Dave's 20g glass box 🎉 Water Box 20 IS STILL GOING.......

[mitten_reef]

TL;DR = Too Long; Didn’t Read 

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

1 hour ago, mitten_reef said:

TL;DR = Too Long; Didn’t Read 

Thanks buddy 👍👍. At least he's honest 😂

[spectra]

1 hour ago, mitten_reef said:

TL;DR = Too Long; Didn’t Read 

Well Dave was MIA for a while....................so did you expect a short story................

[mcarroll]

On 12/12/2019 at 9:14 PM, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

On the algae front I'm winning the battle finally 💪. So, with tons of cleanup and not winning I threw a hail Mary. I saw someone mention vibrant and thought might as well give it a shot.

It's the least-worst "magic bullet" vs algae, but still a crutch/mask for the real issue.  In the end you may get a clean tank (probably) but you potentially miss out on fixing the actual problem and learning whatever there was to learn from that.  That means you stand a higher likelihood of repeating whatever led to the algae takeover in the first place once the Vibrant has left the system.

 

If this is in your 20 Gallon, it doesn't seem like it could take more than a day to clean it by hand even if it was totally over run. 

 

If you don't have enough snails (herbivores only) to keep up, you might have to go back in for re-cleanings.  But as long as you have access to new snails and slowly but surely keep increasing their population, they will eventually be able to keep the patches clean that you work on manually.

 

Look how he knocks out a small tank that's COMPLETELY overrun...

 

[mcarroll]

(And is it me or is there no way to search a thread to see if you've posted in it before?   This is a LO-O-O-O-ONG thread, so there's no way I can just scan the whole thing to see....and that sorta felt like a re-post to me.   Am I missing something on the search feature?)

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

18 hours ago, mcarroll said:

It's the least-worst "magic bullet" vs algae, but still a crutch/mask for the real issue.  In the end you may get a clean tank (probably) but you potentially miss out on fixing the actual problem and learning whatever there was to learn from that.  That means you stand a higher likelihood of repeating whatever led to the algae takeover in the first place once the Vibrant has left the system.

 

If this is in your 20 Gallon, it doesn't seem like it could take more than a day to clean it by hand even if it was totally over run. 

 

If you don't have enough snails (herbivores only) to keep up, you might have to go back in for re-cleanings.  But as long as you have access to new snails and slowly but surely keep increasing their population, they will eventually be able to keep the patches clean that you work on manually.

 

Look how he knocks out a small tank that's COMPLETELY overrun...

 

So I've got some hidden thing going on with this thing. A couple peeps think my old rock is leaching phosphate. I tossed around the idea of taking it all out and using new rock. I shot it down as I'm gonna fight this and not throw in the towel. I've added various turbos and things and they do all right. Problem with the algae is it's turf algae so I can't pull it out easy. I have always had a good cleaning routine and really the only thing the same between my old tank and this one is the rocks. So, I've decided to kinda embrace it. Going to use vibrant to help me get it out easier.. the turf algae is actually weakening and making it way easier to clean out. I get good Coraline algae growth, so if I can finally free the rocks of algae the Coraline can take it's place. My blenny is loving all the film algae and since this is bare bottom it's easier to clean and the blenny gets to pick at a ton of film algae off the bottom glass.

The tank is doing amazing so at this point I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing. I know vibrant is masking the problem, but if I can get it down low enough the herbivores will keep it short. I know everyone looks for the easy way out, but in my case I actually an issue that I know of. I'm just trying to manage it so it's less. At this point I have to make sure the blenny has food. I did try and scrub the rocks and that ended in a tank overrun with algae. Now I just suck what I can out and blow it down the overflow. It's a nightly think but it's working. 🙂

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

So since I'm terrible at updating, I figured why not do one now lol.

 

I have been using vibrant for 7 weeks now. It went through phases where I thought it was working one week than the next nothing. I stuck with it, I have to say the results as of this week are jaw dropping. I didn't take as many pics of the progression because well I forget and get lazy or the pics don't have any filter so they look terrible anyways.

 

I started with the first 4 weeks at one dose and for me that was 1.8ml. Week 5 I upped it to twice a week, first on sunday and second on weds. As I said earlier I noticed that it was becoming easier to get off the rocks. For the last 7 weeks I've been spending half hour a night sucking out algae. All the hard to get turf algae is almost gone , hell 80 percent of the algae is gone now. I can't believe it actually worked. Granted, it's been a lot of work to get here and now coraline algae is growing in the spots where the gha used to be. Not sure if the tank is just maturing or if it's because of all the bacteria strains I've been adding, but holy hell it's finally nice to see my rock work.

 

I figured out some of the cause. So, when I set this tank up I picked a nice spot in the living room. Well, since I'm at work I never really took notice on how the sun comes into the living room, never really cared for that matter. Yup, the sun in the afternoon beats directly on the left side of the tank … So that's why the one side of the tank was the worst for the algae, direct sunlight for a good portion of the afternoon. I have taken some steps to reduce the sun on the tank. I have been blocking the one side of the tank with cardboard, i'm at work so I don't really care how it looks. I have tried to close the curtains but my dog usually ends up moving them so I had to come up with a different plan and cardboard it was.

 

Now that I'm finally winning the battle of gha I can breath easy knowing it's not my husbandry skills that caused it. Funny thing while I figured out the algae in this tank, I started reflecting on what went so wrong with the original tank which was downstairs in the basement. So I have the little tiny basement windows at ground level and I noticed that in the morning sun comes in through that window, well guess where I had the original tank!! Yup, that stupid thing was getting blasted with natural sunlight for a few hours every single day...….. bam algae problem in that tank as well.

 

I did tinker with the light, I wanted to give the sps more power, so I upped the channels a far amount, put the light on acclimate and it's dimmer than what they are used to. Needless to say the corals aren't impressed lol. With all the algae I've pulled out I still have to check nitrates and phosphate to see where i'm at now that it's not getting used up by algae. If the numbers are still low what does that mean?? Should I feed more now that I know where the nutrients are going? I noticed my alk consumption almost stopped. It was dropping .2 dkh everyday. Last sunday I did a water change and checked the alk 8.6dkh which is normal for my tank. I checked on sunday before I did my water change and it only dropped .4 in a week and that was without dosing. I wanted to see what it dropped in a week so I didn't dose at all last week.

 

Any ideas why consumption would just flat out stop??? I'm guessing its normal for corals to stop growing at random times.. but it surely is strange. Oh well, thanks for reading this long long long post, but I wanted to let everyone know how the vibrant works and why I was getting the algae in the first place. Thanks for reading

[mitten_reef]

3 minutes ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

Any ideas why consumption would just flat out stop???

I don't know anything about vibrant effect of stony corals growth, if that's what you're inferring. 

 

But if you have put light on acclimation mode that is dimmer to your eyes, it's likely a dimmer to corals as well.  less light, slower growth in this case perhaps?  If you just turned it down a day or two ago, then it shouldn't be the light.  How long ago did you start your acclimation mode?

 

side note: do you keep an eye on Mg?  Mg helps with alk uptake/skeleton building, Mg too low, corals can't use alk.  

  

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

1 minute ago, mitten_reef said:

I don't know anything about vibrant effect of stony corals growth, if that's what you're inferring. 

 

But if you have put light on acclimation mode that is dimmer to your eyes, it's likely a dimmer to corals as well.  less light, slower growth in this case perhaps?  If you just turned it down a day or two ago, then it shouldn't be the light.  How long ago did you start your acclimation mode?

 

side note: do you keep an eye on Mg?  Mg helps with alk uptake/skeleton building, Mg too low, corals can't use alk.  

  

Honestly, I haven't tested mg in longer than i'd like to admit . I might run a full on testing night and run every kit I have. Get solid data and then go from there. I bumped the light two weeks ago so it's been dim for two weeks now and the corals started looking unhappy about a week or so ago. I don't have full pe on the digis, but the purple stylos look great where I moved them. All the lps aren't open as much as normal. I don't think it's the vibrant because it's a pretty recent with the retractions.

I'll get some numbers tonight or tomorrow and see where everything is. Only thing I know for sure is the alk is stable because I check that more than anything else. Didn't know about the mg though so thanks on that front

[A.m.P]

It's usually recommended to do a large waterchange after you're done dosing vibrant, some folks do multiple large changes during the treatment to get rid of all the organics being released by the dying algae.

Our eyes are horrible at accurately seeing color, especially blues, you can easily get a light with a slightly-different blue spectrum which outputs double the PAR while appearing dimmer to we silly-monkeys. Unfortunately to call human senses fallible is to give them a compliment I'm not entirely-certain they've earned lol, it's possible growth has just slowed down, maybe it will bounce back a few weeks after the vibrant and a few waterchanges, however if your nutrient-levels are low then they may be contributing to the "slower-growth" you're noticing. 
It probably wouldn't hurt to bring them up to 10ish N03 and around 0.05-.1 P04 to see how the tank responds.

[mitten_reef]

10 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

Our eyes are horrible at accurately seeing color, especially blues, you can easily get a light with a slightly-different blue spectrum which outputs double the PAR while appearing dimmer to we silly-monkeys.

I guess I was assuming dimmed light comes from lower power intensities across all channels in this case, with no significant increase in blue.  but you made a very valid point when people are messing with their controllable LED fixture. 

even the white channel can contribute a lot to PAR, people just don't prefer the less-glowy look 😄 and possibly side effect of faster algae growth.  (I do use 15-20% on my white channel to help balance the visual color) 

[mcarroll]

2 hours ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

run every kit I have.

Look out for expiration dates.

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

26 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

It's usually recommended to do a large waterchange after you're done dosing vibrant, some folks do multiple large changes during the treatment to get rid of all the organics being released by the dying algae.

Our eyes are horrible at accurately seeing color, especially blues, you can easily get a light with a slightly-different blue spectrum which outputs double the PAR while appearing dimmer to we silly-monkeys. Unfortunately to call human senses fallible is to give them a compliment I'm not entirely-certain they've earned lol, it's possible growth has just slowed down, maybe it will bounce back a few weeks after the vibrant and a few waterchanges, however if your nutrient-levels are low then they may be contributing to the "slower-growth" you're noticing. 
It probably wouldn't hurt to bring them up to 10ish N03 and around 0.05-.1 P04 to see how the tank responds.

I definitely have to check the numbers tonight, that makes total sense about the growth slowing to a crawl. Let me see what the numbers show now that algae is minimal. If the numbers are low that could totally be the problem. Last time I checked them I figured the results were skewed because of the algae and if it's low now without that's sorta weird. I mean I still do my weekly water changes even though I have been using vibrant.

Testing it is to see where i'm at  I guess

[mcarroll]

On 12/21/2019 at 9:12 PM, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

A couple peeps think my old rock is leaching phosphate.

It's a trendy answer, but not a problem.

 

On 12/21/2019 at 9:12 PM, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

Problem with the algae is it's turf algae

Can you post at least one or two good (daylight) shots of your algae growth?

 

On 12/21/2019 at 9:12 PM, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

Going to use vibrant to help me get it out easier.. the turf algae is actually weakening and making it way easier to clean out.

If the algae is already weakening I'm not sure you'll get anything else from dosing a magic bullet.  (Or did you mean you're already dosing it?)

 

On 12/21/2019 at 9:12 PM, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

I did try and scrub the rocks and that ended in a tank overrun with algae.

If you can scrub the algae loose, you should be able to pluck it loose.  Pluck smaller bits (fewer fronds at once) at a time and concentrate your efforts in a smaller area.  Don't try to clear more than a couple square inches in a session when it's like this. 

 

But you do have to hit it as close to every day as you can.

 

And you do have to add more snails if you see any algae grow back -- that means you don't have enough.

 

2 hours ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

I have been using vibrant for 7 weeks now.

Manual wouldn't  have taken any longer....wow.

 

2 hours ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

it's not my husbandry skills that caused it.

I hate to disagree on this, but more snails and more effort is what was lacking.

 

Sunlight may have added to the algae growth.

 

But lack of herbivores (remember you're the #1 herbivore on this tank....the snails are #2) is what let's algae grow and take over. 

 

(As true on wild reefs as it is in reef tanks.)

 

2 hours ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

the sps more power, so I upped the channels a far amount,

Dangerous to do this without the aid of a light meter.   Good lux meters only run $7-$20 or so.....I'd suggest ordering one ASAP.

 

2 hours ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

Any ideas why consumption would just flat out stop???

You might have damaged their photosynthetic apparatus with the light increase....that's the usual side-effect of too much light.   

 

It may be followed by bleaching or even RTN.

 

If you're lucky it's just bad photo-inhibition....but that also takes a toll on the coral.

 

IMO restore the old lighting config ASAP and wait for that light meter before you try anything else.

 

(I'd wait for the end of this algae treatment too.)

 

What are your current NO3 and PO4 levels and what are you feeding your fish every day?

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

16 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

Can you post at least one or two good (daylight) shots of your algae growth

I'm gonna try and get some pics up tonight.

 

16 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

If the algae is already weakening I'm not sure you'll get anything else from dosing a magic bullet.  (Or did you mean you're already dosing it?)

I had already been dosing vibrant and it weakened it making it easier to get out.

 

17 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

If you can scrub the algae loose, you should be able to pluck it loose.  Pluck smaller bits (fewer fronds at once) at a time and concentrate your efforts in a smaller area.  Don't try to clear more than a couple square inches in a session when it's like this. 

 

But you do have to hit it as close to every day as you can.

 

And you do have to add more snails if you see any algae grow back -- that means you don't have enough

Some of the algae was easy to to pull off so I've always done that. I would tooth brush the rest and it spread it all around the tank. Yup I do that all the time or at least I used to. Go crazy cleaning the entire tank of algae. I'd have loose stuff all over the tank when I was done. I don't do that anymore

 

33 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

Manual wouldn't  have taken any longer....wow

So I was manually pulling algae and it would be right back in a few days. The vibrant was a hail marry that in my eyes is working great. The vibrant is working so whatever I pull out, it's not growing back. I do have a pretty decent snail crew. I had placed an order with reef cleaners in the fall. They didn't help much cause the algae was so long.

 

39 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

I hate to disagree on this, but more snails and more effort is what was lacking.

 

Sunlight may have added to the algae growth.

 

But lack of herbivores (remember you're the #1 herbivore on this tank....the snails are #2) is what let's algae grow and take over. 

 

(As true on wild reefs as it is in reef tanks.)

I actually shoot to have some algae, means I am keeping a good amount of nutrients for the corals. It just got out of hand lol. I think the crew I have now should be able to keep the algae at bay with my help too of course.

 

47 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

You might have damaged their photosynthetic apparatus with the light increase....that's the usual side-effect of too much light.   

 

It may be followed by bleaching or even RTN.

 

If you're lucky it's just bad photo-inhibition....but that also takes a toll on the coral.

 

IMO restore the old lighting config ASAP and wait for that light meter before you try anything else.

 

(I'd wait for the end of this algae treatment too.)

 

What are your current NO3 and PO4 levels and what are you feeding your fish every day?

I didn't just blast them with the new light. I have set at 70 percent light reduction for 4 weeks. I bumped up the ai prime by 10 on each channel so it wasn't a huge leap. I would like to see the par values at some point. The color on the corals is good.. I have no bleaching just slightly unhappy. Probably has to do with nutrients so when I have my results i'll throw them up. Probably tonight I hope lol.

 

Hope that gave some answers

[mcarroll]

2 minutes ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

So I was manually pulling algae and it would be right back in a few days.

This is the signal that you do not have enough snails.  Something to remember for next time.  👍

 

Remember that you'll want up to 2 turbo snails per gallon.

 

As long as you slowly (no more than a few at a time) add more snails when you see re-growth and stop adding more when you stop seeing re-growth, you'll hit the right number.

 

5 minutes ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

I actually shoot to have some algae, means I am keeping a good amount of nutrients for the corals.

Green algae growth should eventually be invisible....apparently replaced with coralline algae growth.  Green algae nubbins will still be growing everywhere (probably even on the coralline), just not large enough to see since the snails will be managing it.

 

My tank has crazy high nutrient levels, but no apparent green algae growth at all.  Tons of coralline though.

 

Funny enough thing that my snails all hide in the shade during the day so all of them have spotless-clean shells now....cleaner than when I got em.  They only come out when the lights are about 90% dim.

 

10 minutes ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

I have no bleaching just slightly unhappy. Probably has to do with nutrients

They won't necessarily bleach overnight.....mine took a few weeks of "unhappy looking" and then went straight to RTN.  That even happened with plentiful nutrients. 

 

I didn't dig out my light meter when I made my light adjustment just because I was being lazy and thought I was making a small change. 

 

I should know better since it's not the first time for me -- it's the main reason I have a light meter 🙄 -- but not everyone knows.

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

14 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

This is the signal that you do not have enough snails.  Something to remember for next time.  👍

 

Remember that you'll want up to 2 turbo snails per gallon.

 

As long as you slowly (no more than a few at a time) add more snails when you see re-growth and stop adding more when you stop seeing re-growth, you'll hit the right number.

I never thought about that many turbos . I have two in here and it's 20 gallons... I guess it couldn't hurt to grab a couple more

 

16 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

Green algae growth should eventually be invisible....apparently replaced with coralline algae growth.  Green algae nubbins will still be growing everywhere (probably even on the coralline), just not large enough to see since the snails will be managing it.

 

My tank has crazy high nutrient levels, but no apparent green algae growth at all.  Tons of coralline though.

 

Funny enough thing that my snails all hide in the shade during the day so all of them have spotless-clean shells now....cleaner than when I got em.  They only come out when the lights are about 90% dim.

ahh makes sense. I have my algae blenny so I try and make sure he gets more than enough film algae. He is doing great... although he looks as if he should probably go on a diet lol. He's very plump. I guess it's better than the alternative lol.

 

18 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

They won't necessarily bleach overnight.....mine took a few weeks of "unhappy looking" and then went straight to RTN.  That even happened with plentiful nutrients. 

 

I didn't dig out my light meter when I made my light adjustment just because I was being lazy and thought I was making a small change. 

 

I should know better since it's not the first time for me -- it's the main reason I have a light meter 🙄 -- but not everyone knows.

Maybe messing with the light was the wrong direction . I haven't changed the spectrum at all prior to this. It's been the same since last year when I bought it. I just figured since i'm getting more into sps I could dial up the light a little bit and try and get some more color.

 

I think you asked about feeding, I feed my clown lrs food once a day. I feed reef roids maybe every other week when I remember. I do try and dose phyto everyday.. again that's if I remember. I have added pods twice.. different ones but I never see them, even after lights out. Not sure where they all went, I'd have to guess they are in there somewhere??

[mcarroll]

Pods tend to be cryptic when there are lots of predators....they might even grow to to a smaller size as a result, making them even harder to see than normal.

 

Unless something bad happens to the tank (e.g. massive temperature or salinity spike) they're definitely still in there.

 

You should be able to curtail the phyto dosing as you run your supply out....likewise for the broadcast coral feeding.

 

I'm guessing that if you feed both fish more or less daily, that should be enough.  Maybe even see how they (and the tank) respond to twice-daily feedings.

 

A link related to your blenny if not about the same species....more of a scavenger that also eats algae vs a real herbivore:  Aquarium Fish: Reconsidering the Molly Miller Blenny

 

Fish make the best coral feeders, BTW. 

 

They poop, they pee -- everything a coral loves!  It's a letter-P-festival for your corals every time your fish eat!  😄

 

In contrast, while they can do some good, broadcast feedings and phyto-dosing both result in a lot of waste compared to fish feeding....which may not kill the tank, but also isn't really a good use of resources.

[A.m.P]

One thing I will mention about the phyto dosing is that it can be a nice alternative to dosing straight-phosphates, since I started dosing it I've been able to dial-back and eventually-stop dosing P04 entirely - it's wasteful for sure but at least it indirectly-feeds some critters while still keeping corals happy eh?

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

21 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

Pods tend to be cryptic when there are lots of predators....they might even grow to to a smaller size as a result, making them even harder to see than normal.

 

Unless something bad happens to the tank (e.g. massive temperature or salinity spike) they're definitely still in there.

 

You should be able to curtail the phyto dosing as you run your supply out....likewise for the broadcast coral feeding.

 

I'm guessing that if you feed both fish more or less daily, that should be enough.  Maybe even see how they (and the tank) respond to twice-daily feedings.

 

A link related to your blenny if not about the same species....more of a scavenger that also eats algae vs a real herbivore:  Aquarium Fish: Reconsidering the Molly Miller Blenny

 

Fish make the best coral feeders, BTW. 

 

They poop, they pee -- everything a coral loves!  It's a letter-P-festival for your corals every time your fish eat!  😄

 

In contrast, while they can do some good, broadcast feedings and phyto-dosing both result in a lot of waste compared to fish feeding....which may not kill the tank, but also isn't really a good use of resources.

oh wow thanks for that insight. I just figured I should dose phyto for all the good reasons. I wonder if I should just limit it to once a week or once every few weeks?

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

8 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

One thing I will mention about the phyto dosing is that it can be a nice alternative to dosing straight-phosphates, since I started dosing it I've been able to dial-back and eventually-stop dosing P04 entirely - it's wasteful for sure but at least it indirectly-feeds some critters while still keeping corals happy eh?

I'm a believer of having nutrients for sure. Knock on wood out of all the things new people get ie: dinos, cyano I've never gotten it. Probably because I've always had nutrients and algae. The only nuisance thing is hair algae. Which I manageable. I wanted to share my experience with vibrant. I think I could help people out, but you have to take the time to do manual removal also. Is it a snake oil? I don't know, but I can tell you it's working like a charm in my little eco system.  

I haven't lost anything while using it also

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

45 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

Pods tend to be cryptic when there are lots of predators....they might even grow to to a smaller size as a result, making them even harder to see than normal.

 

Unless something bad happens to the tank (e.g. massive temperature or salinity spike) they're definitely still in there.

 

You should be able to curtail the phyto dosing as you run your supply out....likewise for the broadcast coral feeding.

 

I'm guessing that if you feed both fish more or less daily, that should be enough.  Maybe even see how they (and the tank) respond to twice-daily feedings.

 

A link related to your blenny if not about the same species....more of a scavenger that also eats algae vs a real herbivore:  Aquarium Fish: Reconsidering the Molly Miller Blenny

 

Fish make the best coral feeders, BTW. 

 

They poop, they pee -- everything a coral loves!  It's a letter-P-festival for your corals every time your fish eat!  😄

 

In contrast, while they can do some good, broadcast feedings and phyto-dosing both result in a lot of waste compared to fish feeding....which may not kill the tank, but also isn't really a good use of resources.

That is a great read! Thank you for sharing that with me

[mcarroll]

16 minutes ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

oh wow thanks for that insight. I just figured I should dose phyto for all the good reasons. I wonder if I should just limit it to once a week or once every few weeks?

I'd continue doing what you're doing until you run out.  I don't think spacing out doses would have any added benefit.

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

7 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

I'd continue doing what you're doing until you run out.  I don't think spacing out doses would have any added benefit.

So as I was reading that article, the thing that struck me was when the used the two cubicles. I have noticed since having my blenny, I see a lot less detritus on the bottom of the tank. I have a bare bottom so it's easy to see. He's also done a good job of cleaning up the glass. I think I have a few things working with me. Vibrant, more attention to cleaning and that blenny. Now I just have to get some test results and see why the corals are pissy at the moment.

 

Thanks for the conversation mccarroll. I like to spit ball ideas, especially since i'm pretty new still to saltwater.  

[Ratvan]

Ewwww reef talk in daves thread. 

 

How's the Gecko hunt?