The tank is only 4 months old... the algae bloom is right on time. Going crazy with peroxide is going to stretch it out imo. Peroxide will kill the bio film on the rocks/sand where you use it and there's a good chance you'll see another diatom bloom... which leads to more algae. I think peroxide is a much better fit in a well-established tank (1.5+ years old).
I think you'd be better served with a big herd of hermit crabs, like 1-2/gal. Lots of them are the key... they gotta be hungry and competing with each other to convince them to eat algae.
It'll be gone in less than a week. Then you can cut the crab count in half (sell back to the store, sell on FB, whatever) to maintain the progress.
No you don't understand my tank has tons of hermits and snails in it, 8 emeralds and about $500 in total CUC including shrimps, cleaner shrimps and peppermint. This algae was THICK bro! The only thing really I am missing CUC wise are my tangs. I had a few tangs but lost them early on to disease. Only fish that had issues for me and they died and I've just been stand-off-ish about running to get more tangs at this time. Albeit they are great, GREAT algae eaters. I do have a wrasse and a flame angel, halloween hermits, and various other hermit species which I usually by in 25 packs from reef cleaners. I'd say "hundreds" of snails/hermits in total. Although with the Wrasse killing them off I have to keep replenishing there probably arn't "hundreds" alive today. There are ENOUGH for sure, you can see a ton of the shells in the sand in the pic. They just couldn't ever seem to put any dent in the stuff. The first picture I posted was from a few weeks back when it was just heating up. It got much, much worse over the past 14 days. All while I was cycling lights off for 24 hours, starving fish out, running Carbon/GFO reactor, etc. None of this helped at all. Heck even just 7 or 8 days ago I added another 75 snails and 25 hermits I picked up from reefcleaners.com, but that's on top of the already well established CUC crew that existed in the tank the entire time. This wasn't going to "Get better on its own with a CUC crew". That's crazy talk... I just read a thread where someone thought the same 1.5 years ago and they have been dealing with it for 1.5 years.
Not going to be me. I took immediate action and now the algae is gone from the tank. I didn't really use much peroxide though -- because in my case I just ended up taking rocks out. I had too many rocks to begin with so I didn't have to go through debridement/peroxide and re-introduction process. I just needed to take the scrubber brush to the remaining rocks at the bottom of the tank that I didnt' care to remove, and because of the increased accessibility by getting off my *#! and attacking the issue head on, I was able to do so easily.
I may re-introduce a few rocks later once they have dried and algae is gone, we'll see. But i do not regret taking immediate and aggressive action to resolve the issue TODAY. And now that I have broken down the "Reef", I have much more accessibility to cleaning all of the crevices and areas that were just too hard to reach before.
So in essence I have made all the future battles I may encounter with GHA easier.
This thread is worth its weight in gold, and the process for me took only 3 hours. I say to anyone having similar issues -- don't be lazy. GET TO WORK! I've been hating my tank for a month and a half and now for the first night in a long time I am able to enjoy it again. WOO HOO that's a BIG WIN
FWIW I have a dual reactor (carbon and GFO), a UV, an APEX, dos pumps, and have been completing weekly 32 gallon water changes. Keeping CA at 500 (been trying to lower naturally but with GHA take over and coral slowed down it's been difficult) mag at 1400 and alk at 9.0 pretty consistently over the past few months. I test my Nitrates and Phosphates, and have gotten better over the past 4 months of keeping them lowered. I couldn't quite get them under control though, and I personally believe that's because of the GHA. I was sick of starving the fish completely and decided I had to take action. GHA is a nasty beast. Initially I wasn't doing as well, and the balance got tipped in the algaes favor. Once GHA takes hold, it's not going anywhere without direct intervention.
PPS.
I've dealt with a little 'hair algae' spring up in my small 30 gallon nano at around the 2-3 month mark, but nothing like what happened in this tank. Just a different level of intervention required. And to be fair the 30 gallon nano is much more accessible and easier to clean then the 150 main display that is up a few steps on a stool to get into (it's about 58 inches from the ground since my stand is 34 inches tall). So in the nano, if I do see some algae on back wall, heater fixtures, wav pumps or other problem areas, I can very easily and quickly rub it off, see some algae in corner no problem easy to get to. Just not the same situation in the main display and it was compounded and made more difficult by the extensive rock structure and the feeling of helplessness to do anything to clean the algae out. It didn't take long for the GHA to proliferate when left unchecked, it got so thick it was suffocating corals.
This thread inspired me to just get to work, rebuild the reef, fix the issues, increase accessibility and give the tank the cleaning it deserved, and that's what it's all about. Now all future cleanings and "Battles" with the "enemy" will be much easier to achieve victory.
Strike First
Strike Hard
Show No Mercy!!!
