Alfredo De La Fe

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Location
Upper West Side
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So... I have been at this game a long time and I have met several fellow MR members over the years. Many got to see my 180 when it was in its prime. All of that changed after the big blackout, followed by a attempted reboot, followed by a Con Ed outage on my block that lasted two days.

Well, I restarted my 40. It was doing GREAT. Everything was beautiful, tank was fully stocked with fish, corals and inverts. One day everything starts to die... I can't figure it out, so I perform a 50% water change. Nothing. Two days later I do another 50% water change and I find two half dissolved chemical packets in my overflow box. My little girls decided to feed the fish one morning and accidentally dropped them in the tank.

A few years later I have a tank with cyano, hydroids and all kinds of nastiness sitting in my living room. I figure I would give it another go. Girls are older and responsible, wife has been (kind of) supportive...

I decide to do it right. I take out all of the live rock and nuke it in chlorox overnight. Then I soak it in water overnight and let it dry.

I remove ALL of my old live sand. Put new rock in and let the tank run for a 5 weeks with nothing but the rock in it and no lights.

After 5 weeks I pull the rock out, give it a gentle brushing and put fresh live sand in the tank. Put the rock back in... I buy a new RODI unit and change 10-25% of the water each week.

Great so far. But then the repercussions of nuking the rock hit. Hair algae grows with a vengeance and I spend about 15 minutes every day pulling hair algae.

So, here begins my journey.

I have been taking the rock out and gently scrubbing it the past two days. The algae is barely attached so it is pretty easy to clean, but the real good news is that underneath coralline algae is starting to grow back. Also I have hundreds of amphipods but none of the pests I once had.

My skimmer broke, so while it is being fixed I buy a cheap used one. That one falls apart every few days. Thanks to Lee, I just installed a Reef Octopus. It is working MUCH better than I was expecting.

I will get all of the rock thoroughly scrubbed and will leave it in the rubbermaid box for a few days with strong circulation. Once I get all of the rock cleaned up and back in the tank I will start documenting my reboot again. The frags I currently have are doing quite well and all of my parameters are spot on.

Anyway, the Reef Octopus has the water level not even halfway up the body of the skimmer and it is already putting out nice, dry foam!
 

Alfredo De La Fe

Senior Member
Location
Upper West Side
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Ugh! Setting up to continue scrubbing rock takes a long time. Have to mix up a new batch of water and do a 6 gallon water change. I then use the 6 gallons of tank water for two 1 gallon buckets to hold my frags and a 5 gallon bucket filled a little more than halfway to use as a "scrubbing station".

FYI: I am using this as a log of what I am doing so I can go back later and see where I could have done things differently!

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Alfredo De La Fe

Senior Member
Location
Upper West Side
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Spent a little under an hour, now I have about 5 more rocks but need to take out all of my frags. Then shut down system, remove all circulation stuff and scrub glass. Oy vey...

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Lee

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Manhattan UWS
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I don't claim to be an expert, just a hobbyist that's been doing this for a few decades with my own share of success and failure. I've tried a lot of short cuts over the years, and rarely do they work. Although, I must admit the bottles of live bacteria being sold now to speed up new tank cycling definitely work. As far as using peroxide or raising your Mg levels to kill the hair algae; it will probably work in the short term, but the problem will come back as long as whatever is feeding the algae is present in your system. I think your current plan of attack is the way to go. Eventually you will starve out the algae (assuming your RO/DI unit is working). Slow and steady is best for our hobby. I commend your patients and perseverance.
 

Alfredo De La Fe

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Upper West Side
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The recipe to successfully keep a reeftank is 90% patience. We are trying to replicate a very complex environment in a tiny glass box...

I knew that wiping out all life on the rock was going to raise problems. Just underestimated them. Plus, Murphy reared his ugly head and caused a whole lotta other small issues to rear their head. (Skimmer breaking)

I also think that things will be fine once the algae is mostly removed. This skimmer works better than the Reef Devil I had which broke. Biggest problem is that itnis running very dry, still need to figure it out and get it just right.

My next hurdle will be aquascaping... ;-)

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Alfredo De La Fe

Senior Member
Location
Upper West Side
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Five hours later and every rock has been scrubbed, the sand, glass, overflows and everything that goes into the tank has been cleaned and I am about to start putting the rock back into the tank. :tired:

Next will be placing the frags, but for tonight they will be sitting on a piece of egg crate...
 

Alfredo De La Fe

Senior Member
Location
Upper West Side
Rating - 100%
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Many, many hours later... I still have half of the rock. Not going to need it all, but want to raise the left side a bit. Also need to glue frags.

A few minor spots with algae still, but I am exhausted.

Suggestions?

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Clink51

Advanced Reefer
Location
Queens, NY
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i had a crazy hair algae issue once upon a time and i tried vodka dosing, HP Dosing, turning off lights, stop feeding etc etc etc. i got desperate and tried Algaefix Marine and it went away. now its part of my every day dosing.

**note: For transparency i have high phosphates in my tank due to the LR, so if i go a long time without my GFO running, i get hit with Cyno ( i mention this because it started after i started dosing AlgaeFix)**
 

Alfredo De La Fe

Senior Member
Location
Upper West Side
Rating - 100%
30   0   0
Like Lee wrote, shortcuts rarely work and in my experience, if they do, it is only temporary. It is always best to address the cause of the problem. In this case the cause was:

1. I nuked the rock stripping away the surface bacteria, coating and "life". This created a very porous surface, conducive to hair algae growth.

2. In nuking the rock I wiped out all of my beneficial bacteria. I thought that six weeks would be enough but I was wrong. I have since read up a bit and everything I find says it is more like three months.

3. I added a few fish which increased my bioload. Under normal circumstances this would not be a problem because the live rock and skimmer would easily handle it. BUT- My live rock was not at 100% AND my skimmer died. I tried to make up for the broken skimmer by stepping up my water changes. But clearly this was not enough.

4. My clean-up crew kept dying. I am happy to report I have figured out why. Thankfully in removing all of the rock I found the culprit... An assassin snail managed to sneak into one of the cleanup crews I bought. He systematically killed every snail I had in my tank, contributing to the bioload AND ability to keep the algae under control.
 

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