At a loss battling every kind of algae and aptasia

[DudE31]

Hey Everyone,

I recently got involved in helping someone with a 180 gallon reef that they have. Some basic background on the tank involves some neglect and an unfortunate series of events. To begin with the tank is about 2.5 years old and has already completely crashed once resulting in a total loss of all live stock. It was restarted and has been struggling since in terms of keeping fish alive and corals happy. The tank is a 150 display with a 30 gallon sump and has all the bells and whistles. All of the water comes from a 4 stage RO DI filter that I have replaced inserts on and the TDS is at 0. A lot of the issues in this tank are the result of small issues becoming staggering problems since its crash. New live rock was added about 1.5 years ago that had a small aiptasia problem, which has now become a major issue. They are every where and joe's juice or kalk paste is not an option. I have added peppermint shrimp to no avail and none of the LFS can order in berghia nudibranchs for whatever reason, I even offered to prepay and take the loss if they died... I am at a loss as to how to tackle this problem and honestly if I had to take a guess at number.. I would easily estimate hundreds. The second major issue is the algae, and when I say algae I mean GHA, Dino and Cyano, all of which could have been remedied much earlier on in the tank life, but have been left to over take all of the rocks, and now some of the corals. I have recently been doing 15 gallon 2x a week water changes just to manually remove the GHA and it has made a significant impact, but there is still a long way to go... I have also added cleanup crew including hermits and emerald crabs in an attempt to tackle these issues.

Sorry for the long rant/ info session, but this tank could be beautiful and I really want to help out getting it back on track. The algae and aiptasia is a serious problem and Im wondering if it would be an idea to consider killing the rock with H2O2 and starting over bit by bit, or doing a dark cycle for a week...

The tank only has about 8 fish right now; yellow tang, school of chromis, one algae blenny and a pair of clowns. All coral except for 1 piece is removable from the rocks, so taking the rocks out is not an issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ReeferReefer]

Sounds rough man. I would go ahead and remove the rock and nuke it however you prefer. You could add some pond matrix or bio balls to act as a bio filter while the rock is out. I would remove the sand too as it could be holding nutrients that lead to algae problems.

[HarryPotter]

Buy them online.

 

Blast rocks daily.

 

Continue skimming.

 

Feed less.

 

Perhaps remove or clean the sand bed

[brandon429]

No amount of h202 will kill the rock but it surely might remove some topical algae and kill worms I'd do that outside the main tank with fish and corals

 

 

 

Regardless of how you apply it bacteria survive. The tank you are describing needs a full takedown cleaning of all rocks for algae and detritus peroxide agreed, total replace of sandbed and all can be done without a recycle. If he's serious about a restore, he should consider a full water change after the rip cleaning my lfs would deliver in a larger van up to 200 gallons from a pumped system.

 

I can't think of any advantage to using the old water though many may choose to as a way to avoid work or cost and the greater priority is zero detritus in the entire system including rocks and sand, and then every measure you take for algae after that isn't a bandaid

 

Of the ways to kill aiptasia peroxide won't work well have to look elsewhere for the aips

[ndrobey]

You can get Berghias here:

http://reeftown.com/berghia-nudibranchs

 

Get a good herd of them.

[DudE31]

Thanks for the responses. Unfortunately I am located in Ontario, Canada and no online vendors are available for me to order the Berghias. As far as a whole tank tear down, I don't think it is really an option. Does anyone have experience with cleaning rocks with H2O2 ? If I have a bin to clean the rock and SW mixed to rinse it off will it be fine to go back into the tank immediately ? I also don't plan on treating all of the rocks at a single time, but over the period of a week or two.

[ajmckay]

Would it be possible to house all the livestock elsewhere? A temp tank or something.

 

If so, this is what I would do (have done in the past):

- Take out all the rock and scrub with a stiff brush and if it's bad enough peroxide.

- Thoroughly rinse off the rocks in SW and get as much detritus out as possible.

- Get some plastic bins/buckets and put the rock in there (with SW) for several weeks with a pump to keep water moving. No need to heat.

- Remove all the sand and rinse it thoroughly using tap water. Drain it well and leave it to dry.

- Set the tank back up (give it a day or 2 to make sure there is no parameter spike before adding inhabitants back).

 

It's a long process - but that's what it takes when things get out of control. 2-3 weeks blackout should kill off the aiptasia and what's left of the nuisance algae that the scrubbing/peroxide didn't take care of.

 

If you can't remove the livestock you should be able to do the same thing, just treat the rocks in 2 batches. I would be cautious of doing more than 2 batches because the clean rock could more easily become infested again.

 

If you just take the rocks out one by one and treat them then put them right back in after a thorough rinse you should be able to make a significant impact to the nuisance algae, but as mentioned that won't do much for the aiptasia which really need individual eradication or an extended black out in relatively clean conditions (they can survive a while without light by consuming microorganisms and detritus).

[DudE31]

Thank you for the responses. ajmckay, I think I am going to go with what you suggested. A holding tank or another tank for the live stock is not really an option atm. I think I may do the rocks in two batches and rinse them off and place them back in the tank with the exception of the fully covered rocks, I think I may let those soak for a few weeks before returning them to the display tank. I think heavy water changes will help with any potential spikes and I will be monitoring ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. As far as the sand bed goes I think a complete overhaul may be necessary, but I don't want to disturb too much in the tank at once. The cyano thats on the sand bed is matting and hasn't migrated to the rocks yet so its not a major concern at the moment.

[CD_Scapes]

I could take the apista rocks

[uisge-beatha]

incredibleaquarium.com has berghias in stock on their website, and they're located in London, ON. Good luck!

[fishfreak0114]

Don't copper band butterflies eat aptasia? I you can't get any nudis that might be another option.

[cruiZe]

berghia nudibranch are amazing - 4-5 of them cured my 40b of about 200 aiptasia never to return. Peroxide is also amazing - i just posed a small rock that I treated in the peroxide thread - check it out (for all of the info, not just mine) http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/268706-peroxide-saves-my-tank-with-pics-to-prove-it/page-64#entry5285274

 

4 days later - 10 minutes total effort - granted with a big tank it will be a huge pain, but it's one of the best options vs nuking everything. Is peroxide cheap in canada? USA a liter is like 80 cents

[DudE31]

thanks everyone, I will look into getting the berghia nudibranchs after i tackle this algae issue. Cruize those are some fantastic results, are you using medical grade hydrogen peroxide or cleaning grade ? My only concern is having a large amount of die off, and I have had the unfortunate news of being told that most of the rocks are stuck together with reef cement lol. This is going to be a challenge, anyone have suggestions on how to get them apart without totalling the tank?

[tdannhauser30]

No idea where you are in Ontario but if your at all close to the Buffalo I say its worth trying to smuggle them across the border!! plenty of LFS around here have them and judging by my previous crossings it would be easy to smuggle a few nudibranches across lol

[cruiZe]

just regular 3% from the grocery store. good point on tackling the algae first- that's more of a moving target and I bet peroxide dips would kill the expensive berghia. Just algae will die from peroxide - maybe a few other pods or worms but the rock will still be very much alive. Filter floss to catch the floating debris will help. Now rocks are glued together? uh oh- are they small enough to lift out? Sounds like you'll need a hammer too - or maybe large rubbermade tubs to do the peroxide treatment - you don't need to submerge the rocks

[DudE31]

I was thinking of turning up the flow on the return pump all the way, and adding a filter sock to the return pipes to hopefully catch any free floating algae. The rocks are probably about 6 lbs each with a few larger shelf pieces. Trying to think of the best way to describe them probably around the size of a milk bag and i think it would probably be too much to lift them out all together. As much as i really want to rid this tank of algae, i would feel terrible not inspecting each rock individually for hermit crabs and snails. I have a few large rubbermaid totes that I was going to bring along with me and a spray bottle to treat the rocks. I think a full sand bed replacement will be necessary. The owner of the tank has pretty much given me full permission to do whatever and spend the $ to get this tank back on track. I am calling them later today to tell them the game plan, but i think its probably going to take me at least 2 full days to deal with this. I will also ask permission to post pictures of everything and update everyone. I think it will be awesome if I can get this tank turned around and looking the way it should