There is hope! (scary picture intense)

[ZReef]

I thought I would share these photos to show people that there is a light at the end of the tunnel after your tank gets out of hand with pests and nuisance algae.

After months at college with the tank at home things got quite out of hand... Aiptasia, green hair algae, cyanobacteria....it was quite a mess. I've worked on it all summer and turned it around to where it's in decent shape.

Here are some shots from the beginning of the summer.


Yup, every one of those brownish fuzzy spots is an aiptasia.








I got some Joe's Juice and some peppermint shrimp, some more hermit crabs and snails, converted an Aquaclear HOB filter into a refugium, increased the flow, and did big water changes with my new RO/DI unit. I have a sump that I will finally be installing this week or weekend so all that nasty equipment will be out of my display tank. Also, I added 22lbs of tonga live rock (a little bleached after curing but some coralline algae already noticeable.)

So you have seen the before shots and here is the after shot of the full tank.

 

[Moe_K]

Your tank cleans up nice!
Good job.

 

[Chris L]

very nice comeback looks great

 

[maurod]

well done, you are proof that aiptasia can be conquered

 

[APISTOBORELLI]

Good job for sure. Looks 1000% better.

 

[Lourdes]

OMG that is one of my worst nightmare's ... you did a hell of a Job man! looks great !

 

[GinaD]

Congrats! What a difference!

 

[crzy4reefs]

wow congrats, i'm dealing with aptasia at the moment......i used some joe's juice which worked OK, now i'm using a kalk and water mixture which seems to be doing good also. i did get some pep shrimps but the are missing at the moment.

 

[reverendmaynard]

Did you do anything particular for the cyano?

 

[ZReef]

wow congrats, i'm dealing with aptasia at the moment......i used some joe's juice which worked OK, now i'm using a kalk and water mixture which seems to be doing good also. i did get some pep shrimps but the are missing at the moment.

The majority of the aiptasia, especially the bigger ones, I killed with Joe's Juice because no animal will touch them unless I had a swarm of berghia nudis. I couldn't kill them all at once so I did a rock at a time.

When I first got the peppermint shrimp my fish were harassing them and it didn't seem like they were eating any of the aiptasia. One day, I noticed some aiptasia were gone that were on the glass and equipment that I didn't get with the Joe's Juice. So, I figured they were coming out at night and feasting on the aiptasia. After a while, the peppermints grew a little and started coming out of their hiding place more often and I could watch them attacking aiptasia. The only aiptasia anemones left right now are in holes where they can retract to if attacked but they look pretty beat up because their tenticles are almost non-existent.

My opinion is to use a combination of natural predators and chemicals to team up on aiptasia. The peppermints sort of clean up the left-overs from using Joe's Juice or kalk paste.

Did you do anything particular for the cyano?

The cyano was actually rather easy to eliminate. I siphoned out the majority of it on a big water change and then adjusted a powerhead to blow across the sand. I also got some cerith snails to eat whatever cyano shows up and some nassarius snails to stir up the sand. I'm not positive but I believe my scarlet leg hermits are eating the cyano too.

Hope this info helps. Never give up! Never surrender!

-Dennis

 

[reverendmaynard]

Hmmm? See, that's the really frustrating part about reef keeping... What works easily for one tank, may not work at all for others!

I have ceriths. I have nassarius. I have added a closed loop that doubles my flow. I have done manual removal. I have increased skimmer output. I have added macro and got it growing really well. These strategies have worked for all other types of nuisance algae, but not the cyano. It just keeps coming back, getting worse even!

 

[waltm]

WOW! Amazing job!

 

[Liam]

ditto what everyone else said,kudos to you.

 

[ZReef]

Hmmm? See, that's the really frustrating part about reef keeping... What works easily for one tank, may not work at all for others!

I totally agree....but that's what makes this hobby so interesting
...but at the same time challenging and frustrating.

I have ceriths. I have nassarius. I have added a closed loop that doubles my flow. I have done manual removal. I have increased skimmer output. I have added macro and got it growing really well. These strategies have worked for all other types of nuisance algae, but not the cyano. It just keeps coming back, getting worse even!

Since you have high flow and plenty of things to export it then it has to be something you input that makes it flourish. I was feeding flake food and pellets and they add a lot of phosphates to the water. I stopped feeding those and cut back on feeding entirely and added phosphate sponges and macro algae. I also bought a RO/DI unit because the RO/DI water I was buying from a well known but not to be named LFS had a TDS of 115

 

[reverendmaynard]

It's possible that I overfeed. I certainly feed them alot more than my fw fish. I'm doing 1-2 cubes of marine cuisine (brine, krill, mysis - 2 cubes every other day when I target feed my corals/anemone, 1 cube on other days) daily, plus about 1/4tsp of flake (formula 1 or tetramarine), and about 1/4tsp of formula 2 pellets. This is for 1 yellow tang (3"), 1 hippo tang(4"), 1 foxface (5"), 1 laboutei wrasse (4"), 2 maroon clowns (1.5" and 2.5"), and a royal gramma (2") in a 125. 2 Cleaner shrimp, hermits, and snails get the leftovers (I turn off the pumps so it pretty much all gets eaten).

 

[ZReef]

I used formula 1 flake and some pellet before and I think those are to blame so I would cut those out of your feedings. Right now I only feed about half a cube of mysis or brine shrimp and some cyclo or phyto for corals and filter feeders once a day. I have a 3" royal gramma, two 3" false perc clowns, and two 2" bangaii cardinals and they seem to be very happy and healthy. Try to find some other plant based food for the tangs that isn't full of phosphates.

 

[reverendmaynard]

I think I will try to cut back some. One problem I have though is keeping the wrasse occupied long enough to allow the corals to eat. Once I stop feeding, he's learned he can find some additional food by poaching it from my candy cane, scolemia, fungia, etc. If I try to slow the feeding too much, my hippo tang ends up getting most of the food, as he's the fastest swimmer, most aggressive eater.

If it's not one thing, it's another.

 

[ZReef]

I have to pour the food into different sides of the tank so that my bangaiis can get some food from my aggressive clowns. I also turn the powerheads on as soon as they start to slow down on feeding so that the rest of my tank can get some food.

Good Luck!

Dennis

 

[Syris]

Great photo essay. Glad you didnt give up and tackeld the problem head on.
Pretty cool closeups too, never seen so many aptasia that densly packed.

 

[OceanGuy]

Great job with the cleanup. The tank looks great. I had the same problem starting to develop in our 220 gal. The aiptasia were everywhere and there was some algae starting to grow. I got a Copperband Butterfly and some Joe's juice and some Sally Lightfoot crabs for the algae. I haven't used the Joe's juice yet. The Copperband took care of all of the aiptasia and the crabs love the algae.

It is an endless job, butworth it when you sit back for a few minutes and look at the amazing things that happen. I have been sharing it with hundreds of kids, parents and visitors. The kids in the summer photography program are coming to take pictures of the corals and fish. It has been fun working.