starting over????

my tank is just rounding 5 months old and i cant take it anymore... the 4" hair algae, taking my rocks out every month just to rid them of the horrible algae. and all that just to have the hair algae return.. sometimes worse than before. My plan was to buy a phosphate reactor and to let it do its thing for a month and then start topping off with ro/di and scrub the rocks then. But i feel that all that wouldnt even be worth it in the end because all the algae would come back. And yes, i messed up. I filled the tank and topped off with tap. stupid me, right? well anyway, i wanna take the tank down and start all over. My fish and one coral can go in my dads tank for the time being. I plan on taking all the water out, scrubbing the tank spotless, cleaning the rocks, and filling it with salt rodi and taking it from there. I love saying my tank is 5 months old but its just im sick of cleaning the algae. And theres no motivation anymore to clean the tank because i know it will just keep coming back. So i guess this will be good for the tank as well. Anyways, just for future reference, here is a before pic (well ill try to post one asap)

 

this is the system off... time to move the fish. Hes been with me since day one... poor little guy

I bet you guys couldnt grow that long of hair algae if you tried

 

and this was the tank a little under 20 days ago when i cleaned it. Its a beauty once i clean it but...

 

why not just start doing massive water changes (30%-40%) every week to rid your tank of the tap water. either way good luck

 

Number one, make sure you are using ro/di water and get a tds meter to be sure it is coming out of the filter at 0. I had the same issue for awhile. I added a powerhead, allowed for no dead spots. I added a uv steralizer, which some do not agree with but it has worked for me. I left all of the rocks in the tank, scrubbed down the rocks, used a hose with a filter bag attached to the end. I then just sucked up all of the GHA, it got caught in the bag and i replaced the water i sucked up so that way i would not go throw SO much water. I like the uv sterilizer because it helps to kill the spores of the GHA that help it spread. The biggest issue is makeing sure to scrub it enough to break it up to allow your CUC to attack it, as well as help break up the phosphates that are trapped in the patches of GHA. If they do not get broken up they will just keep collecting phosphates. After we scrubbed and got most of the large patches out we then added the extra CUC. My tank was around the same age, actully about 6 or 7 months. We added a few BIG turbo snails, lawnmower blenny and some hermits. I think the turbo snails put it over the edge they killed the stuff. Cut back on lighting to 8-10 hour cycles, cut back on feeding, and increase water changes. I hope some of this info helps. It helped save our tank from the lagoon look.

 

Id just do water changes with RODI water...I did the same thing as you starting my tank with tap water and bad algae....I got a RODI unit and did massive water changes and deff seeing the difference!!!! IMO thats what I would do

 

One strange thing I notice, there is no hair on the sand or glass........don't know what to make of that. I think in your situation your game plan is warranted. You should get the phosphate reactor to add to your set up. I would also find a container and put all the live rock in it with circulation, air stone and heater. No light, that will kill off any algae you miss when scrubbing. Add some live bacteria to the container a couple times to re-seed the rock.

 

thanks everyone for your input. This also gives me the opportunity to modify the filtration and everything else i intended on doing in the future. The fish and coral are now moved in my dads tank. Im starting tonight and will update you with pictures as i progress..

thanks again

 

question: can i bleach the rocks and depend on the livesand to re-seed it? and that brings me to my next question, should i get rid of the sand? i really would prefer not but does it absorb phosphates? if so, there a bunch in there right now haha.

 

I would toss the sand and "cook" the live rock while you have the chance, Bleaching will just kill the stuff on and in the rock but will do nothing to remove the built up phosphates. Search for threads about cooking your rock, it is NOT putting it in the oven. It IS putting it in a dark container and circulating and water changes and takes 3-6 months but you get good live rock and no HA. I am speaking from experience because "just starting over" was not a choice with a 200 gal tank and at least 200 lbs of rock. I was pulling out tons of HA every week, now it is spotless. I did add a phosphate reactor after cooking. Sometimes you can get a free reactor if you buy the ferric oxide from Bulk Reef Supply - Bulk Reef Supply