Teenyreef's Deep Blue 30g - Massive Reorg

[natalia_la_loca]

I'm right there with you.  I still have a couple of tiny patches that refuse to go away.  It's a bit maddening.

[Pjanssen]

I think mine is finally G*O*N*E!!!

[teenyreef]

16 hours ago, drgibby said:

I vote for clean and retreat

 

I've decided I agree 

16 hours ago, Mariaface said:

I agree! If their cell structure is already compromised, just focus on making the environment inhabitable. Clean up whatever nutrients built up, get your skimmer running, do a water change and replace some trace elements, etc. Your corals will do some allelopathy for you, discouraging nearby algae growth, if they're particularly happy.

 

And then once things are going smoothly again, KILL IT WITH FIRE FLUCO

I just did a water change, put in some carbon, and started the skimmer back up. I also scraped the glass and the bottom and gave everything a thorough cleaning. I'm going to continue to take daily pictures of the test frag, and if it doesn't continue to improve over the next couple days, I'll do a second round of fluco.

14 hours ago, natalia_la_loca said:

I'm right there with you.  I still have a couple of tiny patches that refuse to go away.  It's a bit maddening.

I wonder if it's the exact same algae, or a different strain, maybe? Some of mine that's left looks different. But some looks the same. 

 

You're right, it's maddening.

6 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

I think mine is finally G*O*N*E!!!

Yay!!!!!

[teenyreef]

Here is Day 14. Not sure if there's any improvement from Day 13, but it's not any worse. Some of the polyps on this frag opened up a little bit for the first time today.

 

 

[teenyreef]

Hmmmm, I just went back through all the pictures and somehow I messed up my numbering about day 7 or 8 and skipped a number. So this is actually Day 13, not Day 14. Here's a contact sheet with the Twelve Days of Algae so you can see the progression up until today.

 

 

[jack1978]

52 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Hmmmm, I just went back through all the pictures and somehow I messed up my numbering about day 7 or 8 and skipped a number. So this is actually Day 13, not Day 14. Here's a contact sheet with the Twelve Days of Algae so you can see the progression up until today.

 

 

Great results/documentation!

[StinkyBunny]

I have some in the one 40B, I'm gonna fire up the laser tonight and see what happens. Just gotta figure out where he hell I put it and the extra batteries, lol.

[jbb]

Wish my results were the same. 

 

The only thing that changed was my only 2 fish died. Cant say 100% it was due to the treatment, but they both died the day after dosing. Algae only got thicker.  Seems like its always me with the failures. Lol 

 

Muriatic acid here i come. Time to start fresh. 

[teenyreef]

7 hours ago, jbb_00 said:

Wish my results were the same. 

 

The only thing that changed was my only 2 fish died. Cant say 100% it was due to the treatment, but they both died the day after dosing. Algae only got thicker.  Seems like its always me with the failures. Lol 

 

Muriatic acid here i come. Time to start fresh. 

Dang, that sucks! But sometimes the scorched earth policy is the best option 

 

 

Things are much happier in the tank today, all the polyps are open now. But I think the remaining algae is growing back now that the fluco is gone. I'm going to do another round tomorrow night. 

 

Here's day 14:

 

 

[Pjanssen]

Why wait

[jedimasterben]

3 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

Why wait

Data, hopefully Rarely do people stop any kind of treatment to see what happens or if the results are actually due to whatever it is they're using now. It's why vibrant is so popular - it very likely does nothing, but people are paying more attention to their tank and therefore are seeing some benefit due to increased maintenance, so they keep on dosing it and thinking it actually is what is fixing their tanks.

[StinkyBunny]

The placebo effect. I lasered some last night teeny, we'll see what happens. If it works, you're more than welcome to use it again.

[Hirsh]

On 1/26/2017 at 1:03 AM, teenyreef said:

Lots of planning and building to do!

 

Stuff on order:

Jebao DCS2000

Coral Box D300

Jebao/Apex controller adapter

Somatic sump goodies: return pump basket and filter, sock holder, dosing tube holder, and drain cover

Finnex 150w heater

 

Stuff to reuse:

Apex and BRS dosers from current frag tank

Autoaqua Smart Micro ATO from current frag tank

Bio brick from current frag tank

TLF Phosban 150 reactor from my attic

 

To buy or find:

3g ATO reservoir (from Walmart)

Yoga mat (to level the tank)

Misc plumbing parts once I see how I need to plumb the tank with the pump in place, and to hook up the reactor

New sponges for the TLF reactor

 

To make:

Eggcrate frag rack, painted black

Install new exhaust fan

 

To figure out:

What to do with bare bottom - leave bare or put some kind of finish underneath, or do starboard, or what?

Need a cabinet light. I want an led light with a door - activated switch but can't find an easy setup. I thought Ben or someone posted a link to one on Amazon but I can't find it.

I'm thinking about cutting a second hole in the back of the cabinet. One hole for cables, one for an exhaust fan.

 

The guy I bought it from said the cabinet didn't have enough ventilation, and the hinges were all rusted as a result. I've got a fan that's completely silent so I'm thinking of just running it continuously on low speed.

 

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure his cat peed all over and in the cabinet and tank because it smelled like it and was a nasty clean up job. So that could have caused the rust too.

Maybe he kept catfish 

[--chris--]

I went through a few pages but did not see a mention: Why does Fluco work on GHA?  Or what is our best guess at this point?  

[Mariaface]

18 minutes ago, --chris-- said:

I went through a few pages but did not see a mention: Why does Fluco work on GHA?  Or what is our best guess at this point?  

 

Bryopsis' cell membranes are susceptible to the medication. No cell membrane strength, no control over nutrient intake/export. The plant weakens and dies.  And apparently also becomes yummy; even my hitchhiking limpets are eating it.

 

I should post my photos.. I missed yesterday since I was in the office past 2AM x: 

[teenyreef]

18 hours ago, jedimasterben said:

Data, hopefully Rarely do people stop any kind of treatment to see what happens or if the results are actually due to whatever it is they're using now. It's why vibrant is so popular - it very likely does nothing, but people are paying more attention to their tank and therefore are seeing some benefit due to increased maintenance, so they keep on dosing it and thinking it actually is what is fixing their tanks.

Yes, to see what happens when I discontinue for a couple days. But also because there's been no skimming, carbon, or water changing for 14 days, and the tank needs a chance to get cleaned out. So I did a water change after the thirteenth day (because I lost count and thought it was the fourteenth day), and restarted skimming and carbon for 48 hours.

 

Btw, I mostly agree about the placebo effect for Vibrant, but I do see an significant, overnight improvement in the diatom department in my 40g when I use it. It also seems to help, to a lesser degree, with cyano, but I'm less confident about that. And when I started dosing it weekly in my 90g FW tank, it made a dramatic difference in the dark nuisance algae that kept growing on my plants. And I hardly do any husbandry in that tank, with or without Vibrant. It's been six weeks since my last water change and things still look nice and clean. I also noticed a significant difference in the amount of sludge in the cannister filter, but that probably would happen with any bacterial supplement.

14 hours ago, StinkyBunny said:

The placebo effect. I lasered some last night teeny, we'll see what happens. If it works, you're more than welcome to use it again.

Let me know how it goes!

14 hours ago, Hirsh said:

Maybe he kept catfish 

maybe

12 hours ago, --chris-- said:

I went through a few pages but did not see a mention: Why does Fluco work on GHA?  Or what is our best guess at this point?  

 

12 hours ago, Mariaface said:

 

Bryopsis' cell membranes are susceptible to the medication. No cell membrane strength, no control over nutrient intake/export. The plant weakens and dies.  And apparently also becomes yummy; even my hitchhiking limpets are eating it.

 

I should post my photos.. I missed yesterday since I was in the office past 2AM x: 

^this 

And get some sleep! Said the guy staying up past one doing work...

[teenyreef]

Two days after the water change and resumption of skimming and carbon, the algae is clearly growing back. I can think of a couple factors that may have contributed to the algae only being partially eliminated.

1. I only medicated the tank for 13 days. There are reports that Fluconazole works with gha but it takes longer. It's possible that if I left the tank medicated, the algae would have continued dying.

2. I messed up and ran the skimmer for the first two days of the treatment. It's possible that some of the medication was skimmed out and I was working with a weaker dose as a result.

 

I think #1 is most likely, with #2 maybe contributing. The report in the Fluco thread is that it takes 14 days for bryopsis and 21 days for gha. So this time I'm going to stick it out for the full 21 days and hopefully that will be the end of my gha 

 

Here's Day 15 (the second day after cleaning out the medication). I dosed the tank right after taking this picture.

 

 

 

In other news, Marine Depot sent me the new calcium reactor to replace the broken one that was discontinued. I like the new model much better. Instead of mounting directly to the reactor body, the pump connects via soft tubing so there's nothing to break. The only criticism I have so far is that the tubing is secure with zip ties. Really? Zip ties? Sure enough, one of the connections had a slow leak. 

 

However, I have plenty of spare zip ties, so I snipped off the old one and put a new one on a little bit tighter - no more leak!

 

Everything is hooked up and running now. I've left the dosers on for the first 24 hours while the reactor gets going, then I'll start checking alkalinity levels to get the reactor dialed in. 

 

I finally have everything installed in sump compartment now. Here's what it looks like:

 

I guess I do have another minor criticism of the calcium reactor design. You can't reverse the orientation of the hang-on plate because the pump sticks out. So in my tank, where I can only mount it on the right side of the sump, the bubble chamber is located in behind the main reactor body, and I can't see it at all. I had to loosen the screws so I could twist the whole thing around just enough so I could see the bubble chamber and get the needle valve on the regulator set properly. It's not a big deal, just an annoyance.

 

I have the circulation pump running at about two drops per second, and one bubble of CO2 every four or five seconds. I'm trying to make any potential changes to alkalinity happen very slowly, as a sudden alk spike would not be good for the corals.

[natalia_la_loca]

My hair algae has started growing back too. Today is day 21 of the full flucon treatment in my reefbowl. I'm going to do a water change, peroxide spot treatment, and another full dose of flucon.

[StinkyBunny]

I zapped some lightly, not to the crackle sizzle stage, just a light pass over it for a few seconds. The Powder Blue went frickin NUTS over it, there isn't a stitch of it left in the 40B QT system. Before I hit it with the laser, he and the Blonde Naso picked all around it, now they mowed it down to about 1-2mm. I'm wondering if it has a tough outer membrane which the tangs/herbivores find to difficult to digest or it's just unpalatable and the laser changed that?

[Pjanssen]

On March 2, 2017 at 7:08 AM, jedimasterben said:

Data, hopefully Rarely do people stop any kind of treatment to see what happens or if the results are actually due to whatever it is they're using now. It's why vibrant is so popular - it very likely does nothing, but people are paying more attention to their tank and therefore are seeing some benefit due to increased maintenance, so they keep on dosing it and thinking it actually is what is fixing their tanks.

I have to disagree on this.   December and January and 1/2 of February are my busiest months and I barely looked at my tank during that time. Maybe 2 water changes in 8 weeks. I did however start using Vibrant at the beginning of December. By February all the only nuisance was some hidden Bryopsis. No Cyano, Diatoms, brown algae on glass...

[jedimasterben]

5 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

I have to disagree on this.   December and January and 1/2 of February are my busiest months and I barely looked at my tank during that time. Maybe 2 water changes in 8 weeks. I did however start using Vibrant at the beginning of December. By February all the only nuisance was some hidden Bryopsis. No Cyano, Diatoms, brown algae on glass...

Interesting, though this is definitely one of the exceptions, not the rule. The hype seems to have died down for a bit now, hopefully there will be some actual data produced at some point.

[spectra]

10 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

I have to disagree on this.   December and January and 1/2 of February are my busiest months and I barely looked at my tank during that time. Maybe 2 water changes in 8 weeks. I did however start using Vibrant at the beginning of December. By February all the only nuisance was some hidden Bryopsis. No Cyano, Diatoms, brown algae on glass...

 

I tried the vibrant and well it did nothing  hair algae still blowing in the flow.........

[Mariaface]

I'm kind of still amazed at vibrant - I mean yes, my nutrients hit rock bottom and everything suffered (I don't do enough water changes or feed enough), but the bubble algae melted and hasn't come back at all. Yikes

[teenyreef]

Here's Day 1, 24 hours after dosing with Fluconazole. The algae is bouncing back strongly since discontinuing the first round. This round, I'm going to keep going until all the algae is gone, or I have to just nuke everything and start over.

 

 

[teenyreef]

I had a busy weekend - I took a picture of Day 2, Round 2, but then accidentally deleted it before I could post it

 

Day 2 showed some signs of discoloration, and here's Day 3, Round 2, with some definite progress being made. I suspect the algae was already weakened from the previous treatment so it seems to be going faster this round.