Ok, so I've had this coral for quite some time. It was in my 55 g and I downsized to a 30L. Since downsizing, I've been fighting a horrific and baffling algae problem. I just learned that grand palys can emit toxins that can crash your tank. So, after chemi-pure, daily water changes, phosguard, scrubbing the live rock, turning the lights off for a week and every clean up crew critter I can find- could this cute little pink bundle of joy be the source of my issue? Is it crazy to even think that? I'm even losing snails I've had since I started my first tank. It's crazy, because my water is supposedly "perfect". (I use the Red Sea basic ABC test kit with the made for reef dummies tables on the back. Trust me. I'm doing everything "right".)
Palythoa Grandis Toxins?
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Randy Holmes-Farley
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I don't really know how impactful having this creature in the tank would be to other creatures like snails. Others will have to chime in on that, but GAC (granular activated carbon) would be the thing of choice to bind palytoxin from the water. 
Jenaleigh1
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Thanks for the information. Is it safe to use GAC in addition to the phosguard and the clear-fx? I'm doing daily water changes and still have to add supplements. I can't figure it out. I even started buying boxed water because I thought I might be mixing something wrong.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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It is certainly fine to use with those. Clear FX Pro contains some GAC.
I have a colony of five grands in my 55 with no prob. I also have green sand paly that are supposedly the highest paly toxin species. No water problems.
How long ago did you do the transfer. I did a 29g to 30 cube transfer and I do have interesting phases going on.
Is venture a guess that you have the mind bending parameters look fine tank is trashed problem?
Is venture a guess that you have the mind bending parameters look fine tank is trashed problem?
Unless disturbed in a way that stresses the palys, or causes tissue damage to the coral it's my opinion that the palys is in no way related to your current issues with live stock. I have had palys over the years in much larger populations without issue to livestock. Typically I run carbon, but I have run tanks with palys and no carbon without issue as well.
Jenaleigh1
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How long ago did you do the transfer. I did a 29g to 30 cube transfer and I do have interesting phases going on.
Is venture a guess that you have the mind bending parameters look fine tank is trashed problem?
@saltyfilmfolks, yep! That's my problem! I have this massive algae issue and "perfect" water. Well, up until I started doing every other day water changes. Now it's like I'm causing more problems than I'm fixing.
Is venture a guess that you have the mind bending parameters look fine tank is trashed problem?
@saltyfilmfolks, yep! That's my problem! I have this massive algae issue and "perfect" water. Well, up until I started doing every other day water changes. Now it's like I'm causing more problems than I'm fixing.
mfinn
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mfinn
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I did my transfer about 4 weeks ago. My JBJ nano was a cyano farm. (reasons are not important now)
Phosphate bonds to rock and sand. Thats important to remember.
I took my sand and rinsed the heck out of it to get the solids and dissolved organics out as best I could. I dipped several, most actually of the rock in a peroxide salt water rinse before putting them back in the tank to zap as much pest algae as I could and remove excess organics and nutrients.
I had 2 rocks,one with tiny polyps a friend gave me that was a cyano convention center(PO Bound Bomb), and another Id had doing much the same.
Once everything was in the tank, I turned on the new lights and the cyano started immediately, esp on the 2 cyano bombs.
The new lights have a much better spectrum and higher intensity so I set them at the same intensity as the old lights and began the light acclimation Estimating about 2 weeks. I also added a refugium with 6 different macros and an intense light.
Over the course of those first 2 weeks the cyano bloomed in the first several days, but during that time my corraline began to grow every where pretty quickly and the fuge I had to trim on week 2.
In the first week I could literally watch the cyano recede on the 2 bombs. Any other nuisance algaes lasted a few days only and we mainly on the glass and I actually left the back glass alone to grow(and remove more excess nutrients for me that I scraped off, sent to the filter and got out by water change)
I continued every day to blow as much dust into the water to be pulled out by the filters. The only algae was on the glass and the cyano was gone completely.
I have to assume I had pulled the PO off the rock and into the mouths of the ones I want to feed it to.
Now at week 4 The cyano is back, guess where, on the sandbed naturally as now its had time to stew. I believe that I had maxed out my natural po removal methods, and as theres a lot of sand(po bound) , so now Ive augmented my PO removal by adding GFO. One teaspoon on day one.
That brings me to today. Cyano has made no progress but has not gone. I need to clean the front glass every other day really. The back glass(I call it my snail feeder) is still a bit funky but manageable. My corraline growth has slowed so Im not going to continue adding any more Po removal and its likely I remove the GFO in a week or so.
Not that it matters, but the only thing Ive dosed is Prime and Fiji mud.
So what Im guessing is you didn't get enough of the organics off the rocks and sand during the transfer. So now theyre free to wreak havoc in the tank. And depending on how long they take to break down into PO or NO is what is causing the Phases. That plus the amount of Po bound to the rock and sand.
So the long and short, remove as much dissolved and particulate organics as you can manually and mechanically.
Slowly reduce the Po in the tank by giving it competitors and if its still advancing GFO.
Ya might have to deep clean again or not. Gauge that on how bad you think it is and if you can pull it out without rebuilding.
Im pretty happy with whats going on in my tank right now, I got the tips and a much better understanding of these processes in the last few months by reading and conversing With Randy Farley, twillard and brandon429
Check out the Pest algae Challenge thread.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef2reef-pest-algae-challenge-thread-hydrogen-peroxide.187042/
And reread some of Randy's articles.
Phosphate bonds to rock and sand. Thats important to remember.
I took my sand and rinsed the heck out of it to get the solids and dissolved organics out as best I could. I dipped several, most actually of the rock in a peroxide salt water rinse before putting them back in the tank to zap as much pest algae as I could and remove excess organics and nutrients.
I had 2 rocks,one with tiny polyps a friend gave me that was a cyano convention center(PO Bound Bomb), and another Id had doing much the same.
Once everything was in the tank, I turned on the new lights and the cyano started immediately, esp on the 2 cyano bombs.
The new lights have a much better spectrum and higher intensity so I set them at the same intensity as the old lights and began the light acclimation Estimating about 2 weeks. I also added a refugium with 6 different macros and an intense light.
Over the course of those first 2 weeks the cyano bloomed in the first several days, but during that time my corraline began to grow every where pretty quickly and the fuge I had to trim on week 2.
In the first week I could literally watch the cyano recede on the 2 bombs. Any other nuisance algaes lasted a few days only and we mainly on the glass and I actually left the back glass alone to grow(and remove more excess nutrients for me that I scraped off, sent to the filter and got out by water change)
I continued every day to blow as much dust into the water to be pulled out by the filters. The only algae was on the glass and the cyano was gone completely.
I have to assume I had pulled the PO off the rock and into the mouths of the ones I want to feed it to.
Now at week 4 The cyano is back, guess where, on the sandbed naturally as now its had time to stew. I believe that I had maxed out my natural po removal methods, and as theres a lot of sand(po bound) , so now Ive augmented my PO removal by adding GFO. One teaspoon on day one.
That brings me to today. Cyano has made no progress but has not gone. I need to clean the front glass every other day really. The back glass(I call it my snail feeder) is still a bit funky but manageable. My corraline growth has slowed so Im not going to continue adding any more Po removal and its likely I remove the GFO in a week or so.
Not that it matters, but the only thing Ive dosed is Prime and Fiji mud.
So what Im guessing is you didn't get enough of the organics off the rocks and sand during the transfer. So now theyre free to wreak havoc in the tank. And depending on how long they take to break down into PO or NO is what is causing the Phases. That plus the amount of Po bound to the rock and sand.
So the long and short, remove as much dissolved and particulate organics as you can manually and mechanically.
Slowly reduce the Po in the tank by giving it competitors and if its still advancing GFO.
Ya might have to deep clean again or not. Gauge that on how bad you think it is and if you can pull it out without rebuilding.
Im pretty happy with whats going on in my tank right now, I got the tips and a much better understanding of these processes in the last few months by reading and conversing With Randy Farley, twillard and brandon429
Check out the Pest algae Challenge thread.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef2reef-pest-algae-challenge-thread-hydrogen-peroxide.187042/
And reread some of Randy's articles.
