Seriously bad situation

[Jeremy Luke]

This is the mother of all algae outbreaks

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/help-critical-tank-is-in-really-bad-shape.526475/

Help

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...rk-skip-cycle-reassembly.525310/#post-5475069


Your algae is highly susceptible to peroxide work, I've had that type of algae before on the reefcentral peroxide thread. You still need to part clean your tank per above, de clouding etc. Peroxide destroys that stuff. I'd choose that algae over standard gha because it's massively peroxide sensitive.

Don't dose it to the water, do the takedown cleaning above. De clouding detritus is important, don't just dose the water, the right way to assess your invasion is this: a test, and then work.

Take out a test rock and drizzle peroxide across the growths. Don't scrub them, or rasp off (yet) we are pre modeling susceptibility first

Let the algae sit wet with peroxide on test rock, no coral contact, for two minutes then rinse it off, leaving the algae in place, and set the rock back in tank. If in 48 hours that rock follows prediction, algae dead and decaying white/clear, then do the full takedown cleaning from the thread. Pre model peroxide sensitivity before you begin. If it doesn't die in 48 hours after test, we know not to upscale the rest of the job. But it will
B

 

[Jeremy Luke]

Thanks for the advice. I'll read through the material and watch the videos tomorrow. I really hope it doesn't come to that but if a few more large water changes and hand removal didn't get it I'll give it a shot.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed. You can at least do the single test rock and for the first time model a true kill step. Whether that's upscaled or not doesn't matter, it'll be firm knowledge one way or another. When plants dominate a scape, they reduce porosity of rocks, the ability to take in nutrients and for the tiny animals within to cast out their waste; even if a doser like fluconazole kills your algae, this clouding is cyano fuel

Or dino fuel, it's a feed for the next alternating generation to be determined. The cloudless, no organic stores of waste reef has to be attained physically eventually. Once plants are removed, the rocks are going to spend the next several weeks expressing pent up waste so this is one way external cleaning is a hidden boon... It's detailed removal and rinsing externally so you can avoid weeks of repeated export and water changes from the reclaimed tank


Anything claimed to kill that algae can be modeled ahead of time. If someone says X amnt of X added to the tank will kill the algae, that can be modeled in a test 5 gal bucket in dilution so that you can gauge death and growback cycles, if any, before you subject your nontargets in the tank to the experimental whatever

Test modeling might be really helpful even if peroxide isn't the selected tool. That stuff has such a weak design it's like Ulva algae and peroxide likely kills it overnite, that fast

 

[vetteguy53081]

You can dose Red Sea Po4x and also chemi-clean. These are alternative that work. Clean up crew is essential ( snails: turbo, asrea, margarita and cerith)

How often are light s on and what type of light?? Is tank by chance at or near a window?

 

[Jeremy Luke]

Thanks @vetteguy53081 I would consider carbon dosing for sure. Again, this problem started from bad DI resin. The tank has been running almost 2 years without issue.

The tank is not receiving any sunlight at it's location in the basement. I have a Geisemann Spectra with two 250w radium halides overdriven at 300w as well as two 54w ATI blue+ and two 54w actinic T5HO. The T5s run for 8.5 hours. The halides run for 6 hours while the T5s are on. This is the same schedule since day 1.