(Kind of) rebooting...?

[Tob]

Hi all, brand new here. Sorry this is long but here goes...

About 2 months ago I bought a full tank set up from someone who didn't have time for it anymore. She had it established for a year by the time I got it. And I inherited what has turned out to be a massive green hair algae issue.

I want to build my own aquascape from scratch. There's maybe two little rocks in the existing tank I want to save because the coral has fused to it. But the rest don't fit what I'm envisioning. I have a couple of inches of live sand in the tank that will be staying.

I will probably be using dry rock to construct the scape. So my question is, with leaving the live sand in there, do I need to cure the new aquascape? And if so, I have read about putting it into a brute tank and plumbing it as part of a sump (I'm getting a sump put together right now, waiting on all the parts to come in... hoping it will help with the algae) but since I have a really bad GHA problem, I hesitate to just add the new rocks into the same system water.

My parameters are good, zero nitrites and phosphate. I even tested newly filtered tap water to be sure the water quality is good and not just locked up in the algae. I've tried turbo snails, reef flux, water changes, and have a bunch of hermit crabs, shrimp, baby snails, two bristle worms (that I've seen) as my cleanup crew. I have recently cut back on feeding to see if that helps but if it doesn't I'm at a loss as to what to do. I want to be excited about this but I fear I have walked into a losing battle.

Also in the tank: some little coral frags (I'm not sure what they all are yet, nothing big though), bubble tip anemone, two clowns, one blue damsel, two chromis, and a mandarin dragonet (I know, but it came with the tank).

I'm determined to get this sorted out before I add anymore livestock and corals because it's not a happy tank right now.

 

[WorkingHands]

I would sort out the GHA issue first, before I did anything else. How about some pictures of the setup.

 

[Dburr1014]

Check out brs suppy videos on starting a reef tank.
You should manually pull off all the gha you can. Most cuc won't eat it if it's long stands.
Do you have any test kits? Stay away from API kits if possible.
You can absolutely put the rocks in a clean garbage can to cook them. With no lights and clean water the gha will die off.

 

[Tob]

Check out brs suppy videos on starting a reef tank.
You should manually pull off all the gha you can. Most cuc won't eat it if it's long stands.
Do you have any test kits? Stay away from API kits if possible.
You can absolutely put the rocks in a clean garbage can to cook them. With no lights and clean water the gha will die off.

Thank you for responding! I've been making my way through the brs supply videos when I get time

I do have a reef master test kit from API (it came with the tank) is there a different one you'd recommend?

Are you saying I should just cook the rocks with brand new water? Or use the water in the system and just keep it dark?

 

[Tob]

I would sort out the GHA issue first, before I did anything else. How about some pictures of the setup.

I'll try to get pics of it today. It's not much to look at, I had a bunch of life stuff happen the week I got the tank and pretty much just stacked rocks and haven't touched it since (except to pull out the GHA multiple times at this point). Everything is absolutely covered in GHA.

 

[rmorris_14]

HEY! So As I read your post I felt like you were describing my exact situation. I ALSO inherited a GHA problem with my tank and I have thought about doing a reboot as well.
Couple thoughts I had when reading your post. Your phosphates are probably higher than the test is showing because the GHA is absorbing them before they can go into the water column. I was reading about people who have battled GHA for long periods yesterday. Apparently the phosphates can absorb into the rocks and then leach back into the water. So if I understand it right, even if you get your nutrients down, the rocks will continue to leach into the water column and feed the algae. GRRRRRRRR It seems like a losing battle. This is what got be starting to think about a reboot. I also am not a fan of my aquscape. The previous person put GSP on the biggest rock at the top arch and eventually it is going to cover the entire thing. So starting with new rock seems appealing to me as well. I have thought about using my hospital tank to start turning some of my extra Life rock, into live. I have also considered purchasing real live rock from KP aquatics (I would think this would help you skip the cycling).

I've also considered adding a refugium with Chaeto in hopes of it being able to out compete the hair algae for the nutrients. I have a biocube , so that is a little tricker for me. But it might work well with your situation. In theory, I think you would want to make sure you get at much of the GHA out of the system though to give the chaeto a fighting chance.

If you want to keep your rock and keep trying, I have read some people have success with removing the rocks, scrubbing algae off the best they can, spraying the rocks with a hydrogen peroxide solution, let it sit for two to three minutes, rinse and put it back. There are many threads on "rip cleans" on this site if you search that. I don't know if this is long term fix however. I've seen mixed reviews on that. It's also hard to compare peoples experiences because no two tanks are the same.
When you say "newly filtered tap water" are you talking about RODI water? You really need to make sure you are using water with 0 TDS or you could be making your job more difficult.

I'm not experienced by any means, so I encourage you to research anything I have mentioned before jumping into it. I just wanted to let you know some of the information I have come across when dealing with this frustrating situation, in the hopes that it helps spark an idea that might work for you. Keep me posted on what you end up doing. I'll be pulling for you to overcome the GHA plague.

 

[Waters]

If the current tank already has GHA issues, I would be hesitant to reuse any rock or sand. I personally would just get a brute can and throw all of your livestock and live rock in there to keep short term. Set up your new aquascape using the dry rock and one of the starter bottled bacterias. If you do have some live rock that isn't covered in algae, you can throw that in the sump just to speed up the maturation process. After the starter bacteria has been used, you can use microbacter clean or MB7 to continue feeding bacteria. I don't know what size tank you have but with that stock list you should be able to add those back in pretty quickly.

 

[HudsonReefer2.0]

Welcome to R2R

 

[Freenow54]

Hi all, brand new here. Sorry this is long but here goes...

About 2 months ago I bought a full tank set up from someone who didn't have time for it anymore. She had it established for a year by the time I got it. And I inherited what has turned out to be a massive green hair algae issue.

I want to build my own aquascape from scratch. There's maybe two little rocks in the existing tank I want to save because the coral has fused to it. But the rest don't fit what I'm envisioning. I have a couple of inches of live sand in the tank that will be staying.

I will probably be using dry rock to construct the scape. So my question is, with leaving the live sand in there, do I need to cure the new aquascape? And if so, I have read about putting it into a brute tank and plumbing it as part of a sump (I'm getting a sump put together right now, waiting on all the parts to come in... hoping it will help with the algae) but since I have a really bad GHA problem, I hesitate to just add the new rocks into the same system water.

My parameters are good, zero nitrites and phosphate. I even tested newly filtered tap water to be sure the water quality is good and not just locked up in the algae. I've tried turbo snails, reef flux, water changes, and have a bunch of hermit crabs, shrimp, baby snails, two bristle worms (that I've seen) as my cleanup crew. I have recently cut back on feeding to see if that helps but if it doesn't I'm at a loss as to what to do. I want to be excited about this but I fear I have walked into a losing battle.

Also in the tank: some little coral frags (I'm not sure what they all are yet, nothing big though), bubble tip anemone, two clowns, one blue damsel, two chromis, and a mandarin dragonet (I know, but it came with the tank).

I'm determined to get this sorted out before I add anymore livestock and corals because it's not a happy tank right now.

I did the exact same thing. I was fortunate enough through work to see other people and ask for opinions. Did not know about this forum then. I followed one persons advice. Just kept taking the rock out, and scrubed the rock under hot water. It took 7 months of this, then suddenly it all just disappeared

 

[Dburr1014]

Thank you for responding! I've been making my way through the brs supply videos when I get time

I do have a reef master test kit from API (it came with the tank) is there a different one you'd recommend?

Are you saying I should just cook the rocks with brand new water? Or use the water in the system and just keep it dark?

I guess the couple rocks with the tank to support live stock and nsw with no light and power head will kill off gha.

 

[Waters]

I guess the couple rocks with the tank to support live stock and nsw with no light and power head will kill off gha.

I thought that would be the case also.....I dumped my GHA live rock in a container with my fish where they stayed for several months.....no external light other than the basement light being turned on occasionally. The GHA was still there and thriving when I finally pulled my live stock out of there to put into the new tank lol.

 

[Tob]

HEY! So As I read your post I felt like you were describing my exact situation. I ALSO inherited a GHA problem with my tank and I have thought about doing a reboot as well.
Couple thoughts I had when reading your post. Your phosphates are probably higher than the test is showing because the GHA is absorbing them before they can go into the water column. I was reading about people who have battled GHA for long periods yesterday. Apparently the phosphates can absorb into the rocks and then leach back into the water. So if I understand it right, even if you get your nutrients down, the rocks will continue to leach into the water column and feed the algae. GRRRRRRRR It seems like a losing battle. This is what got be starting to think about a reboot. I also am not a fan of my aquscape. The previous person put GSP on the biggest rock at the top arch and eventually it is going to cover the entire thing. So starting with new rock seems appealing to me as well. I have thought about using my hospital tank to start turning some of my extra Life rock, into live. I have also considered purchasing real live rock from KP aquatics (I would think this would help you skip the cycling).

I've also considered adding a refugium with Chaeto in hopes of it being able to out compete the hair algae for the nutrients. I have a biocube , so that is a little tricker for me. But it might work well with your situation. In theory, I think you would want to make sure you get at much of the GHA out of the system though to give the chaeto a fighting chance.

If you want to keep your rock and keep trying, I have read some people have success with removing the rocks, scrubbing algae off the best they can, spraying the rocks with a hydrogen peroxide solution, let it sit for two to three minutes, rinse and put it back. There are many threads on "rip cleans" on this site if you search that. I don't know if this is long term fix however. I've seen mixed reviews on that. It's also hard to compare peoples experiences because no two tanks are the same.
When you say "newly filtered tap water" are you talking about RODI water? You really need to make sure you are using water with 0 TDS or you could be making your job more difficult.

I'm not experienced by any means, so I encourage you to research anything I have mentioned before jumping into it. I just wanted to let you know some of the information I have come across when dealing with this frustrating situation, in the hopes that it helps spark an idea that might work for you. Keep me posted on what you end up doing. I'll be pulling for you to overcome the GHA plague.

Thank you so much for your response! I hadn't read about rocks leaching phosphate. That's useful and frustrating to know. Yeah I was talking about RODI water and it testing well. Which if that's the case, for how quickly my GHA has grown (and regrown and regrown) it would make sense that there's an abundance of nutrients in the rocks. Hmm.

I wish you the best of luck in your battle and reboot!

 

[Tob]

If the current tank already has GHA issues, I would be hesitant to reuse any rock or sand. I personally would just get a brute can and throw all of your livestock and live rock in there to keep short term. Set up your new aquascape using the dry rock and one of the starter bottled bacterias. If you do have some live rock that isn't covered in algae, you can throw that in the sump just to speed up the maturation process. After the starter bacteria has been used, you can use microbacter clean or MB7 to continue feeding bacteria. I don't know what size tank you have but with that stock list you should be able to add those back in pretty quickly.

I hadn't considered stripping it all down and starting from scratch in that way exactly. But my goodness I'm not opposed to it. I'd be completely starting from scratch. Everything is covered. It's even getting into the sand at this point. Though I could possibly purchase a small live rock for the sump I suppose. It's a 78 gal - 4 ft long.

 

[Tob]

Welcome to R2R

Thank you! Long time lurker, first time poster

 

[rmorris_14]

I hadn't considered stripping it all down and starting from scratch in that way exactly. But my goodness I'm not opposed to it. I'd be completely starting from scratch. Everything is covered. It's even getting into the sand at this point. Though I could possibly purchase a small live rock for the sump I suppose. It's a 78 gal - 4 ft long.

After trying this and that and then mapping out what my next “try” will be when the current one falls short... this option, IMO, seems like the least headache and probably least expensive route to go if you try everything else and could likely still have a problem.....

 

[Tob]

I did the exact same thing. I was fortunate enough through work to see other people and ask for opinions. Did not know about this forum then. I followed one persons advice. Just kept taking the rock out, and scrubed the rock under hot water. It took 7 months of this, then suddenly it all just disappeared

Interesting! Did you rinse it off in filtered water before putting it back in the tank? Or straight from the tap water?

 

[Tob]

After trying this and that and then mapping out what my next “try” will be when the current one falls short... this option, IMO, seems like the least headache and probably least expensive route to go if you try everything else and could likely still have a problem.....

I am liking the idea of it the more I think about it. Since I'm brand new and skipped cycling this tank, and would be starting over - after I add the bacteria to the brand new rock scape, would I still need to add ammonia? Or just the fish? I'm aiming for zero casualties, I just want to do it the right way. Sorry, total newb.

 

[Tob]

I thought that would be the case also.....I dumped my GHA live rock in a container with my fish where they stayed for several months.....no external light other than the basement light being turned on occasionally. The GHA was still there and thriving when I finally pulled my live stock out of there to put into the new tank lol.

Did you run any filtration while they were in there? Probably a stupid question. I'm considering doing this.

 

[Gobi-Wan]

Unfortunately it sounds like you inherited the product of someone else’s neglect. I beat a very bad gha infestation in my 125 gallon setup with over 150 pounds of rock. You have a nutrient problem. A solvable one though. You have massive amounts of nutrients tied up in the algae. The algae is also clogging up the pores of the live rock preventing it from naturally expressing waste from all the organisms living in it, making the problem worse. The algae is so aggressive and established that it will not allow you to have safe levels of nutrients in the water. 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate is bad. You will get dinoflagellates. However, it’s fixable. I took 100% of my rock out during a large water change and scrubbed it in the old water with a steel bristle brush, until the rock was bare and most of it was back to white. The roots of the hair algae are in the surface of the rock so pulling it off isn’t enough. Then I put hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle and misted the rocks where the algae was and let it sit out for 5 minutes, then rinsed well in the old water change water to get the H2O2 washed off. I removed the entire sand bed and washed it. When you wash sand you fill a bucket half way and push a hose into the sand full blast, tilting the bucket on a brick or something so the water drains out and poking the hose back and forth until the water runs 100% clear. Then dump that water out and fill the bucket with RO or distilled water and stir the sand to remove the tap water from it. It’s tedious. The whole process took me an entire day to do my 125 gallon setup but the results speak for themselves. It’s been a few months and my rocks are able to be kept clean by my cleanup crew now. My phosphate and nitrate are at good levels. My corals have majorly recovered. The h2o2 treatment DID NOT cause the tank to cycle again. If you don’t want the rock that’s in there you could start over but you will have to cycle the new rock before it’s safe. The sandbed will not be enough for biological filtration. Good luck, you can do it, and welcome to R2R!

Help please... Stuck in an unbreakable cycle.

Hello. My reef is about 3.5 years old and it's been about 1.5 years since i upgraded to a 125 gallon setup. Since then, i have not been able to control the aquarium at all and the understanding i once thought i had about nutrients and chemistry is seemingly meaningless now. My rock is 100%...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[rmorris_14]

I am liking the idea of it the more I think about it. Since I'm brand new and skipped cycling this tank, and would be starting over - after I add the bacteria to the brand new rock scape, would I still need to add ammonia? Or just the fish? I'm aiming for zero casualties, I just want to do it the right way. Sorry, total newb.

You wouldn't need to add the ammonia if you used bottle bacteria. From my reading,

FritzZyme Turbo Start 900 is the best starter bacteria. If you cant get your hands on that, bio spira or fritz zyme 7 or dr tims can be used but they take a little longer. I would add your fish back in slowly starting with the clowns. ​

However, the two livestock that make me nervous about doing this are the mandarin and the anemone.
1. Does your mandarin eat frozen foods? Typically, if the mandarin doesn't eat prepared foods, it requires a heavy population of pods to constantly feed off of, which comes with an established tank. Or you would have to purchase and dose pods until the tank becomes more established.
2. The anemone, they can be tricky because they need stability and a "new tank" takes time to achieve if you are starting with "dry riock".
*If you aren't particularly attached to them, you could re-home them if you don't want to risk a casualty.

If you do a complete restart, I would also consider starting with new live sand or at least take yours out and rinse it really good several times. A lot of nutrients could be built up in the sand bed. ***** do not disturb the sand bed until you have removed your inhabitants to another holding tank. If it hasn't been disturbed for a long time, doing so, can cause an ammonia spike.