Try reading this article. http://www.melevsreef.com/reducing_nitrates.html

Well the sea hare has turned out to not be helpful. He's very interested in that small pocket of cyano I had in my tank, and he goes to it daily like his own personal garden.

I'm trying to do 10% water changes every other day, and I've pulled all of the foam blocks out of my wet/dry now, so it's basically a housing for my skimmer and a plate that flows through my GAC pad.

I did a bit of rock scrubbing last night and took out a large portion of the GHA. My thoughts are that if it has to grow back on that rock area it's going to use up a LOT of that nitrate in the water and I'll just prune it back again by scrubbing it off. You've heard of an algal turf scrubber.... well I'm more like a turf algae scrubber.... :-)

Nothing new to report. The GHA grew back with furvor. I've put a phosphate removal pad in the filter and it has dropped my phosphates to 0 in the last 2 weeks. The GHA is turning brown on the end and it rips off easier now. My nitrates are still 20 ppm but I keep doing water changes to get it down.

I was battling my GHA a while back and posted all over the place and got some help, but I did something a little different. In all of my GHA problem posts I said I went with the sand in my sump with detritus eating critters and BB with my main. I am able to clean the crap out of my main and what ends up in the sump gets taken care of down there.
I scrub my rocks, only where the GHA is at, in my tank with the system running. I leave all pumps on. Let the crap go to the sump. I use a power head and blow off my rocks everyday. I water change every Friday. I have very minimal GHA now.
I scrub my rocks on Thursday and water change on Friday. I use a Quarter Inch tube and suck out the detritus and clean the surfacde of my rocks with the siphoning. That's my water change and it is working great! Try it, you might be surprised. It will take a few good weeks though.

Did you ever get rid of it? If so how? I have it too. And Its been going strong for 6 months in my 29 gallon seahorse tank. I've added cheato, Got a UV sterilizer, got a new clean up crew consisting of 20 nassurus snails, 6 cerith snails, 10 astrea turbo's, a queen chonch, a red footed conch, and a lettuce nuidibranc. It has done diddly squat. I use water from the grocery, and do water changes once a week of about 5-10 gallons, and every other weekend I take all the rock down, Scrubb it clean with a toothbrush, and put it back in. That does nothing either. Im going to add some caulerpa to the main tank, and get a new skimmer. Also get some more activated carbon... AHH so much money Im a poor kid who relyes on allowences and the generocity of my mom for this and she is getting tired of spending money on my fish tank constantly

I actually went insane and pulled out every rock and scrubbed it in a bucket of water I had just siphoned out from a w/c. The tank looked great for 24 hours.... but it's coming back again.... I'm using DI water because it's much cheaper than buying it at a grocery store. I picked up my filter for $28 and it seems to be doing a great job.

The funny thing is, now that I scrubbed the rock the LM Blenny is trying to clean up the rock and the hermits are working but I just don't have enough.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dr4g0nf1y
[B] I just switched from Oceanic to Instant Ocean (this town has VERY limited salt resources). i just switched to oceanic from insant ocean its a little more expencive but i was ALWAYS told by every one i met that oceanic is better

I happened to me when i moved the tank it took 1 1/2 years to get rid of it. I took 1/4 of the rock out at a time and put in a bucket of saltwater in the dark for two weeks then put it back in the tank with a power head and heater. It been 6 months none to be fond. brush it to get off whats left on the rock.

sounds like cooking to me. well since my tank is a seahorse tank, Im loading up on macro algae. Im gonna get a bunch of caulerpa tomarrow, and I just got a ton of cheato hope it helps. GOD I WISH I could get DI I sweet talked my mom in to buying me a big jgiagantic RO unit from costco, and she was cool with it, but then as soon as I went to set it up, she asked me what I was doing with a wrench, and a knife and I told her I had to cut away the cocking that she had put to stop the pipe from leaking in order to put the RO unite in, and she didnt like this and took it back. She went to my stupid lfs and they told her to buy a UV sterilizer which she did. so no RO/DI water for me

they told her to buy a uv????????? WOW!!! u need any thing BUT uv. take it back and get that ro they sell adaptors that screw into the facuet. i had to go this way cause my mom didnt want me messing with the plumbing, she said once i was certified i could do it which is never going to happen so i found another way.
by the way i am also a hair lage sufferer and red slime.

lol Well My LFS apparently swears agains RO lord knows why and says its a wast and told her to take it back. They dont sell RO units. They say that u just have to clean your tank every day. lol I find this some what comical because they are the largest fish store in the San Fransisco Bay area.

RO is a waste. It wastes more water than it makes. DI will produce great water without the waste, the only problem is that the DI cartridges expend quickly.

Get two big sea hare's.

I finally went insane and tore down the rocks and scrubbed them in a separate container. The tank looked fantastic for 2 weeks....... It came BACK!!!!

My new plan is 6 gallon water changes DAILY for 13 days. I've got a home DI unit now so I can make water quickly.

Then I'll retry the scrubbing.

A 10% partial is minimal. To make any real difference you should try to consider 25-30% partials as the norm and increase it to a higher % if needs be.

I think you are wasting your time and resources doing 10% partials. Your not even making a dent.

Once you establish an effective hydro-cycle, of sorts. You can rely on your clean up crew.

I think you may wind up chasing your tail if you get this basic order of operation wrong.

Each to their own, though.

If you don't have livestock or corals, then I'd do big big changes. However, you want to keep your tank params stable and doing 10-20% changes is imo the best way to keep your tank stable with no issues. Lower your photoperiod some as well and that will hinder the growth while you work on ridding the nutrients.

I understand what you are saying jay24k, but improving water conditions can only be good. The livestock will be thankful for the change. Just try a few and see what I mean.

Not doing decent size partials for the sake of stability is putting the horse before the cart.

We want to maintain best water conditions, not just maintain stability for the sake of stability.

25-30% partials will allow for consistently better water conditions. Isn't that the type of stability that we are all aiming for? And won't consistently better water conditions be better for our livestock?

Put another way, smaller partials allow pollutants to remain at a higher level than they would with larger partials. That is not the type of stability that we are aiming for, is it?

If I were you I'd get your own RO/DI unit. I used to use LFS water until I tested it with a TDS meter. (fresh water) The TDS was like 60 or something like that. If its good RO then it should be zero. When its high like that it means the membrane is pretty much shot. I bet if you did the same you'd see similar readings. LFS's are notorious for these kinds of things.

Dr4g0nf1y,

So how is your HA problem doing....

You say you have a DI but no RO system....

How exactly are you doing this....

You should probably have an ro system with the DI after the RO..

This will make your DI last much longer..


I would really suggest investing in a TDS meter..

Buckeye Field Suppliy sells them for around 30.00

They have excellent customer service and great prices on RO and DI equipment and parts...


BenRaines

try a skimmer! I battled hair algar for about 2 years until I found out that the skimmer takes out the nutrients algae needs.Also with the skimmer try some crabs snails. Let us know how you are doing.

I have a Purple Tangs and Red Sea Sailfin Tangs. They do not eat any kind of hair aglae. The Red Sea Sailfin does Bubble algae. Anyone have the same problem?

ben-> I've been scrubbing the LR monthly and I think I might be beating it back. It's kind of an extreme form of Nutrient Export.

Skate-> I have a skimmer in my system and it's pulling out coffee colored skimmate, but it's a slow process. I'm shopping for a new skimmer that will work with my current setup.

bhdmc-> Yeah that's the truth. I have a LM Blenny and a Tang and the only Algae they touch is the Nori I put in the tank once a week.

So why not cook all of your rocks?

I've been trying to get rid of it for about 5 months, it is everywhere. I tried everything to get rid of it, it just started to die about a month ago and I got some turbo snails three days ago and they've eatin a huge chunk of it already.

CUC, baby!