thats amazing detailing. you are doing the work that rasping organisms do in the wild, you simply took the tank back by force but under controlled actions that focused on target, really great job. The reset tank is simply clean.
Did you know that any aquarium online that was lost to an invasion is a direct reverse engineering of this thread. What you did is what saves tanks. What the masses do:
-start an ID thread.
-wait as ID's are hashed.
-pick from a random offer of genera an ID
-begin phosphate and nitrate testing without verifying any reading. accept all first readings as accurate.
-begin adjusting nitrate and phosphate up, or down, based on whatever field you ascribe to at the time.
-leave the algae in place
-buy water dosers, leave the algae in place.
-leave the fuel for all the algae in place.
-leave the fuel in place (a filthy clouding sandbed) for the next six succession of invasions, diatoms to gha to cyano to lyngbya to eventual dinos and back again
-send off for $ paid sampling of your water to discern bac, or ICP levels, while the forest remains.
there's twenty other steps the masses would advise, and all of them end in 'the forest remains'
It turns out that the right sized reef for anyone isn't the largest, most stable reef.
Its the most accessible reefs that win lifespan contests. we have the absolute final say on what grows or not, and all wrecked tanks are caused by the aquarist simply making the forest remain for one reason or another or claiming the tank is too complex to perform surgery. they accept the overgrowth.
Your tank is fixed due to opposites of above. ***if it grows back, that means your reef is in good standing, balanced, not bad standing. you can experiment with preventative options, everything books and forums tell us to do about algae should come in the clean condition not the invaded, forested one.
Anything you add or change now, in the absence of target mass, really is working well against its regrowth. if something starts to take over, its no question your tank wont get taken over/you do surgery when required.
Any scuba diver knows a pristine reef grows tons of algae if no animals are there to prevent it by force or opportunity. fear of destabilization is the #1 hesitation cause for invaded tanks, we needed care boundaries that allowed for action.
this is now linked to the peroxide thread in the nuisance algae forum even though peroxide doesnt factor above as a direct application. the reason your thread is directly related to our long work thread is the pre work, you pre worked your tank exactly ideally correct before applying measures that may help prevent growback. you forced the clean condition, didnt allow for loss option.
Your thread reinforces the notion that algae presence and cycling are unrelated. Our entire hobby...books, articles, has us inextricably link algae + bacteria (we are told to allow early initial foresting as part of a claimed ugly phase) and the outcome is thousands of lost tanks. We are allowed to consider algae independent from cycle bacteria and if we do, then we have no invasions to concern about. it will save you money in reefing to be a brute vs a coaxer at the right time.
