nighttime? If so if there is algae underneight it, take your phone light and circle it around the tank. Bryopsis is the only algae that ive seen, sheens an irredecent bluegreen color at night time.