Should i just restart?

[Pvtgloss]

This algae just keeps coming back. It spreads and spreads. I feel like I've tried everything. Lowered the lights, just blues and UV channels.
In January I rip cleaned the whole tank and all the rocks. Replaced all the sand with new sand I rinsed out fit 8 hrs, lol.
Lowered n03 and p04 to 14 and .04.
I've tried every snails, hermit crab, emerald crab, urchins, and sea hares. I'm going broke. Lol. I'm buying them by the dozens every few months. I bought a small yellow tang, saltwater mollies. Nothing eats it.
So I'm thinking bryopsis. I've probably done 7 doses of fluconazole within the last year. I just finished up a single dose for 21 days or so and then hit it with a double dose for another 27 days. Didn't faze it.
I go in twice a week pulling. Once a week with a nylon brush and siphon hose going to a filter sock in the sump. I scrub and siphon meticulous. 2 or 3 hours while siphoning a d blowing off all time rocks. The tank looks good for a few days but of I go out of town for a few days it looks like this.
Should I just pull the corals and put them in spare tanks while break the tank down and bleach the rocks? Or should I just keep what I'm doing and pull time rocks out every few months and rip clean the tank? I feel like I'll waste more effort trying to control it then if I were to just restart. I have extra tanks around to put the livestock in while I restart.
What is this stuff?

 

[Nano_Man]

@vetteguy53081

 

[ryanjohn1]

Search for Brandon’s rip clean

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

What kind of flow do you have?
What kind of filtration do you have?
What do you dose to the tank?
How often do you feed and what kind of food?
What size tank, how old is it, and how often do you do water changes?

 

[Pvtgloss]

Search for Brandon’s rip clean

I did it in January. It looked good for a few weeks then it started spouting all over again. Within 2 months it was out of control again. Since nothing eats it i can only do so much manually without rip cleaning again. The rip clean was tough. I spent 2 or 3 hours on each rock. I scraped out every crack and crevice. I took a syringe of h202 and was treating areas. I must have missed some in the crevices or pits.
I feel like it was more work than it was worth. It would probably be worth it on my daughter's 9gal tank.
I feel like I should have just bleached the rocks in January.

 

[jabberwock]

What kind of rocks did you start with?

 

[Pvtgloss]

What kind of flow do you have?
What kind of filtration do you have?
What do you dose to the tank?
How often do you feed and what kind of food?
What size tank, how old is it, and how often do you do water changes?

It's a 2 ft cube with a aio chamber but I have the sump modification. On the back wall I have a cor 15 pumping from the sumo and a sicce pumping from the aio chamber. Let l left side I have a 2k jump gyre shooting across the top. On the right side I have a Nero 5 pointed downward creating circular pattern. They are on random though so they don't hit constantly.

For filtration I use socks and floss. The skimmer is a rsk 300 DC. I use gfo to keep po4 around .04. I tried a refugium bit out gets over ran with algae.
I dose the normal alk cal and mag.
I do dose Elima-NP. Not sure how much it works but po4 is stable so I keep doing it.
I feed once a day. CS pro flake or DKI pellets. All the food gets ate within a min. Sometimes I'll feed SF Bay mysis, half a cube.
It's a Max e170 with the sump is 55gal. It's 2 1/2 years old. I do 10 gal water change weekly.

 

[Pvtgloss]

What kind of rocks did you start with?

Carib sea life rock 2 1/2 years ago. I didn't have any algae for the first year. Most of brought it in on a frag.

 

[Reefering1]

Truthfully, it looks like your almost done fighting. Tank doesn't look that bad. I would keep on

 

[NeedAReef]

have you tried a UV light? you need to get something to out compete it for nutrients. It only really needs a cell or two to regrow it seems. So, the corals in another tank I would expect to see it show up there eventually. just my opinion, others will vary

 

[jabberwock]

Carib sea life rock 2 1/2 years ago. I didn't have any algae for the first year. Most of brought it in on a frag.

I am a big proponent of real ocean live rock. In my estimation, all the nooks and crannies are already occupied. It does not give the nuisance algae a place to take a foothold. If you did choose to restart, I would use real ocean live rock.

 

[Pvtgloss]

It only really needs a cell or two to regrow it seems. So, the corals in another tank I would expect to see it show up there eventually. just my opinion, others will vary

Im worried about that. What is I black ask the rocks and clean ask the equipment and tank and there's a few cells in the corals bases.
Idk what algae this is but nothing touches it.

 

[Pvtgloss]

Truthfully, it looks like your almost done fighting. Tank doesn't look that bad. I would keep on

Im going to keep up the good fight. I have to move the tank down stairs next month. I guess a have a decision to make. If I restart next month will be the time to do it.

 

[Reefering1]

Im going to keep up the good fight. I have to move the tank down stairs next month. I guess a have a decision to make. If I restart next month will be the time to do it.

Keep in mind that if you restart, you're restarting all of it. Uglies and all

 

[Pvtgloss]

Keep in mind that if you restart, you're restarting all of it. Uglies and all

True! Good point.

 

[Nano_Man]

So really you’re going through a ugly stage
Long black out period would help but your corals may need to be removed if it’s for a long period.
Imo rip clean is starting again and bringing on the ugly stage others may disagree
How I look at it if you turned a lump of rock over it will be clean as a pin it’s getting no light so nothing grows.
Nutrients in the water can feed your problem if your numbers aren’t at low levels but not bottom out levels . Good clean up crew the best I’ve found are turbo snails are good workers. I’ve not used one but I don’t know if a sea hare would help you out. How many hours are your lights running in 24 hrs . I take it you use rodi water for top up and salt mixing.
As above says I’ve seen people’s tanks looking worse than yours
Feeding large amounts produces high nutrients
Also missing water changes can make nutrients rise too high levels
Sometimes you get low readings of nitrate because the algae is consuming it
You will know all these things I have wrote but I am trying too go through stuff that could be the cause

 

[ryanjohn1]

I did it in January. It looked good for a few weeks then it started spouting all over again. Within 2 months it was out of control again. Since nothing eats it i can only do so much manually without rip cleaning again. The rip clean was tough. I spent 2 or 3 hours on each rock. I scraped out every crack and crevice. I took a syringe of h202 and was treating areas. I must have missed some in the crevices or pits.
I feel like it was more work than it was worth. It would probably be worth it on my daughter's 9gal tank.
I feel like I should have just bleached the rocks in January.

It looks like bryopsis in the top pictures. If so have you tried flux rx?

 

[Pvtgloss]

It looks like bryopsis in the top pictures. If so have you tried flux rx?

Yeah I tried it probably 7 times. I just went through a 21 day single dose and did a double dose back to back for another 21 days.

 

[ryanjohn1]

Yeah I tried it probably 7 times. I just went through a 21 day single dose and did a double dose back to back for another 21 days.

Oh boy. Set it on fire. Lol. Tough case bud

 

[Pvtgloss]

Oh boy. Set it on fire. Lol. Tough case bud

Haha that's exactly how I feel.