Never going to use live rock again

[sawdonkey]

Elton the only reason I type that stuff is because it hasn't been good enough, last twenty years of books and articles about algae control.

I lost a tank I'd put a lot of work into because nobody knew red gelidium can simply be killed independent of all nutrient issues. It's a requisite hitchhiker. Once it's DNA is gone, independent of nutrients, it can't come back until someone non qt's it again. So when it came back in my new reef on euphyllia frags I'd brought in, it was just killed. Haven't seen it since about 2010 ish.

Robert on your algae threads regarding ATS or refugiums to me they are ok if they work and someone can command them well, not downing the many examples they've collected too

But we are unique in our time frame acquisitions and it's another option.


Green hair algae variants and possibly frondy bryopsis mixes like you have Elton are widespread, they bloom by import, light and water, not much we can do. That very light patchy growth speaks amazing to your efforts for water control that didn't strip your corals, if you try a single test patch you will be shocked. I'm advocating reef cheating. That's hard to digest and the crowd doesn't advise it. But I'm telling you the collection of fixes is growing


Look at this zeovit tank

http://reef2reef.com/threads/sick-of-gha-going-to-start-dosing-perxoide.212043/
Yours is not the same challenge and we would not do it this way. This is his preferred mode for a large tank yours is no where near the challenge, work or risk whatsoever. It's to show we have command within a tank that's far worse, yours would be like putting at candy land

live rock and ocean substrates have potentiation built in to pretty much always toss some up. Not denying exacting po4 controls can stop algae for many I'm just claiming thousands of tanks won't respond to total fix of the algae, and they'll carry the load you show after doing the max work. We fix those right up

I can see an easy test for your tank, we simply do nothing tank wide and risk nothing. Establish a proof timeline with s single test patch on a single rock. I claim that spot will die in about two days and not come back for long enough you'll want to do it all. One test patch commits nothing, risks nothing tank wide, and is a direct model of how your rest will go. Each time it goes down like this and if we do it, I'll be using your tank as an example link

The specifics are, both Kent tech m and peroxide are cheats that are algaecidal to the cells, different than just hand removing or essentially mowing and leaving a holdfast. We don't dump this stuff in your tank, that's what the masses do.

we spot access it, not apply it to the whole tank, even if it means working inside your tank, and the chemical burns the spots out and your tank looks perfect going one spot at a time and last months and you are happy = prediction we can retro command live rock. We're about to Caesar Milan that reef rock.

******rocks in the ocean, in wonderful Fiji, grow algae that feed grazers because that's what live rock does, it's rarely po4. Simple nongrazing is the greater cause and true bound nutrients hardly the cause time will show. And more giant threads will show.



My link above prob does have nutrient issues but we were palette cleaning not po4 hunting, first. You have done the opposite, full po4 prepping and no palette cleaning. Merely a direct kill will have slow to hardly any grow back because of your nutrient controls, to me that's the measure of gfo, as the great preventer not remover

We do the removing

I'm having a hard time following your thesis or multiple theses. We should manually remove algae, not strip PO4? We should spot kill with peroxide and or tech M? We need fish to graze? We should use GFO to keep algae out of the tank once it's manually removed?

You're stating this like its controversial. What's the big deal? This doesn't seem groundbreaking to me?

 

[brandon429]

Then why not chime in with the obvious examples before three pages? I'm holding the pro live rock ground and can guess by your first post you must be too

those were remarks made about specifics in his tank and how his nutrient issues are ok but lacking as removers. You had left out the time period as well, to me that was the unusual part but maybe an average day for your place.

If you have some threads of work done in other tanks pls post

will consider all helpful offers especially

I didn't think it was controversial, but if you think it's toss away easy to command awaiting your work links eagerly to see it wielded in others tanks the more examples the better.

my intentions are to bring a problem tank out of the background and directly fix and picture it, talk about why current algae trends are lacking, no harm intended but example trading is welcome I posted one

 

[melev]

My rock has phosphates leeching out, I don't think there's a way to fix this. My tank is covered in algae and my zoas are dying, the rest of my corals are probably on the waiting list.

Why does everyone say to start with live rock, is it worth it at all? With dry rock you can pre plan your aquascape, there's no risk of phosphates leeching or pests. It'll even turn live over time, with live rock you have to aquascape in the tank, which usually leads to a rock wall, you WILL have pests, aiptasia & asterina at least, and you can have the same problem I'm having right now. Are there really any benefits to using live rock, or is it just so you can start up faster. I'd rather start up slowly and have a successful tank, than start up quickly and have my tank crash later on.

Well there's my rant on death rock, does anyone know if there's an actual solution to leeching phosphates?

What makes you think dry rock won't leach phosphate? And it's very easy to export that phosphate, live rock or dry rock. You have a number of options, but my preference is to use Phosphate Rx. Use it with a 100micron filter sock or a protein skimmer, and simply treat a few times until PO4 is zero and stays there.

Live rock has all the benefits of bacteria and other bits of life. It will be the core biological filtration of your tank, and yes you can stock a little more quickly compared to dry rock. When people use non-live rock, I tell them to stock very very slowly so the tank can reach equilibrium and handle the bioload. It will eventually become live as you said, but that's more like 12 months from start up. That's a long time.

 

[reefwiser]

Man, I see your Pain. I would be putting a Sea hare in there as soon as possible. Then get a good algae scrubber to keep things at bay. I learned the ahrd way to bring a tank up under control and with systems in place from day one to get and keep Algae under control. Lots of times we start throwing corals in a tank right as the bacteria has cycled and is starting to process ammonia. This is just the very first step in setting up a tank. Next step is getting your Algae control systems in place and then your Calcium dosing system in place before major coral additions are made to a reek tank. If not you are on a run away crazy train of Algae out of control.

I've been fighting a leeching problem for over a year now,

As you can see in the 3rd pic there's plenty of algae but you absolutely need to keep up with water changes, it's the only way to dilute the extra nutrients. You also want to make sure you're not added food that is phosphate rich i.e. brine. I started with dry rock with sand, removed the sand, had some algae blooms from the leeching and now it's gradually going away. Have faith!

 

[brandon429]

I agree fully an ATS is a viable option ten thousand have posted about them, and acting early to guide. some people burn off algae some coax it out but the universal way to stop algae invasions is to anticipate and address as the core design and maybe the most important one of all. # of tanks we've seen online over the decades get built up years and $$ just to turn around and scrub it all down due to hating the live rock primary growth was more than 10,000

100% of those started with a little patch, a little baby Audrey II that was left in place and fed and nurtured while it was spotlighted in ID threads and had no action taken against it. Its my opinion every single wrecked algae tank in the world has the same etiology and it has nothing to do with nutrients, thats what fuels the various growth rates, it was all about simply leaving it in place as commanded by the greater offers in reefkeeping (leave algae in place, treat only the water, as the bush grows, treat the water more)

 

[sawdonkey]

I agree fully an ATS is a viable option ten thousand have posted about them, and acting early to guide. some people burn off algae some coax it out but the universal way to stop algae invasions is to anticipate and address as the core design and maybe the most important one of all. # of tanks we've seen online over the decades get built up years and $$ just to turn around and scrub it all down due to hating the live rock primary growth was more than 10,000

100% of those started with a little patch, a little baby Audrey II that was left in place and fed and nurtured while it was spotlighted in ID threads and had no action taken against it. Its my opinion every single wrecked algae tank in the world has the same etiology and it has nothing to do with nutrients, thats what fuels the various growth rates, it was all about simply leaving it in place as commanded by the greater offers in reefkeeping (leave algae in place, treat only the water, as the bush grows, treat the water more)

There are more than one way of doing things. I'm sure your way works, but you barf all over the other ways of algae control and it has also worked for many, many people.

Treating the water has been shown to be effective in many, many tanks. Yeah, it doesn't work for some tanks, but it works for others, mine included. People use GFO and other nutrient control for a reason.....because it works. We don't get off on watching black media rolling around in a reactor. We use it because we like the results.

I don't doubt your methods work. I mean, physically removing (with your hand or a fishes mouth) or burning away algae with peroxide seems pretty straight forward. There are multiple tools in our tool boxes. Just because you have and like one that works, doesn't mean you should discredit others that are proven to work too.

By the way, about the live rock......if I were to atRt over, is use dry rock and sees with some live.

 

[brandon429]

I wouldn't confuse barf with trying to show a faster option but yes any poster who reads my threads sees me saying

ATS are a fine option among many, and where they don't work we step in to fix

or things like

we fixed the tanks of ____ ATS user that had it never work. We've inserted the peroxide method into mainstream algae prevention even though its been wholly disallowed by those without giant threads since it is not a nutrient address (going under the mass assumption all GHA is nutrient caused) Feels good to be in the top 4 is ok. up from formerly black market back alley work only taken on by the desperate. now we are legit preventers. and when an authority writes the first formal article on reef peroxide use, they'll have 6-7 years of document threads to keep their claims in line (bacteria, tolerants, intolerants etc)

Ill never deny anything that has massive threads showing some form of algae address, ATS fits. also its fair to summarize in this way:

don't use ats to remove problem algae, use it as a preventative. that goes consistent with everything I type.

right now I prodded a few more pm corrected big GHA tanks to respond so we can see how the direct targeting went, just as one option among many. a good and fast option~

if I've come off as dismissive to other algae options my apologies I was probably just ribbing them for not meeting similar outcomes in whichever example tank was at hand

 

[shiftline]

Bonus of live rock is a super quick cycle vs waiting a month or two to cycle

 

[brandon429]

sounds accurate. that's a great call that the like/dislike of live rock starts early and in my opinion activities like shrimp cycling everything no matter the status of your rock contributes to the chain of events that lead to algae issues on live rock. I have skip cycled every aquarium Ive ever had within set rules, they came in cycled and I just didn't kill it. since most new keepers directly add rotting shrimp to any new tank regardless of LR status, it seemed to me everything was haphazard.


If Im not wrong, the entire issue Oscar OP has is bryopsis which has caused many to hate reefing. Feels just like gelidium invasions, like we won a death tank lottery where there is no going back, im talking hands have literally been tied in this hobby by the old paradigms. Trying to press through old paradigms is nothing but an uphill anecdotal battle but its fun.

bryopsis issues start from a single emergence and then its left in there to grow to many -- guilty here of doing that with red gelidium. following the training of the late 90s it just grew and I added more chemi clean which is not even matched for that non moneran invader but were told sternly, leave it in, attack only the water.

Sawdonkey has a certain aspect of that critique correct; any method that advocates leaving an invader in your display tank for any reason Ill state is directly causing todays massive algae problems in reefing and you keep us busy fixing it.

Its not that they want your tank to crash, many methods can remove algae by acting directly on the water. Its that they don't tell you they are taking a chance on your system, and can't tell you when X event will occur. those two missing pieces build our threads and about 40% of people attempting to control algae through nutrient channels cannot make headway.



to me, this is exactly how you begin using live rock correctly, by not rotting a shrimp in everything that comes into a home:
http://reef2reef.com/threads/new-ta...d-cocktail-shrimp-live-rock-no-shrimp.214618/

 

[NY_Sea]

I just want to add that elevating magnesium and adding a tuxedo urchin wiped out my hair algae and other undesirable algaes in about a week and I used all live rock.

I'm not very scientific but I Just stick with the tried and true methods of reducing algae. Good clean up crew, algae grazing tang, turbo snails, water changes, tuxedo urchin, elevated magnesium , reduced lighting schedule and some form of phosphate removal and your tank will be free of algae in no time. I am also a strong supporter of turkey basting the detritus out of your rocks monthly. Good luck