Llorgon Posted October 25, 2022 Author Share Posted October 25, 2022 Last night I did a test dip of one of the euphyllia. I dipped it in h2o2 for 2 mins. Got rid of most algae, but not all so far. Before and after Quote Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted October 25, 2022 Share Posted October 25, 2022 If you find red flatworms on your euphyilla, dips will help but will not get rid of them completely since they are hidden in your rocks too. You have two choices: 1. Flatworm exit 2. Get a fish that will eat flatworms Quote Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted October 25, 2022 Share Posted October 25, 2022 Your tank is big enough. Throw in a tang or foxface and let it go to town. Since you have buble algae, foxface is recommended. Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted October 25, 2022 Author Share Posted October 25, 2022 36 minutes ago, ninjamyst said: If you find red flatworms on your euphyilla, dips will help but will not get rid of them completely since they are hidden in your rocks too. You have two choices: 1. Flatworm exit 2. Get a fish that will eat flatworms Ya, it's wishful thinking that they are only on some of the LPS. I haven't seen them off of them, but I'm sure they are there. I have been looking into getting a wrasse. 31 minutes ago, ninjamyst said: Your tank is big enough. Throw in a tang or foxface and let it go to town. Since you have buble algae, foxface is recommended. I have 2 tangs already, yellow and a kole. I think I am maxed out on them. Foxface might be a big big with 2 tangs Quote Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted October 25, 2022 Share Posted October 25, 2022 36 minutes ago, Llorgon said: Ya, it's wishful thinking that they are only on some of the LPS. I haven't seen them off of them, but I'm sure they are there. I have been looking into getting a wrasse. I have 2 tangs already, yellow and a kole. I think I am maxed out on them. Foxface might be a big big with 2 tangs I am surprised your tangs are not mowing down on the algae! Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted October 27, 2022 Author Share Posted October 27, 2022 On 10/25/2022 at 4:54 PM, ninjamyst said: I am surprised your tangs are not mowing down on the algae! Me too. I thought having 2 in the tank would help somewhat, but I never really see either of them picking at the rocks. Maybe I should stop with the daily nori.... Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted October 27, 2022 Author Share Posted October 27, 2022 I'm seeing good progress on getting the algae off the rocks and it doesn't seem to be growing back as fast and not growing back in some places. I haven't seen the turbo snail or emerald crab since the second day they where in the tank. I'm hoping they turn up soon. I've been checking every night to see if I can find them. The cerith, astrea and trochus all seem to be doing well and I see the hermits from time to time. I'll probably order some more next week. My 2 biggest issues right now seem to getting/keeping algae off the corals and trying to get my euphyllia happy again. The one euphyllia I did the 2 min h2o2 dip on is looking good algae wise, but still hasn't opened up. I'm wondering if part of the euphyllia problem is the low or seemingly low nutrients the tank has. They were 0 and 0.03ppm) when tested on Tuesday night. I have noticed a bit of an uptick in alk and calcium consumption so hopefully that's a sign things are turning around! Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted November 2, 2022 Author Share Posted November 2, 2022 While the tank is looking better than it was, the fact that corals aren't doing great and it still looks like crap is really getting to me. I did another water change over the weekend. I have been making sure to match the alk of the new water to the tank water. During the water change I vacuumed more of the sand and sucked out as much algae as I could. I also dipped all the euphyllia except the big one in h2o2 for 30s. Got rid of the algae, but mostly all the frags are still unhappy. This morning I noticed one head on my large euphyllia colony had completely died overnight. I missed 2 days of rock scrubbing as things got busy and I can see the algae has come back significantly. So I guess the daily scrubbing is still needed. I noticed one hermit has already killed on of the new astrea snails and is wearing it's shell even though I got a bunch of extra shells for them. I still haven't seen the emerald crab or turbo snail since they went in the tank. I assume the turbo snail has died. I found some tuxedo urchins, but I don't want to get one if, like the turbo won't eat the algae and have it die. I still haven't added the gyre to the tank, not sure where the best place for it would be. I could move the octopulses to the one side or the back wall and have the gyre on the side? As for positives with the tank, fish are doing well, I still have tons of little snails that come out at night. And my montipora has been getting it's colour coming back. I'm going to try and rent a par meter from the little LFS just so I can get an accurate reading and rule out any lighting issues. Other than that, I guess I stay the course and hope I don't lose all my euphyllia too... 1 Quote Link to comment
rimga123 Posted November 3, 2022 Share Posted November 3, 2022 I Have lost some torch and hammer coral due to having zero nitrates and zero phosphates in the system, which sucks, but at least in my case, with zero nutrients i havent had any algae issues, didint even have to scrape the glass for weeks! You could try to broadcast the hydrogen peroxide throughout the tank daily for a week instead of dipping. i think that its just and added stress to a already unhealthy corals. there are calculators online that would tell you how much to dose daily. conch snails did the best job at eating algae in my tank, way better than turbo snails or others, they also clean the sand bed too. so you could try them. but i have lost some of them to hermit crabs as well in the past, so maybe ti would be best to remove them to a sump or refugium if you have one? sorry, i haven't read the whole tread, but i hope that maybe i brought something new to the table on how to deal with you algae issue. Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted November 3, 2022 Author Share Posted November 3, 2022 6 hours ago, rimga123 said: I Have lost some torch and hammer coral due to having zero nitrates and zero phosphates in the system, which sucks, but at least in my case, with zero nutrients i havent had any algae issues, didint even have to scrape the glass for weeks! You could try to broadcast the hydrogen peroxide throughout the tank daily for a week instead of dipping. i think that its just and added stress to a already unhealthy corals. there are calculators online that would tell you how much to dose daily. conch snails did the best job at eating algae in my tank, way better than turbo snails or others, they also clean the sand bed too. so you could try them. but i have lost some of them to hermit crabs as well in the past, so maybe ti would be best to remove them to a sump or refugium if you have one? sorry, i haven't read the whole tread, but i hope that maybe i brought something new to the table on how to deal with you algae issue. I doubt my nutrients are truly zero since I still have algae growing, but ya, it's definitely contributing to my issues with the coral. Montipora hasn't looked better in months and euphyllia are slowly dying.... Although, when my nutrients were 5-10 and 0.1ppm they looked no better and the algae was hard to get off the rocks. I've tried the broadcast dosing h2o2 for 2 weeks. Didn't seem to do anything unfortunately. I have a fighting conch for the sand. I could try one that will roam around the tank more. I probably just need to buy a microscope and get a positive id on this algae... Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted November 6, 2022 Author Share Posted November 6, 2022 so here's something interesting. For the last few days I have been feeding some pellets in the morning and frozen at night. I crab a small pinch of pellets, hold them under the water and let the powerheads blow them around and the fish eat them. Since that is the only change recently, it would seem they make my skimmer go nuts! Like overflowing over the sides of the sump nuts. Even when set to the lowest it will go, it's still overflowing the skimmer cup within seconds. Looking back, whenever I would go on vacation this summer I setup an auto feeder to go off once a day and every time I came back the skimmer had overflowed a crazy amount. It was weird, but I assumed it was just from me being away for a week and it overflowed. Seems like it may be the pellets? I had to turn the skimmer off for the night, but it eventually has calmed down some. All corals are looking pretty rough today. I can see some tissue loss on 2 of the remaining SPS frags.... Even my wife noticed that all the corals looked really unhappy. I tried to get a par meter today, but it was already loaned out. They also didn't have a microscope to get a positive ID on the algae. I asked the guy about what he thinks it could be and he had no idea as well. His only suggestion he could give was restarting... 1 Quote Link to comment
mcarroll Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 On 11/2/2022 at 6:26 PM, Llorgon said: While the tank is looking better than it was, the fact that corals aren't doing great and it still looks like crap is really getting to me. Am I misremembering, or didn't we leave off together from another thread where you were adding cleanup crew to prevent this takeover?? Yikes! On 10/27/2022 at 7:21 PM, Llorgon said: I haven't seen the turbo snail or emerald crab since the second day they where in the tank. I'm hoping they turn up soon. I've been checking every night to see if I can find them. The cerith, astrea and trochus all seem to be doing well and I see the hermits from time to time. I'll probably order some more next week. What is your total CUC in numbers right now? Can you give a complete rundown with counts? Sounds like you only have one of each....if so, then you're about at the bottom of your tank's potential stocking level for herbivore snails. (I would leave your level of crabs where it is, or exchange them for more herbivore snails.) More details on this below... On 10/27/2022 at 7:21 PM, Llorgon said: My 2 biggest issues right now seem to getting/keeping algae off the corals and trying to get my euphyllia happy again. Keeping algae off the corals is your CUC's job. This makes me thing you need to at least double the CUC you have.....but fill us in on the exact count as requested above before you make any big changes. 👍 On 10/27/2022 at 7:21 PM, Llorgon said: The one euphyllia I did the 2 min h2o2 dip on is looking good algae wise, but still hasn't opened up. I'm wondering if part of the euphyllia problem is the low or seemingly low nutrients the tank has. They were 0 and 0.03ppm) when tested on Tuesday night. You definitely have to stop tweaking the corals on purpose....no gain in it. 1 step forward, 2 steps back. Looks a little better, but hurts the coral AND makes the "cleaned" surfaces even more ripe for new algae to bloom. Zero phosphate is your killer. This should be another main focus for you. If I didn't explain this before, I'll provide more details (and pic) below.... On 11/2/2022 at 6:26 PM, Llorgon said: While the tank is looking better than it was, the fact that corals aren't doing great and it still looks like crap is really getting to me. I did another water change over the weekend. I have been making sure to match the alk of the new water to the tank water. During the water change I vacuumed more of the sand and sucked out as much algae as I could. I also dipped all the euphyllia except the big one in h2o2 for 30s. Got rid of the algae, but mostly all the frags are still unhappy. This morning I noticed one head on my large euphyllia colony had completely died overnight. 😬👎 On 11/2/2022 at 6:26 PM, Llorgon said: I missed 2 days of rock scrubbing as things got busy and I can see the algae has come back significantly. So I guess the daily scrubbing is still needed. Nooooooooo! You don't want to be scrubbing – that generally causes algae to spread. On 11/2/2022 at 6:26 PM, Llorgon said: I noticed one hermit has already killed on of the new astrea snails and is wearing it's shell even though I got a bunch of extra shells for them. I still haven't seen the emerald crab or turbo snail since they went in the tank. I assume the turbo snail has died. I found some tuxedo urchins, but I don't want to get one if, like the turbo won't eat the algae and have it die. This is typical. I'd really suggest trading all/almost all of your hermits for more herbivore snails. You need to be a little more systematic about adding your new CUC....if I haven't gone over this before I will be elaborating more below... On 11/2/2022 at 6:26 PM, Llorgon said: I still haven't added the gyre to the tank, not sure where the best place for it would be. I could move the octopulses to the one side or the back wall and have the gyre on the side? I'm not sure I'd add a high-maintenance pump like that right now while the algae is kinda out of control....could mean yet another maintenance task when you're "dance card" is already full!! On 11/2/2022 at 6:26 PM, Llorgon said: I'm going to try and rent a par meter from the little LFS just so I can get an accurate reading and rule out any lighting issues. Use a lux meter app on your smartphone if you really have a question.....just post the results from measuring at the waterline (in air). If you post what you're using for lighting and how it's set up we can probably give you a good idea whether it's overkill or needs adjusting though. Please post! 👍 On 11/2/2022 at 6:26 PM, Llorgon said: I know that feels overwhelming to look at....but please trust me that it's recoverable! You have already demonstrated a lot of patience.....just need the right course to follow! On 11/3/2022 at 11:31 AM, Llorgon said: I doubt my nutrients are truly zero since I still have algae growing, but ya, it's definitely contributing to my issues with the coral. Unless you're doing the test wrong or your test kits are expired, you can trust the results....no mental gymnastics are needed. On 11/3/2022 at 11:31 AM, Llorgon said: I've tried the broadcast dosing h2o2 for 2 weeks. Didn't seem to do anything unfortunately. You really are feeling desperate – and I get it. Green algae is REALLY good at what it does!! Don't mess with the h2o2 anymore tho. 👍 On 11/3/2022 at 11:31 AM, Llorgon said: I have a fighting conch for the sand. I could try one that will roam around the tank more. I probably just need to buy a microscope and get a positive id on this algae... I would trade the conch for 2-4 smaller herbivore snails, like Astres, Trochus or Turbos. Your tank could probably use a solid team of Turbos right now, at least from the looks of it. (I don't see ANY cleanup crew in the photos. Can't be many in there!!!) On 11/6/2022 at 6:20 PM, Llorgon said: so here's something interesting. Sounds like the skimmer was just over-tuned. Conditions change over the course of the day/night....feedings are only one aspect. Set the skimmer's foam level down a few notches by whatever mechanism it has....air valve? Then, every day at the same time tune the skimmer UP based on the skimmate production from the prior day/overnight. Do not tune the skimmer based on current skimming performance. There's no one correct way, but my preference is to skim a lot of water so that the neck of the skimmer keeps clean without me having to wipe it down every few days. (There's no perfect, but I can get the neck to stay clean A LONG TIME...which keeps the skimmer from needing maintenance so often. Just have to empty the cup more and keep an eye on salinity.) On 11/3/2022 at 11:31 AM, Llorgon said: I doubt my nutrients are truly zero since I still have algae growing That's a mental trick on yourself. Don't do that. Just have to believe your own eyes. 🙂 Corals are struggling because of a lack of nutrients. Your algae (and everything else) are using up all dissolved nutrients. Your test has confirmed this is happening. No tricks! 🙂 So...what to do about your corals and algae? CORALS Phosphates are crucial to photosynthetic critters like corals. Analogy time: Coral photosynthesis is like an engine. Nitrogen (nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, urea, amino's, etc) is gasoline. Phosphorous is oil. If you run out of gas (no3 = 0) then the engine stops until you get more gas.....not really a big deal; no damage. But if you run out of oil (po4 = 0) and the gas tank is still full (no3 > 0), then you get an engine meltdown. The car is dead. </end analogy> See photo and article link at the bottom to see what effect this has on corals like yours. But first what you should be doing NOW. As much as it seems contrary due to the algae, you ABSOLUTELY NEED to start maintaining a positive level of PO4. Use something like Seachem Flourish Phosphate. Test and doses EVERY DAY as needed. In the short term and until corals have totally recovered, target ≥ 0.10 ppm PO4. Less may not do the trick given how long this problem has drug on and the current state of your corals. When you dose... The tank (corals, etc) might consume your initial dose within minutes, so re-test 30-60 minutes after you dose....and if the level is under your target, dose back up to 0.10 ppm again. (Re-test again too....a few folks have had to dose multiple rounds to establish their baseline, but it's not that common.) Check out this article: Phosphate deficiency promotes coral bleaching and is reflected by the ultrastructure of symbiotic dinoflagellates For the pic below (which is from the article – read it!), "N"=nitrate, "P"=phosphate, "L"=low, "H"=high. Note how unhealthy all the "LP" (low phosphate) corals look....right down to the cellular level. Massive damage. ALGAE Also, about the algae....you're going to have to remain pretty vigilant, as you have been. Try to work a little every day so it can't get ahead of you. BUT, with a better plan your tank should look consistently better from week to week and it should not backslide anymore. The key is manual removal, by hand. (Not by scraping. Not by chemicals.) Then back up your manual efforts with more CUC to keep those clean areas clean. Snails cannot eat algae that has grown big enough for you to grab. But each snail can also cover only a limited amount of tank surface area (they're slow but thorough!)...so there can also be too few snails to get the job done, even if none of the algae has grown too long yet. Algae growing long in the first place is your clue there – not enough snails! To clean an area where algae is already overgrown: Focus your cleaning efforts in a small 1x1" or 2x2" area. Use your fingers like tweezers to remove algae from the rocks. Work there until the area is TOTALLY CLEAN. Take a break after your 1x1" area if needed and do the next area tomorrow. Algae are persistent; do not work to exhaustion. As for HOW to pluck the algae, the best method IMO is illustrated here: The advice on snails is good too. But ignore other aspects of the vid....they will not apply to your tank. Sorry for the wall of text. Fire back with any questions!!! 1 Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 1 hour ago, mcarroll said: Am I misremembering, or didn't we leave off together from another thread where you were adding cleanup crew to prevent this takeover?? Yikes! What is your total CUC in numbers right now? Can you give a complete rundown with counts? Sounds like you only have one of each....if so, then you're about at the bottom of your tank's potential stocking level for herbivore snails. (I would leave your level of crabs where it is, or exchange them for more herbivore snails.) More details on this below... Keeping algae off the corals is your CUC's job. This makes me thing you need to at least double the CUC you have.....but fill us in on the exact count as requested above before you make any big changes. 👍 You definitely have to stop tweaking the corals on purpose....no gain in it. 1 step forward, 2 steps back. Looks a little better, but hurts the coral AND makes the "cleaned" surfaces even more ripe for new algae to bloom. Zero phosphate is your killer. This should be another main focus for you. If I didn't explain this before, I'll provide more details (and pic) below.... 😬👎 Nooooooooo! You don't want to be scrubbing – that generally causes algae to spread. This is typical. I'd really suggest trading all/almost all of your hermits for more herbivore snails. You need to be a little more systematic about adding your new CUC....if I haven't gone over this before I will be elaborating more below... I'm not sure I'd add a high-maintenance pump like that right now while the algae is kinda out of control....could mean yet another maintenance task when you're "dance card" is already full!! Use a lux meter app on your smartphone if you really have a question.....just post the results from measuring at the waterline (in air). If you post what you're using for lighting and how it's set up we can probably give you a good idea whether it's overkill or needs adjusting though. Please post! 👍 I know that feels overwhelming to look at....but please trust me that it's recoverable! You have already demonstrated a lot of patience.....just need the right course to follow! Unless you're doing the test wrong or your test kits are expired, you can trust the results....no mental gymnastics are needed. You really are feeling desperate – and I get it. Green algae is REALLY good at what it does!! Don't mess with the h2o2 anymore tho. 👍 I would trade the conch for 2-4 smaller herbivore snails, like Astres, Trochus or Turbos. Your tank could probably use a solid team of Turbos right now, at least from the looks of it. (I don't see ANY cleanup crew in the photos. Can't be many in there!!!) Sounds like the skimmer was just over-tuned. Conditions change over the course of the day/night....feedings are only one aspect. Set the skimmer's foam level down a few notches by whatever mechanism it has....air valve? Then, every day at the same time tune the skimmer UP based on the skimmate production from the prior day/overnight. Do not tune the skimmer based on current skimming performance. There's no one correct way, but my preference is to skim a lot of water so that the neck of the skimmer keeps clean without me having to wipe it down every few days. (There's no perfect, but I can get the neck to stay clean A LONG TIME...which keeps the skimmer from needing maintenance so often. Just have to empty the cup more and keep an eye on salinity.) That's a mental trick on yourself. Don't do that. Just have to believe your own eyes. 🙂 Corals are struggling because of a lack of nutrients. Your algae (and everything else) are using up all dissolved nutrients. Your test has confirmed this is happening. No tricks! 🙂 So...what to do about your corals and algae? CORALS Phosphates are crucial to photosynthetic critters like corals. Analogy time: Coral photosynthesis is like an engine. Nitrogen (nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, urea, amino's, etc) is gasoline. Phosphorous is oil. If you run out of gas (no3 = 0) then the engine stops until you get more gas.....not really a big deal; no damage. But if you run out of oil (po4 = 0) and the gas tank is still full (no3 > 0), then you get an engine meltdown. The car is dead. </end analogy> See photo and article link at the bottom to see what effect this has on corals like yours. But first what you should be doing NOW. As much as it seems contrary due to the algae, you ABSOLUTELY NEED to start maintaining a positive level of PO4. Use something like Seachem Flourish Phosphate. Test and doses EVERY DAY as needed. In the short term and until corals have totally recovered, target ≥ 0.10 ppm PO4. Less may not do the trick given how long this problem has drug on and the current state of your corals. When you dose... The tank (corals, etc) might consume your initial dose within minutes, so re-test 30-60 minutes after you dose....and if the level is under your target, dose back up to 0.10 ppm again. (Re-test again too....a few folks have had to dose multiple rounds to establish their baseline, but it's not that common.) Check out this article: Phosphate deficiency promotes coral bleaching and is reflected by the ultrastructure of symbiotic dinoflagellates For the pic below (which is from the article – read it!), "N"=nitrate, "P"=phosphate, "L"=low, "H"=high. Note how unhealthy all the "LP" (low phosphate) corals look....right down to the cellular level. Massive damage. ALGAE Also, about the algae....you're going to have to remain pretty vigilant, as you have been. Try to work a little every day so it can't get ahead of you. BUT, with a better plan your tank should look consistently better from week to week and it should not backslide anymore. The key is manual removal, by hand. (Not by scraping. Not by chemicals.) Then back up your manual efforts with more CUC to keep those clean areas clean. Snails cannot eat algae that has grown big enough for you to grab. But each snail can also cover only a limited amount of tank surface area (they're slow but thorough!)...so there can also be too few snails to get the job done, even if none of the algae has grown too long yet. Algae growing long in the first place is your clue there – not enough snails! To clean an area where algae is already overgrown: Focus your cleaning efforts in a small 1x1" or 2x2" area. Use your fingers like tweezers to remove algae from the rocks. Work there until the area is TOTALLY CLEAN. Take a break after your 1x1" area if needed and do the next area tomorrow. Algae are persistent; do not work to exhaustion. As for HOW to pluck the algae, the best method IMO is illustrated here: The advice on snails is good too. But ignore other aspects of the vid....they will not apply to your tank. Sorry for the wall of text. Fire back with any questions!!! Ok. Appreciate the post. A lot to go over here, so lets get started. The algae came before I started adding more CUC. Actually got like this during the summer when I was on vacation. I have been slowly adding CUC since then. Total CUC: Fighting conch 5x nassarius snails 5x hermit crabs, I think blue legged 1X emerald crab, not sure if it's still alive. Haven't seen it, but the bubble algae is there for it 10x cerith, Not sure at the exact number, but it's around this. 2x astrea 1x trochus unknown amount of little stomatella or some other small snail. I tried counting one night and stopped at 50. I tried a Mexican turbo a couple weeks ago and it died in 2 days. I also have 2 tangs in the tank who completely ignore the rocks. Trading cuc in isn't an option. The small LFs here doesn't take them. How many snails should I be aiming for here? I am still concerned this is lyngbya or I would pick up a tuxedo urchin. Lighting, was always a bit of a mystery for me. I have the seneye par meter, but it doesn't seem super accurate. For lights I have 2 radion G5 xr30 blues, set to AB+, intensity is 40%, light ramp up for an hour and come on fully at 10am and then start ramping down at 8pm. Phosphate was 0 last time I tested last week and I added some phosphate with the seachem phosphorus. It has mostly been hovering around 0.03ppm. I will admit, I am desperate. Things were going well, corals were growing, no algae issues then everything started dying and algae took over. It's demoralizing having no success in a hobby. The skimmer had been dialed in for awhile. I had it so I had to empty it every Sunday. This was very sudden and to the point where dialing it back all the way was still overflowing the cup in seconds. I had to turn it off and try again the next day. I tried the h2o2 as I saw it recommended in a few other posts. Can't say It did much. Dipping the corals really helped get stuff off that I couldn't get off by hand, but it's growing back as expected. I'm out of h2o2 so that's the end of that. I will admit, I haven't been great at sticking to a plan. For a month and a bit I was keeping nutrients high, 5-10ppm and 0.01ppm. Corals were still unhappy and I was making zero progress on getting the algae off the rocks it was anchored on so tight. I stopped dosing things to raise nutrients and just fed at night and it became easy to pull off, but nutrients were low... I've watched that video before! pulling the algae off the walls isn't too bad, but getting it out of crevices in the rocks, especially if it doesn't come off easy is pretty tough for big fingers. Any tips on that area? I found that I got to a point where I was able to pull much out by hand and went back to scrubbing. Which probably made things worse. Sounds like my main takeaways are Up nutrients and keep them up Leave corals alone - do I still try and remove the algae from the euphyllia? Pull as much out as I can by hand every day Add more CUC - Any numbers I should be aiming for here? 1 Quote Link to comment
mcarroll Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: Total CUC: Fighting conch 5x nassarius snails 5x hermit crabs, I think blue legged 1X emerald crab, not sure if it's still alive. Haven't seen it, but the bubble algae is there for it You can pretty well discount these guys as being any help...other than the hermits making sure dead snails don't add to the nutrient load. 😬 Tell me how much work you think the conch is honestly doing. 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: 10x cerith, Not sure at the exact number, but it's around this. 2x astrea 1x trochus unknown amount of little stomatella or some other small snail. I tried counting one night and stopped at 50. These are your dedicated herbivores in my book. And in light of the pics, this is effectively almost zero CUC. Will get to a recommendation below... 👍 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: I tried a Mexican turbo a couple weeks ago and it died in 2 days. Gotta try again. If it wasn't a bad batch (hopefully LFS will tell you) then you won't have bad luck twice. That said, if they have Trochus or Astrea, then maybe switch up to those for the next round. 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: I also have 2 tangs in the tank who completely ignore the rocks. They never seem to work out as part of the CUC.....I never recommend them as such. (Which tangs are they?) If they were only for algae control, is there any chance of re-homing them elsewhere so they aren't adding to the tank's bio-load? All good if you just want them to have them, of course....as long as they aren't overcrowded in the tank! It's only a 75 Gallon, right? 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: How many snails should I be aiming for here? I am still concerned this is lyngbya or I would pick up a tuxedo urchin. 6 or 8 new good-sized snails (Astrea, Trochus, Turbo, etc) would be a good first shot. Make sure you hit the tank pretty hard with manual cleaning (as suggested in the vid) before you bring them home. Depending how easy the LFS is to get to, you could easily work a few patches of algae like I mentioned and then go get a couple of big snails. Clear a couple more patches, bring home a couple more snails. Etc, till the algae is under snail control. 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: Lighting, was always a bit of a mystery for me. I will demystify as much as possible. 😉 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: I have the seneye par meter, but it doesn't seem super accurate. Possible you have a defect, but probably not. We'll check it out! 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: For lights I have 2 radion G5 xr30 blues, set to AB+, intensity is 40%, light ramp up for an hour and come on fully at 10am and then start ramping down at 8pm. That's a LOT of potential wattage for a little 4' tank. 215 watts X 2! 430 watts total!!! Assuming their intensity setting is linear with output for the sake of discussion, then you're probably laying down (430 x .4 = ) 172 watts over the tank. (Measure it at the wall with a KillAWatt if you can – this is a useful number.) I know you can dim the lights waaaay down, but I would honestly consider a lighting swap just to get some of the money back out of the lights – you'll never make use of that power and those lights are $$$$$. A "little" pair of XR15's (or anything in that power class) would totally kill on this tank....still more than enough power. (I've only got 270 watts over my 125 Gallon, and that tank has a lot more surface AND depth to light than your 75. 👍 XR30's on this tank is like rabbit hunting with a bazooka. Post up some lux numbers from that Seneye. Compare with some lux meter app numbers if you want. Either way, we'll know if the numbers you post make sense or not based on your lighting setup. 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: Phosphate was 0 last time I tested last week and I added some phosphate with the seachem phosphorus. It has mostly been hovering around 0.03ppm. You can get firm about this RIGHT NOW. 😉 Seriously. Dose phosphates with the same vigor as you'd dose alkalinity. Target that level I mentioned (≥0.10 ppm) and keep it nailed there until all your corals are better and looking great. (Even then don't let it slide back to zero.) 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: I will admit, I am desperate. Things were going well, corals were growing, no algae issues then everything started dying and algae took over. It's demoralizing having no success in a hobby. No idea what caused the tide to turn? (pardon the analogy!) Sometimes we're a victim of our own success with corals because (like algae) they take things out of the water as they grow...but unlike algae, a lot of what they take (alk) alters the chemistry of the water. So in a way, if we aren't careful, corals can be the source of their own demise. Algae would move in to capitalize on the available nutrients, and newly open skeleton from the die off, and almost total lack of cleanup crew to keep the algae from growing and spreading. I totally get the feeling – been there myself. Don't remain desperate tho! You aren't the first to go down that road. There's a way to get back! 🙂 One thing to consider, and maybe you have already....the tank LOOKS much worse than it actually is. If you get the PO4 dosing locked down AND DO NOTHING ELSE, your corals will improve AND be mostly happy growing along with your algae. Except when the corals are actively being overgrown (which only happens without CUC present) algae isn't harmful, or even a bad sign. Corals and green algae like exactly the same conditions, more or less....so green algae is actually a sign that your tank WANTS to grow corals! As in nature, the difference between an area growing coral vs growing algae is the cleanup crew....the herbivores, to be specific. For us, that means herbivore snails. (we don't have nearly the options a wild reef would, so we maximize what we have) 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: The skimmer had been dialed in for awhile. I had it so I had to empty it every Sunday. This was very sudden and to the point where dialing it back all the way was still overflowing the cup in seconds. I had to turn it off and try again the next day. Interesting that it suddenly changed like that....could be consistent with die-off it the timing seemed right with what you were seeing on the corals (or algae). I forget if you already said this, but is the skimmer still doing the same thing, or did it eventually calm down? You should still be able to re-tune the skimmer as described to account for this new pattern just to avoid any flooding. 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: I tried the h2o2 as I saw it recommended in a few other posts. Can't say It did much. Dipping the corals really helped get stuff off that I couldn't get off by hand, but it's growing back as expected. I'm out of h2o2 so that's the end of that. That's one of those solutions that should have died. Here's the thing: H2O2 has been proven in studies to kill algae. Here's the other thing: They tested it in a lab, not in a reef tank. It has never worked in a reef tank. But that second part never gets remembered on the internet as well as the "miracle cure" in the first part. 🤷♂️ 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: I will admit, I haven't been great at sticking to a plan. For a month and a bit I was keeping nutrients high, 5-10ppm and 0.01ppm. Corals were still unhappy and I was making zero progress on getting the algae off the rocks it was anchored on so tight. I stopped dosing things to raise nutrients and just fed at night and it became easy to pull off, but nutrients were low... You were upside down on the oil / gas situation in my analogy. You were keeping the gas tank full (no3>5) but leaving the oil tank with just a smear of oil in it (po4 0.01 ppm) – not even enough to lube the oil tank, let alone lube the whole engine! Manipulating dissolved nutrient levels by extra- or over-feeding isn't usually a great solution...algae tend to like that more than corals do. YMMV if NONE of the extra food is going to waste and it's ALL getting eaten. The best options is to go with dosing discreet nutrients (eg Flourish phosphates and Flourish nitrate) and be rigorous about those target levels I suggested! This puts you in the position with the most control possible. 👍 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: I've watched that video before! pulling the algae off the walls isn't too bad, but getting it out of crevices in the rocks, especially if it doesn't come off easy is pretty tough for big fingers. Any tips on that area? I found that I got to a point where I was able to pull much out by hand and went back to scrubbing. Which probably made things worse. You didn't have a whole strategy was the main problem. Same effort, better applied, an you'll with war. 👍 When you get it down to a point where the rocks and glass are 100% maintained by snails, you might find that the Tangs take care of the crevices. You might have to restrict how you feed the tank for a little while to encourage them. You CAN use tweezers to get into the crevices a little better. Make sure you worry about these "less accessible" spaces LAST though. Make sure the rest of the tank is CLEAN and GUARDED BY NEW SNAILS first. 4 hours ago, Llorgon said: Sounds like my main takeaways are Up nutrients and keep them up Leave corals alone - do I still try and remove the algae from the euphyllia? Pull as much out as I can by hand every day Add more CUC - Any numbers I should be aiming for here? Yeah, do your best to remove ALL the algae from the tank by hand...even on the coral skeletons. But be as gentle as necessary so no skeletons get cracked or broken in the process. Remember to work in SMALL areas so it's as easy as possible for you to focus and to get that zone COMPLETELY CLEAN. 1 Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted November 8, 2022 Author Share Posted November 8, 2022 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: You can pretty well discount these guys as being any help...other than the hermits making sure dead snails don't add to the nutrient load. 😬 Tell me how much work you think the conch is honestly doing. I'm sure the conch isn't hurting things, I originally got it since my sand was going green and it has helped with that... at least until recently. 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: These are your dedicated herbivores in my book. And in light of the pics, this is effectively almost zero CUC. Will get to a recommendation below... 👍 Gotta try again. If it wasn't a bad batch (hopefully LFS will tell you) then you won't have bad luck twice. I order all my CUC online, since the tiny LFS rarely has any in stock. I will try another one and see how that goes. Hopefully it lasts a bit longer. 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: That said, if they have Trochus or Astrea, then maybe switch up to those for the next round. Most of the time these are available. I can definitely order a few more. Is it better to get them all at once or slowly add them over a few weeks? 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: They never seem to work out as part of the CUC.....I never recommend them as such. (Which tangs are they?) 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: If they were only for algae control, is there any chance of re-homing them elsewhere so they aren't adding to the tank's bio-load? All good if you just want them to have them, of course....as long as they aren't overcrowded in the tank! It's only a 75 Gallon, right? Yellow tang and a yellow eye kole tang. I don't have a ton of fish, so I don't think it's too much bioload. I have the tangs, 2 clowns and a long nose hawkfish. 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: 6 or 8 new good-sized snails (Astrea, Trochus, Turbo, etc) would be a good first shot. Make sure you hit the tank pretty hard with manual cleaning (as suggested in the vid) before you bring them home. Depending how easy the LFS is to get to, you could easily work a few patches of algae like I mentioned and then go get a couple of big snails. Clear a couple more patches, bring home a couple more snails. Etc, till the algae is under snail control. Understood. I have to order all CUC so it's either all at once or week by week. 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: I will demystify as much as possible. 😉 Possible you have a defect, but probably not. We'll check it out! That's a LOT of potential wattage for a little 4' tank. 215 watts X 2! 430 watts total!!! Assuming their intensity setting is linear with output for the sake of discussion, then you're probably laying down (430 x .4 = ) 172 watts over the tank. (Measure it at the wall with a KillAWatt if you can – this is a useful number.) I know you can dim the lights waaaay down, but I would honestly consider a lighting swap just to get some of the money back out of the lights – you'll never make use of that power and those lights are $$$$$. A "little" pair of XR15's (or anything in that power class) would totally kill on this tank....still more than enough power. (I've only got 270 watts over my 125 Gallon, and that tank has a lot more surface AND depth to light than your 75. 👍 XR30's on this tank is like rabbit hunting with a bazooka. Post up some lux numbers from that Seneye. Compare with some lux meter app numbers if you want. Either way, we'll know if the numbers you post make sense or not based on your lighting setup. Ok. When I check for Lux, powerheads on or off, does it matter. And yes, lights might be a bit overkill, but I did some side work and had the money so I figured why not. 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: You can get firm about this RIGHT NOW. 😉 Seriously. Dose phosphates with the same vigor as you'd dose alkalinity. Target that level I mentioned (≥0.10 ppm) and keep it nailed there until all your corals are better and looking great. (Even then don't let it slide back to zero.) This I can do. And my alkalinity uptake these days is pretty much zero 😞 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: No idea what caused the tide to turn? (pardon the analogy!) That has been the big mystery. From January to end of June, everything was happy and growing. Colours were never great in the SPS, but there was growth. Then my 2 fastest growing SPS, the elkhorn and forest fire were looking pale so I did a water change. Had dinner, walked the dog and when I came home 2 SPS frags had RTN'd. It just continued on from there. some would RTN others STN. I went from no pest algae to what the tank is now over a week when I was on vacation. I've done ICP tests and checked literally everything. 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: Sometimes we're a victim of our own success with corals because (like algae) they take things out of the water as they grow...but unlike algae, a lot of what they take (alk) alters the chemistry of the water. So in a way, if we aren't careful, corals can be the source of their own demise. Algae would move in to capitalize on the available nutrients, and newly open skeleton from the die off, and almost total lack of cleanup crew to keep the algae from growing and spreading. I totally get the feeling – been there myself. Don't remain desperate tho! You aren't the first to go down that road. There's a way to get back! 🙂 When everything was going well, I was doing weekly water changes... maybe that wasn't the way to go. Hopefully the tank can come back... it would be nice to have some success. 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: One thing to consider, and maybe you have already....the tank LOOKS much worse than it actually is. If you get the PO4 dosing locked down AND DO NOTHING ELSE, your corals will improve AND be mostly happy growing along with your algae. Except when the corals are actively being overgrown (which only happens without CUC present) algae isn't harmful, or even a bad sign. Corals and green algae like exactly the same conditions, more or less....so green algae is actually a sign that your tank WANTS to grow corals! As in nature, the difference between an area growing coral vs growing algae is the cleanup crew....the herbivores, to be specific. For us, that means herbivore snails. (we don't have nearly the options a wild reef would, so we maximize what we have) Right now, I am in the corals being overgrown stage and I feel like my constant picking corals up, picking algae off and Putting them down also isn't helping. 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: Interesting that it suddenly changed like that....could be consistent with die-off it the timing seemed right with what you were seeing on the corals (or algae). I forget if you already said this, but is the skimmer still doing the same thing, or did it eventually calm down? You should still be able to re-tune the skimmer as described to account for this new pattern just to avoid any flooding. Yes, very strange. I had to shut it off for the night then the next day I was able to re-tune it again and I had to adjust it one more time a couple days later to get it back to where it was. I saw this every time I went on vacation this year. I came back to the skimmer overflowing and a bunch of water in the bottom of my stand. 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: That's one of those solutions that should have died. Here's the thing: H2O2 has been proven in studies to kill algae. Here's the other thing: They tested it in a lab, not in a reef tank. It has never worked in a reef tank. But that second part never gets remembered on the internet as well as the "miracle cure" in the first part. 🤷♂️ You were upside down on the oil / gas situation in my analogy. You were keeping the gas tank full (no3>5) but leaving the oil tank with just a smear of oil in it (po4 0.01 ppm) – not even enough to lube the oil tank, let alone lube the whole engine! Manipulating dissolved nutrient levels by extra- or over-feeding isn't usually a great solution...algae tend to like that more than corals do. YMMV if NONE of the extra food is going to waste and it's ALL getting eaten. The best options is to go with dosing discreet nutrients (eg Flourish phosphates and Flourish nitrate) and be rigorous about those target levels I suggested! This puts you in the position with the most control possible. 👍 You didn't have a whole strategy was the main problem. Same effort, better applied, an you'll with war. 👍 Sorry, that was a typo. Should have said 5-10ppm and 0.1ppm. Either way, I'll work at getting back to those numbers and maybe set them on a doser if I am getting consistent uptake. 9 hours ago, mcarroll said: When you get it down to a point where the rocks and glass are 100% maintained by snails, you might find that the Tangs take care of the crevices. You might have to restrict how you feed the tank for a little while to encourage them. You CAN use tweezers to get into the crevices a little better. Make sure you worry about these "less accessible" spaces LAST though. Make sure the rest of the tank is CLEAN and GUARDED BY NEW SNAILS first. Yeah, do your best to remove ALL the algae from the tank by hand...even on the coral skeletons. But be as gentle as necessary so no skeletons get cracked or broken in the process. Remember to work in SMALL areas so it's as easy as possible for you to focus and to get that zone COMPLETELY CLEAN. ok. I will do a water test tonight and send out an order for some more snails. What are your thoughts on tuxedo urchin. I was looking into getting one as well. 1 Quote Link to comment
mcarroll Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 43 minutes ago, Llorgon said: I'm sure the conch isn't hurting things, I originally got it since my sand was going green and it has helped with that... at least until recently. That seems like faint praise, if you know what I mean. I've never seen them do much myself either....but you hear about them being good from online sometimes. He'd be on my give away/trade list for sure. A similarly sized Turbo would be a better worker. (Not recommending that, even if you could find a super-sized Turbo like mine for sale. Smaller is better. Let them grow up in your tank. 👍) 43 minutes ago, Llorgon said: I order all my CUC online, since the tiny LFS rarely has any in stock. I will try another one and see how that goes. Hopefully it lasts a bit longer. That seems strange the LFS doesn't stock them....do they take requests? Maybe if they know you want 6 Turbos (vs just one) they'll order some? 43 minutes ago, Llorgon said: Most of the time these are available. I can definitely order a few more. Is it better to get them all at once or slowly add them over a few weeks? For this first time, I would add them all at once. After this, I would add no more than 2-3 at a time, depending on the size of snail we're talking about. 43 minutes ago, Llorgon said: Yellow tang and a yellow eye kole tang. I don't have a ton of fish, so I don't think it's too much bioload. I have the tangs, 2 clowns and a long nose hawkfish. Well....it's not just about number of fish or bio-load, although those are also factors that need to be under consideration. I think the Yellow Eye is marginal, but a better fit for such a small tank – and this is more about personality than other factors. The Yellow Tang should probably get a 6' long tank as a minimum....doesnt have to be gigantic, but the available swimming space in a 75 Gallon, when there's also a reef growing, is just so minimal. It's only 6 square feet of swimming area.....vs 9 square feet for a 125 Gallon, for example. The disparity is even more dramatic when you consider cubic feet. So, do I want you to get rid of him? No, I want you to make space for a 6' tank....they're only $800 at Petsmart!! Upgrade sometime in the next year. The sooner the better, of course. 👍 43 minutes ago, Llorgon said: Understood. I have to order all CUC so it's either all at once or week by week. That really not an OK way to proceed after this first addition. If you overshoot on herbivores, then you wind up causing a wave of snail die-offs as they starve each other out until the population stabilizes. Not ideal....can even cause more algae blooms. Being able to add snails in small amounts is sorta crucial. Start with this first batch of 6 or 8 or whatever, and maybe we'll be lucky and it'll be exactly the right amount of snails! 🙂 43 minutes ago, Llorgon said: Ok. When I check for Lux, powerheads on or off, does it matter. And yes, lights might be a bit overkill, but I did some side work and had the money so I figured why not. If you're doing the measurement at the water surface, then pump status doesn't matter. IMO if you're measuring underwater for other purposes, then you still want the flow on. I think you want to see the same conditions that the corals are seeing....which includes all the variations in lighting that are induced by flow. 43 minutes ago, Llorgon said: That has been the big mystery. From January to end of June, everything was happy and growing. Colours were never great in the SPS, but there was growth. Then my 2 fastest growing SPS, the elkhorn and forest fire were looking pale so I did a water change. Had dinner, walked the dog and when I came home 2 SPS frags had RTN'd. It just continued on from there. some would RTN others STN. I went from no pest algae to what the tank is now over a week when I was on vacation. Did you happen to be actively monitoring PO4 levels during this time? What you're describing could be a number of things, but one of them is fairly common, and that's PO4 being driven to zero. If inputs (eg fish food) are low, then even just the reef growing in can present enough demand to drive dissolved levels to zero. If there are other factors (eg water changes, GFO, carbon dosing, etc) driving it down as well, then a zero-state becomes more likely and possibly more severe impact if it happens. 43 minutes ago, Llorgon said: I've done ICP tests and checked literally everything. Sounds like you ruled out most other possibilities if you went as far as ICP testing and didn't find anything. Unfortunately, low PO4 will usually go unnoticed by these services...either it's not tested, or ≤0.03 ppm is their trigger limit....so you end up with an "All Good" in the po4 column. Here's how the algae mange without that po4: They have roots, and aragonite works exactly like GFO to bind phosphates from the water. So even after the water is depleted, there's a supply on the rocks and sand that algae can use. (It's possible for those soures to be exhausted as well....that's when dino's usually make their presence felt. ☠️) 43 minutes ago, Llorgon said: ok. I will do a water test tonight and send out an order for some more snails. What are your thoughts on tuxedo urchin. I was looking into getting one as well. If you want an urchin because you really want an urchin, then read up on them.....and if you agree to the ups and downs of having one, then go for it. However, I really like herbivorous snails when problem solving for algae like this. They work. 🙂 Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted November 9, 2022 Author Share Posted November 9, 2022 16 hours ago, mcarroll said: That seems like faint praise, if you know what I mean. I've never seen them do much myself either....but you hear about them being good from online sometimes. He'd be on my give away/trade list for sure. A similarly sized Turbo would be a better worker. (Not recommending that, even if you could find a super-sized Turbo like mine for sale. Smaller is better. Let them grow up in your tank. 👍) That seems strange the LFS doesn't stock them....do they take requests? Maybe if they know you want 6 Turbos (vs just one) they'll order some? For this first time, I would add them all at once. Ya, I heard good things about them, but I can't say I notice a huge difference. The LFS here is a guy with a little shop in his garage. He brings stuff in, but it gets picked over pretty quick... The joys of living in a small town. I usually order livestock from a place 4 hrs away and they ship next day. It is getting cold now so I will have to watch the weather. He does take requests for fish, but cuc is first come first serve. I tried getting snails from there for months then gave up. It's easier to order online and have it shipped. I can just order 6-8 snails from the usual place I get livestock from. 16 hours ago, mcarroll said: After this, I would add no more than 2-3 at a time, depending on the size of snail we're talking about. Well....it's not just about number of fish or bio-load, although those are also factors that need to be under consideration. I think the Yellow Eye is marginal, but a better fit for such a small tank – and this is more about personality than other factors. The Yellow Tang should probably get a 6' long tank as a minimum....doesnt have to be gigantic, but the available swimming space in a 75 Gallon, when there's also a reef growing, is just so minimal. It's only 6 square feet of swimming area.....vs 9 square feet for a 125 Gallon, for example. The disparity is even more dramatic when you consider cubic feet. So, do I want you to get rid of him? No, I want you to make space for a 6' tank....they're only $800 at Petsmart!! Upgrade sometime in the next year. The sooner the better, of course. 👍 Unfortunately there is no room for a bigger tank... At least until I can buy a bigger place. Fingers crossed detached house prices drop and townhouses stay the same! 16 hours ago, mcarroll said: That really not an OK way to proceed after this first addition. If you overshoot on herbivores, then you wind up causing a wave of snail die-offs as they starve each other out until the population stabilizes. Not ideal....can even cause more algae blooms. Being able to add snails in small amounts is sorta crucial. Start with this first batch of 6 or 8 or whatever, and maybe we'll be lucky and it'll be exactly the right amount of snails! 🙂 I can order large or small amounts of cuc. It's just not something I can go to the LFS to get. 16 hours ago, mcarroll said: If you're doing the measurement at the water surface, then pump status doesn't matter. IMO if you're measuring underwater for other purposes, then you still want the flow on. I think you want to see the same conditions that the corals are seeing....which includes all the variations in lighting that are induced by flow. Ok. I will give that a try this weekend and see what sort of values I get. 16 hours ago, mcarroll said: Did you happen to be actively monitoring PO4 levels during this time? What you're describing could be a number of things, but one of them is fairly common, and that's PO4 being driven to zero. If inputs (eg fish food) are low, then even just the reef growing in can present enough demand to drive dissolved levels to zero. If there are other factors (eg water changes, GFO, carbon dosing, etc) driving it down as well, then a zero-state becomes more likely and possibly more severe impact if it happens. I was. It would fluctuate quite a bit week to week with the lowest being 0.03 and highest 0.26 during the time everything was dying. Nitrate was always pretty low. It would measure 0-2ppm. 16 hours ago, mcarroll said: Sounds like you ruled out most other possibilities if you went as far as ICP testing and didn't find anything. Unfortunately, low PO4 will usually go unnoticed by these services...either it's not tested, or ≤0.03 ppm is their trigger limit....so you end up with an "All Good" in the po4 column. Here's how the algae mange without that po4: They have roots, and aragonite works exactly like GFO to bind phosphates from the water. So even after the water is depleted, there's a supply on the rocks and sand that algae can use. (It's possible for those soures to be exhausted as well....that's when dino's usually make their presence felt. ☠️) I've had dinos before in a previous iteration of this tank... I don't want that again. Maybe this tank is just unlucky. Every time I start it up, something goes wrong. 16 hours ago, mcarroll said: If you want an urchin because you really want an urchin, then read up on them.....and if you agree to the ups and downs of having one, then go for it. However, I really like herbivorous snails when problem solving for algae like this. They work. 🙂 I keep hearing that urchins are great for algae control. They do eat coraline and move things around, which isn't great though. I worked on pulling more algae out of the tank last night. I am seeing more and more bubble algae once I start to clear out all the long strands of whatever the other stuff is. I tested my water last night. Nitrate was still at 0, but phosphate has gone up to 0.05ppm. I dosed some of each and I will test again tonight. 1 Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted November 9, 2022 Author Share Posted November 9, 2022 I took some photos last night. I tried to get a full tank shot with mostly white light and then a shot of the rock I was working on pulling algae off of. As you can see, lots of bubble algae underneath. I guess I will need to pull that off as well. For snails, where I order them from has cerith, astrea, trochus(on sale!) And Mexican turbos snails available along with a bunch of other types. I will put in an order for a mix of 8. 1 Quote Link to comment
mcarroll Posted November 9, 2022 Share Posted November 9, 2022 1 hour ago, Llorgon said: I worked on pulling more algae out of the tank last night. I am seeing more and more bubble algae once I start to clear out all the long strands of whatever the other stuff is. Without an active biological layer (aka periphyton) on the rock (due to the scrubbing, et al) there has repeatedly been room for new algae spores to settle and grow without resistance or competition. You're seeing some of the generations of that happening with the "dual algae bloom". 1 hour ago, Llorgon said: I tested my water last night. Nitrate was still at 0, but phosphate has gone up to 0.05ppm. I dosed some of each and I will test again tonight. Sounds like progress! You should probably be more aggressive about it though....this is not the time to be meek. If you're finding that N and P levels have gone to zero again (like this) after you have previously dosed N:≥5ppm and P:≥0.10 ppm, then you either need to dose to higher target levels, or dose more frequently. There would be nothing wrong with targeting 10 ppm NO3 and 0.20 ppm PO3. It's brutal for the organisms that are trying to recover in your tank for dissolved nutrients to repeatedly become inaccessible. Stability in this aspect of things is very important right now. All of the factors that can give your algae competition at the substrate level need LOTS of dissolved nutrients (N, P, et al) to grow and cover your rocks. These are things that can keep algae spores from rooting and growing in the first place. UV and Micron Filtration I forget if I said this before, but given the extent of things, I think adding a UV filter inside the tank until this is all over with would be smart. A micron filter can have a similar effect. UV and micron even work well together if you want to take care of this the way you took care of your lighting. I.e. With a bazooka. 😉 Strong filtration such as this would make it much harder/slower for any algae to spread (or anything that spreads through the water, such as parasites)....along with your other efforts, the spread of algae could cease altogether. Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted November 9, 2022 Author Share Posted November 9, 2022 1 hour ago, mcarroll said: Without an active biological layer (aka periphyton) on the rock (due to the scrubbing, et al) there has repeatedly been room for new algae spores to settle and grow without resistance or competition. You're seeing some of the generations of that happening with the "dual algae bloom". Since my next battle seems to be bubble algae, does that change the cuc I get or should I remove as much of any algae as I can from the rocks and put in the 8 snails? 1 hour ago, mcarroll said: Sounds like progress! You should probably be more aggressive about it though....this is not the time to be meek. If you're finding that N and P levels have gone to zero again (like this) after you have previously dosed N:≥5ppm and P:≥0.10 ppm, then you either need to dose to higher target levels, or dose more frequently. There would be nothing wrong with targeting 10 ppm NO3 and 0.20 ppm PO3. It's brutal for the organisms that are trying to recover in your tank for dissolved nutrients to repeatedly become inaccessible. Stability in this aspect of things is very important right now. All of the factors that can give your algae competition at the substrate level need LOTS of dissolved nutrients (N, P, et al) to grow and cover your rocks. These are things that can keep algae spores from rooting and growing in the first place. Ok. I did another dose this afternoon, I'll test tonight and get up to the 5-10ppm Nitrate and 0.1ppm Phosphate and then see what my daily consumption is. That should make things a bit easier to keep stable if I know what the uptake is. 1 hour ago, mcarroll said: UV and Micron Filtration I forget if I said this before, but given the extent of things, I think adding a UV filter inside the tank until this is all over with would be smart. A micron filter can have a similar effect. UV and micron even work well together if you want to take care of this the way you took care of your lighting. I.e. With a bazooka. 😉 Strong filtration such as this would make it much harder/slower for any algae to spread (or anything that spreads through the water, such as parasites)....along with your other efforts, the spread of algae could cease altogether. I tried one of those in tank UV filters when I had dinos. Definitely helped...until it stopped working. I'll look into those! What sort of micro filter? just a 100 micro filter sock? I have been using filter floss since it's easier to cut them up and replace them each day when they get plugged up. Quote Link to comment
mcarroll Posted November 10, 2022 Share Posted November 10, 2022 3 hours ago, Llorgon said: Since my next battle seems to be bubble algae, does that change the cuc I get or should I remove as much of any algae as I can from the rocks and put in the 8 snails? Same strategy. As strange as bubble algae looks, it is very similar to hair algae in terms of control. The biggest difference is in how your can grab a strand of hair algae, but you kinda have to pick at bubble algae. Working in small 1x1" or 2x2" squares until the space is 100% clean will be even more important as a part of your strategy tho. 3 hours ago, Llorgon said: What sort of micro filter? just a 100 micro filter sock? No, anything under 25-50µ or so is going to help. Above that micron rating and won't really be able to filter out spores/propagules. Like the UV filter, you'll also want the micron filter in the display tank for maximum effect. Consider the Marineland Polishing Filter...or if you can find one, a classic Vortex XL....or really any kind of diatom filter you can get your hands on. (You don't have to run it with diatom powder unless you want sub-micron filtration.....which you might, but it is a little extra work. 3 hours ago, Llorgon said: I have been using filter floss since it's easier to cut them up and replace them each day when they get plugged up. Hm....is that currently happening...floss clogging up daily? I don't like that.....what's clogging it up? Algae? Is the filter compartment in the dark or is it by chance getting any reef light? Quote Link to comment
Llorgon Posted November 10, 2022 Author Share Posted November 10, 2022 2 hours ago, mcarroll said: Same strategy. As strange as bubble algae looks, it is very similar to hair algae in terms of control. The biggest difference is in how your can grab a strand of hair algae, but you kinda have to pick at bubble algae. Working in small 1x1" or 2x2" squares until the space is 100% clean will be even more important as a part of your strategy tho. Cool. I'll have to pick up some tweezers. My short nails make it really hard to pick the smaller bubbles off. I pulled some more off tonight. Hopefully I'll slowly make a dent in it. 2 hours ago, mcarroll said: No, anything under 25-50µ or so is going to help. Above that micron rating and won't really be able to filter out spores/propagules. Like the UV filter, you'll also want the micron filter in the display tank for maximum effect. Consider the Marineland Polishing Filter...or if you can find one, a classic Vortex XL....or really any kind of diatom filter you can get your hands on. (You don't have to run it with diatom powder unless you want sub-micron filtration.....which you might, but it is a little extra work. Ok. I will look those up and see what I can get. 2 hours ago, mcarroll said: Hm....is that currently happening...floss clogging up daily? I don't like that.....what's clogging it up? Algae? Is the filter compartment in the dark or is it by chance getting any reef light? Yep. Been clogging up for quite awhile. I assumed it was from the daily scrubbing, picking and turkey basting. But it happens even if I just pull stuff off manually. No light would be coming into the sump from the display lights. Might be some from the refugium light at night though. Tested my water tonight. And I way overshot on the nutrients. Nitrate 9.6ppm and phosphate 0.47 I'll test again tomorrow night and see what the difference is and adjust accordingly. Quote Link to comment
mcarroll Posted November 10, 2022 Share Posted November 10, 2022 2 hours ago, Llorgon said: Might be some from the refugium light at night though. First I've heard of the refugium. Right now it's competing pretty hard with the display for nutrients. I would consider shutting down the refugium until this is over with. At least kill the lights. You might find that your nutrient levels balance on their own after the refugium is offline. Refugiums are interesting, but they really shouldn't be on new aquariums IMO. They cause problems for new tanks like this ALL THE TIME. 2 hours ago, Llorgon said: Tested my water tonight. And I way overshot on the nutrients. Nitrate 9.6ppm and phosphate 0.47 That's perfect. Over shooting is not a problem at all. If you didn't hear it, your corals let out a collective "Aaaaaah!" when you dumped that dose in the tank. 😉 Just continue testing regularly and mind those lower limits. (Keep trying to track daily consumption as you mentioned before.) 2 hours ago, Llorgon said: Holy cow – that's every day? And it's NOT from your cleaning algae and letting it go down the drain??? I'd be interested to see a sample of that under a microscope. Any chance you can post some lux measurements of your display lighting? 1 Quote Link to comment
mcarroll Posted November 10, 2022 Share Posted November 10, 2022 What happens if you just don't run a filter pad at all for a day? ...can you try it? Quote Link to comment
rimga123 Posted November 10, 2022 Share Posted November 10, 2022 It seems like you have been battling low nutrient levels and some sort of algae through ought you whole journey with this tank. this suck and can be very demotivating to keep going. But a lot of good advice here. @mcarroll Knows what he is talking about. very clear and constructive criticism, I'll want him to evaluate my tank while i eventually (hopefully this weekend) update my tank journal lol. Are you still running your radions on 100% intensity? Might be good idea to reduce that significantly. There is a correlation to how intense your light can be to you nutrient levels. I would also bin the refugium and keep the skimmer aerating the water instead of skimming anything and with the new clean up crew it should you should be on the way to recovery. Like @mcarroll said, dont be afraid to dose heavy, something is taking everything they can get and they are still hungry. I absolutely love your hammer coral, it would be a shame to if they died. I lost a couple of my hammers and torches to low nutrients. 1 Quote Link to comment
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