Not giving up..but what then?

[elysics]

My sensation is that those beautiful tanks with countless corals are actually like that because corals absorb stuff before algae.
In my tank I have 2 fragments so they cannot compete. The problem is that unless I see growth in those frags I cannot risk it

My tank is half your size and extremely full of coral. I have literally hundreds of small snails. And still have some algae growth recently because my last shrimp died of old age and i need to get some new ones and some crabs again.

If i recall correctly, your current CUC is one hermit and no snails? Should probably be more like 6-10 hermits and 20 snails to start with.

 

[DeniseAndy]

I read this thread over, but may have missed a few things. GHA happens. I saw in the three pictures of the extent of the issue. It can be battled, but you have to be ahead of it.

This is how I would (and have) dealt with bad cases of GHA.
First, do not add any more fish or corals or cuc. This should make the tank free of fish and most inverts at this point.
Also get an UAS (Upflow Algae Scrubber) running. They can cost very little if DIY.

A. Get some Live Rock. It does not have to be a lot, especially in the 32g. Just 10 pounds will do.
Put this rock into the tank and take out the old rock and scrub with metal brushes, douse it in h2o2, rinse, and put in sump area with no light - black it out to prevent algae growth. Run your lights at half time.

or

B. Take out all live rock and scrape with metal brush. Douse rocks in h202, rinse well and add back to tank. Suck up any sand with algae issues and rinse thoroughly and dry before you put any back in. Leave lights off for 2 weeks. Black out tank because no corals in the tank.
Note: H2O2 will affect shrimp if you have any.

The hardest part of reef keeping is finding the balance you want for coral growth.

I have had the best success with algae scrubbers. I use DIY upflow algae scrubber type and some can be very small, but work wonders. You still have to pull algae for a few months, but once it kicks in, it is wonderful.

 

[KonradTO]

My tank is half your size and extremely full of coral. I have literally hundreds of small snails. And still have some algae growth recently because my last shrimp died of old age and i need to get some new ones and some crabs again.

If i recall correctly, your current CUC is one hermit and no snails? Should probably be more like 6-10 hermits and 20 snails to start with.

I definitely need more cuc. ATM I have 1 hermit and maybe 4 or 5 snails. I used to have more but many died. I think it was because of salinity, I found out I was keeping it around 40ppt instead of 35 because of a faulty hydrometer. Now I have a new refractometer so I hope this one works better.
My plan is to slowly get 1 urchin, few emerald crabs and more snails. One problem is that my hermit is not a "random" but actually I got him first directly from the mediterranean, so I particularly care about him and I don't want to risk other hermits to kill him.
Maybe I will move him to the sump and get more hermits once I have ICP results.

 

[KonradTO]

I read this thread over, but may have missed a few things. GHA happens. I saw in the three pictures of the extent of the issue. It can be battled, but you have to be ahead of it.

This is how I would (and have) dealt with bad cases of GHA.
First, do not add any more fish or corals or cuc. This should make the tank free of fish and most inverts at this point.
Also get an UAS (Upflow Algae Scrubber) running. They can cost very little if DIY.

A. Get some Live Rock. It does not have to be a lot, especially in the 32g. Just 10 pounds will do.
Put this rock into the tank and take out the old rock and scrub with metal brushes, douse it in h2o2, rinse, and put in sump area with no light - black it out to prevent algae growth. Run your lights at half time.

or

B. Take out all live rock and scrape with metal brush. Douse rocks in h202, rinse well and add back to tank. Suck up any sand with algae issues and rinse thoroughly and dry before you put any back in. Leave lights off for 2 weeks. Black out tank because no corals in the tank.
Note: H2O2 will affect shrimp if you have any.

The hardest part of reef keeping is finding the balance you want for coral growth.

I have had the best success with algae scrubbers. I use DIY upflow algae scrubber type and some can be very small, but work wonders. You still have to pull algae for a few months, but once it kicks in, it is wonderful.

At the moment I have actually 2 frags, 4 fish and an hermit so I cannot blackout for such a long time. I could move the frags to the sump and blackout again the DT for a week (is that safe for fish?).

Anyway what you see in the picture is nothing compared to few days before my thread because I cleaned it for few hours with almost 1 big jug full of GHA taken out of the tank. I will definitely get some more LR, also because I seem to have no pods left for whatever reason. The only reason I haven't done yet is that I want an ICP test before to rule out any heavy metal/crazy imbalance in the tank, otherwise I will just waste money.

Good idea the algae scrubber. At the moment I have some eggcrate in the fuge that gets covered by GHA every week, basically acting as a algae scrubber. I have some material left for building a proper scrubber, will definitely try that too. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[DeniseAndy]

No lights will not hurt the fish or cuc. The corals maybe depending on type. ICP test sounds good and then just staying on top of nitrates. Cut feeding down a lot!

 

[All_talk]

I definitely need more cuc. ATM I have 1 hermit and maybe 4 or 5 snails. I used to have more but many died. I think it was because of salinity, I found out I was keeping it around 40ppt instead of 35 because of a faulty hydrometer. Now I have a new refractometer so I hope this one works better.
My plan is to slowly get 1 urchin, few emerald crabs and more snails. One problem is that my hermit is not a "random" but actually I got him first directly from the mediterranean, so I particularly care about him and I don't want to risk other hermits to kill him.
Maybe I will move him to the sump and get more hermits once I have ICP results.

Sounds like you may have found a major contributor to your mortality issues, 40ppt is too high.

I'm going to advise a, fix what you know is wrong first approach, get the salinity down (not too fast), and get a good CUC in place (you need more than you think). Its a closed system and it needs you to create the right condition to balance. Test often but don't chase numbers, note the trends, make small corrections and wait to see the effects. Changes in a reef tank should happen over weeks and months, not days.

As to the cost, Yes, you can run a tank on a modest budget but I would never call this hobby cheap.

 

[KonradTO]

Quick recap for who is reading from here:
-AIO tank 32g skimmerless with macroalgae, cycled with some LR and mostly dry rock, canister filter and chinese wavemaker. I try to keep it cheap as I am a married phd student=no money.
-I had first dino and cyano few months after I cycled
-Followed the advice to increase stock and using UV lamp+blackout for dinos. Dino GONE
-1 month of HEAVEN and after I started to lose few frags. GHA start to grow everywhere.
-I added a sump/fuge with a DIY PVC overflow (works great), increased CUC, manual removal but GHA still there. Lost more frags
-GHA literally everywhere, only few frags remained alive. I kept brushing GHA out weekly, added GFO and a DIY filter to the overflow.


I followed some of your kind tips and I did few changes in the past weeks:
1) Corrected salinity. Due to faulty hydrometer I was keeping the tank at 40ppt. This could explain the mortality in some snails.
2) I added more CUC (5 bumblebee snails, 2 trochus snails, 5 hermits). I will add more but I need to split the costs across the year. I am planning next to get urchins and emerals, also more snails.
3) I FINALLY got my ICP test results: ATI ICP TEST. Apart from some tin and silica problem, it seems ok. There are some heavy metals in my rodi water but are at a fairly low concentration I think. I am doing 20% water changes for 3 weekends in a row and hope tin levels go down. I do not think this is the reason behind my frag deaths though.
NO3 are 1.6ppm
PO4 are 0.03 ppm (I have finally an Hanna URL, results are reliable apparently (Hanna URL gave me 0.00, within the accuracy levels declared)
It seems reasonable right?
4) I isolated the sump from the DT so now I am finally running the fuge lights at night.
5) I started dosing Alk because it was swinging a bit (1dkH/week)
6) Finally, I added some more LR (1 kg more or less) to increase microfauna and bacterial diversity and some chaeto full of pods and stuff.
For now it seems GHA are growing slower, but still growing in the DT. In the fuge they definitely grow but it is much easier to clean. The only things causing frags deaths that I can think of now are salinity levels and swings in either Alk or nutrients.
I am not sure if I should give it another go with corals. For now zoas seem doing well (also I found palys and clove polyps alive on one of the live rocks) and ricordea florida looks ok but does not actually grow. Once I see some clear growth I think I will try again, maybe with some easy sps.

 

[Aqua Man]

For now it seems GHA are growing slower, but still growing in the DT. In the fuge they definitely grow but it is much easier to clean. The only things causing frags deaths that I can think of now are salinity levels and swings in either Alk or nutrients.
I am not sure if I should give it another go with corals. For now zoas seem doing well (also I found palys and clove polyps alive on one of the live rocks) and ricordea florida looks ok but does not actually grow. Once I see some clear growth I think I will try again, maybe with some easy sps.

Sounds like your tank is heading in the right direction now. Congratulations! Focus on keeping it stable. Before you know it those palythoa and clove polyps will be taking over your tank!! Lol.
Trochus snail is a great choice, just give them some time to do the work. Keep up with manual removal of the long stands of hair algae. The CUC will be better able to mow the short stuff.

 

[KonradTO]

Sounds like your tank is heading in the right direction now. Congratulations! Focus on keeping it stable. Before you know it those palythoa and clove polyps will be taking over your tank!! Lol.
Trochus snail is a great choice, just give them some time to do the work. Keep up with manual removal of the long stands of hair algae. The CUC will be better able to mow the short stuff.

Thanks for the feedback
Any idea why gha is there despite nutrient levels being so low?