Started adding GFO, algae growth now _accelerating_???

[Oceansize]

Nitrate export has been well-maintained, has been around 2 ppm for months, using a sulphur denitrator and water changes for export.

Phosphates on the other hand, I allowed to get out of hand and got as high as 0.26 before I got a proper test and some GFO.

3 weeks ago I performed a 40% water change and two weeks before that I also performed a 40% water change (I had been using a brass fitting on my denitrator effluent valve and although my water tests didn't reveal any metals present, I performed these aggressive water changes out of an abundance of caution).

Upon completion of the second water change, I added GFO to my tank for the first time, following the instructions to the letter. Within 3 days phosphates had reduced to 0.12, but concurrent with this, I started getting algae on my back glass!! Instructions for GFO said replace if phosphates are not down to 0.02 within 4 days, which I did after the 4th day. Now it is an additional 3 days later and my phosphates are only down to 0.08, still not 0.02 but a far cry away from the original 0.26. Nevertheless, the algae on the back glass continues to get worse.

I've been intentionally underfeeding while I use the GFO to get phosphates down to 0.02, and nitrates remain stable at 2 ppm. No other changes have been made to my setup recently that I can recall, certainly no new livestock or anything like that. Curious if anyone has any explanation for why algae would increase as nitrates remain stable and phosphates decrease. I'm assuming many of you will ask what else has changed, and the answer is nothing that I'm aware of.

Salinity 1.025
Alk 8
pH 8.4
Ca 420
Mg 1300
Temp 79

Edit: oh wait, I just remembered that I dialed up my lighting intensity after completing the acclimation of frags I added two months ago. Hmm, that's probably it.

 

[brandon429]

in my opinion, this condition shouldn't be evaluated having left the algae in, but as a rebound from you having scraped 100% of it all out, then started the gfo. there is a curved response time between starvation and algae dying back, it varies, and coral bleaching is the interim risk. For sure GFO is safer as a preventative and quite effective, it is a dangerous remover and currently that is its sole evaluation, thought id remark on that. how about just ridding the entire tank of algae first, then install the preventative>?

many people have found the balance of using GFO to both starve and prevent, its just a lot of bleaching too intermixed in. it might even take 2x helped removal to really evaluate its effectiveness, and the nice part here is allowing the gfo effectiveness to ramp up based on test levels only, not algae impact which makes us rush.

 

[Oceansize]

I didn't consider scraping the algae because the last time I did following a nasty bloom, it remained in large sheets within the water column, draped over my frags, fouled my powerheads, and basically made the tank look horrific. Also, remember that I really didn't have much algae prior to adding the GFO. More than I wanted, but still very minor. Other times, I've had much larger blooms that melted away completely by doing nothing more than a slight tweak of my denitrator (back when I was still getting it dialed in and my phosphates were still really low). So my personal experience has been that the algae melts away quite quickly once I've made the proper adjustments, or fouls the tank when I scrape.

Nevertheless I appreciate your insight (not just from this post but many of yours I've seen before) and will try it out.

On the subject of GFO, I'm definitely nervous about using it. Once I get my phosphates to 0.02 or 0.03, my intent is to remove almost all of it and start more frequent observations of my phosphate level to gauge the export rate achieved. I'd rather have a slight algae problem than a starving/bleached coral problem so I'd like to use GFO as sparingly as possible. I'm not sure I want to COMPLETELY remove it, as the instructions suggest (and it seems logical) that persistent use of small amounts is preferable to intermittent use of large amounts. Refugium/macroalgae isn't really an option for me due to space considerations.

 

[brandon429]

thank you I learn tons on this site about algae control its fun to share, just this week in the reef discussion forum there were amazing after pics of a very tough algae type to beat, being fully eaten by grazing urchins it was a heck of an aftershot, nice way to feature the all natural modes there. prevention gfo is also a fine option. even though grazers wont help all the time, when they do its very balanced and natural and potentially thorough~

if I had a large tank that precluded being able to just take it all apart and clean 100% including down to bottom of the sandbed, id for sure be on some GFO~ who wants to do constant rip change work. in nanos though, itll spoil ya, its the single best preventative in all off reefdom is a simple full tank ejection of detritus and blasting out of the rocks lol. cheat reset time!

 

[brandon429]

http://reef2reef.com/threads/need-id-on-this-stuff-tips.212960/page-2 here it was, nice pics~

 

[Oceansize]

I am a fan of aggressive detritus removal. What is your preferred method?

 

[brandon429]

http://reef2reef.com/threads/lets-d...ndefinite-reef-life-span.222105/#post-2561119

this looks crazy but its a simple parting out on dinner plates. if I had an 80 gallon reef there'd be a lot of plates lol.

my first step in any small, or large tank detritus strip is to catch all fish and inverts and hold em in buckets if applicable in the current water, reacclimate back to the new water when ready. Many don't want to do this...hands off/keep it stable technique my way is just one option cuz detritus is a lifespan reducer, so I attack heh

take all rocks and corals out and set them aside carefully, without kicking up the bed yet if I allowed it to get dirty. I isolate the delicates away from the harmful detritus stores, if they are there.
with the whole tank stripped and the no recycle counter running, you can blast clean the rocks, burn out any algae if applicable, then clean that sandbed down to its core.

who cares about worms and pods, detritus was the goal...ill rip out the whole sandbed or rinse it inside the vase until there's simply no silt or detritus possible and the worms come back over time, they seed down from the rocks (cant see where else they regenerate from, that's my guess)
for mos after a run like this, I can reach into my tank with a little tool and whip up the sandbed...grains rise and simply fall, zero silt. Imagine what that action would do to an old, cruddy sb.

I then put it all back together and my tank has no fish, so the corals don't acclimate they just get plopped back in. If I had fish, id reacclimate. hope that helps! its just one way of attacking a tank using a careful order of operations that lends one heck of a clean tank after. IMO, the GFO is only prudent when starting that clean, or in essence its just bandaiding the waste stores although many of us do that and just compensate in one way or another. whatever adds coral biomass is good. its my pico opinion one can force a reef to run forever with this mode of detritus ejection, and some hardware luck too. first multi day power outage in the summer time and its doomed prob, but lucky so far 10 yrs. its my opinion we have forever stopped the mini cycle event by simply being this thorough with the sandbed, any tentative partial moves are actually the risky ones because they leave rot in the tank and hope to avoid kicking it up.


regarding your initial algae bloom I feel it could be from just reworking the tank or any small detail that causes a brief nutrient upwelling like in nature, they capitalize for a time but overall I see your GFO as a true long term slow control solution, the quick turnaround measure needs to come from elbow grease imo.

B

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Until you bring phosphate under about 0.03 ppm, it is not likely going to limit algae growth. Moving from 1 ppm to 0.1 ppm may have zero effect on algae growth because it can still get all it wants.

But GFO can add some iron, and if the iron is limiting algae growth (as it likely does in some high nutrient tanks), then that might boost the growth.

 

[Oceansize]

Ha! Sorry I asked, Brandon, lol!

I'm in awe of your thoroughness. I know myself too well to know that I'll never be able to maintain a process that exhaustive consistently. There is no aquarium activity I dread more than having to net my fish.

I've recently reversed my opinion on mechanical filtration and am back using it again. Since I do not want to vacuum my sand, my plan is to start stirring my sand weekly and use a powerhead to blow off detritus and allow the mech. filtration to catch it, cleaning the mech. filters weekly as well. I understand your preferred method is more exhaustive in order to avoid stirring up pockets of rot, but I'm confident from previous experience that with weekly stirring, starting slow at first, I can avoid too much stress on the fish and coral.

Understanding it's not your preferred method, are there stronger reasons why you wouldn't recommend this approach?

 

[Oceansize]

Until you bring phosphate under about 0.03 ppm, it is not likely going to limit algae growth. Moving from 1 ppm to 0.1 ppm may have zero effect on algae growth because it can still get all it wants.

But GFO can add some iron, and if the iron is limiting algae growth (as it likely does in some high nutrient tanks), then that might boost the growth.

See? I knew I was asking in the right place. Thanks for the explanation, Randy!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

See? I knew I was asking in the right place. Thanks for the explanation, Randy!

You're welcome.

Happy Reefing.

 

[brandon429]

Ocean for sure I believe in multiple ways your way of continual light cleaning is popular and much better than the total hands off mode. The reasons I took the whole thing apart and flipped the sandbed 180 was because that level of cleaning has clear benefits and is easy in a small tank, and just to show that extremes in cleanings are an option. If you poll gen posters, 98% would say that's a for sure recycle or at least mini cycle, and that makes thousands and thousands never consider a total detritus ejection and they adopt a pure hands off mode, producing tons of algae tanks to work on, OTS tanks, all I do is show an opposite option using my mini model

If you keep yours preemptively clean and it prevents bed incursion, its not feeding said algae, then its a good mechanism. If I had a giant tank, id have a fish bioload so low in it, perhaps even just a single fish, that my bed incursion would also be mitigated or maybe I wouldn't even have a bed so I could use multi fish and not have true cleanings lingering, many systems~

right now may not be the time for a parted out cleaning, but if that time comes or someone reading has a fear of mini cycle work, theres clear documentation on how to avoid it, you simply control the organic rotting waste reserves and you prevent all mini cycles when deep work is needed. That, and only use the best quality test kits to assess ammonia you can buy, not the entry level ones that comprise 98% of all known ammonia tests reported. The rise and fall of the mini cycle notion will follow the use of those test kits imo

 

[Oceansize]

Ocean for sure I believe in multiple ways your way of continual light cleaning is popular and much better than the total hands off mode. The reasons I took the whole thing apart and flipped the sandbed 180 was because that level of cleaning has clear benefits and is easy in a small tank, and just to show that extremes in cleanings are an option. If you poll gen posters, 98% would say that's a for sure recycle or at least mini cycle, and that makes thousands and thousands never consider a total detritus ejection and they adopt a pure hands off mode, producing tons of algae tanks to work on, OTS tanks, all I do is show an opposite option using my mini model

If you keep yours preemptively clean and it prevents bed incursion, its not feeding said algae, then its a good mechanism. If I had a giant tank, id have a fish bioload so low in it, perhaps even just a single fish, that my bed incursion would also be mitigated or maybe I wouldn't even have a bed so I could use multi fish and not have true cleanings lingering, many systems~

right now may not be the time for a parted out cleaning, but if that time comes or someone reading has a fear of mini cycle work, theres clear documentation on how to avoid it, you simply control the organic rotting waste reserves and you prevent all mini cycles when deep work is needed. That, and only use the best quality test kits to assess ammonia you can buy, not the entry level ones that comprise 98% of all known ammonia tests reported. The rise and fall of the mini cycle notion will follow the use of those test kits imo

Great, thank you for the considered reply, Brandon. I appreciate it! My tank isn't huge, but it's definitely bigger than yours (92 gal). For 92 gallons (maybe about 70 when you consider the rockwork), I feel like my tank is on the understocked side: one clown, one goby, and 5 small chromis. I intend on adding more, but maybe only about two more or so, small varieties.