A 3 day blackout would take care of your hair algae problem. Personally ill be using that method anytime i have a major algae outbreak. Works great

I did a 3-day this last weekend
It helped some, but no eradication
It temporarily shut down the cyano and diatoms, and weakened the GHA enough for me to clean a lot of it up

Tonight I added a Sea Hare and the little bunny/cow is going nuts scouring the algae away right down to the LR :lol:

I still have a lot of work to do to clean things up and keep it clean, plus I still have no idea where this outbreak came from in the first place ...

I'm gonna blame the maintenance guy for not basting the rocks enough :redface:, and allowing the sand to get a bit 'layered'

I'm pretty sure it's not my bioload or feeding habits, but have cut the feedings down a bit in the meantime to allow me a reprieve

2 sea hares later (both died :twised:) and the GHA battle plan was changed
Food had already been cut back, GFO has been cut back to decrease added Fe, lighting has been changed, maintenance increased
With the GFO cut back from 225ml/month to 100ml I've seen no increase in GHA. I can't say for sure it's helped, but it hasn't hurt at all. Thanks for the post Mindy :wink: I'll most likely keep cutting it back in the near future as things become more manageable
Now I've increased the lighting again and the GHA isn't coming on nearly as strong
I was only running a total of 1800 watts over 10 hours
Now I'm running 2160 and plan on increasing it to about 2500 watts
If you think about a 10 hour cycle, that's only a 250 watt bulb. Doesn't seem like much for my reef. Even over an 8 hour cycle, 2500 watts is only a hair over 300 watts. Many reefers with a tank my size run a pair of 250 MHs and in Brad's case a pair of 400s for I think 8 hours
That means he's running 6400 watts/day compared to my current 2160 :surprise::surprise::surprise:

Any cyano is long gone, and the GHA is much more manageable now
All corals have recovered from my over-use of peroxide :redface:
I'm considering using MB7 regularly in the DT

On to the QT ...

I bought a bunch of fish and they are in quarantine
I went to J&L to pick up one, and left with eight
So pretty :biggrin:
I'll have to do some careful introductions to the DT as I got a wife for both our Solar and Lubbok's wrasses
There's also a Yellow Tang, a Male Lyretail Anthias and 4 little girls for him to boss around

I plan on getting some better toys for the critters to hide in, but for the next couple days they'll have to make do with plumbing parts

All are eating frozen, and the tang loves nori bits
Some are also eating pellets ... just have to get them all doing the same
I haven't had them long enough to evaluate whether or not they'll get Prazi or Hypo

Some really crappy pics for y'all :surprise:

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps2ffc7c1b.jpg
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psaaee88d4.jpg
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps46a43b8c.jpg

I so glad to see you are adding a tang to your tank again . He is gonna love you GHA ! Problem solved :eyebrows:

Try some terra cotta (clay) pots. I break them in half , or odd shapes depending how they break and build a little reef structure out of them. Seems a little more natural looking then the PVC and it seems to help the fish feel a little safer in qt.

I almost always have a tang (or 8) in my reef tanks and [knock on wood] haven't had an issue with GHA in years. Hope I didn't just jinx myself. I probably feed a lot more than you Greg.

Anthony

Me too. Thanks Ian
It wasn't my intention, but I'm sure I won't see any algae anymore once it's in the DT :smile:

Great suggestion Jess
I bought one of these today and they went right for it
Best money I've spent recently
It's a fake LR piece full of hiding holes
Hopefully there now won't be a dogpile behind the pump during lights out :thumb:

Jinx :lol:
I'll be feeding the DT more soon, that's for sure
How many fish do you have now in your big tank Anthony ?

I've always wanted a Yellow Tang, but thought my tank is too small
After keeping SW fish for coming up on 3 years I kinda feel comfortable with their growth rates in our tank and feel we'll be OK for a good long time before it needs to be re-homed
And who knows, maybe we'll still have it when I retire and it'll get a nice big new home :question:

Quarantine is going well
I'm using MB7 (used to use Stability)
If you missed it, I started the tank with a couple Aquaclear sponges that have been in my sump for over a year (thanks again for the great idea Brad)
2 days in and no Ammo at all, Nitrites are between 0 and 0.01, and I'm already seeing Nitrates (waaaay below 2)

All fish are eating frozen, some are eating pellets and flakes, and of course the tang goes nuts for nori

No signs yet of anything to treat for ... and I'm a bit surprised
No spots, flashing, shaking, stringy poops, white poops, lack of appetite, disinterest in surroundings ... can't think of anything else

No offence J&L, but considering what some of the other fish in the tank looked like I'm very pleased
Once again J&L rocks !!

I picked over their tanks for everything I brought home as they didn't have much to choose from
So, of course, once I filled my QT, they got not 1 but 2 fish shipments
C'est La Vie

Still super happy with what we have

More pics to come once they start to trust me

Wow Greg, Santa came early eh! :)

I love yellow tangs, I'm sure he'll chomp those GHA in your rocks. Good luck with the new tank mates.

crimper, I'm sure you're right !! And thanks for the wishes

Our new charges have been in QT for 2 weeks now
All are eating very well, albeit their own foods
If you missed it, I've been using MB7 and am quite happy with it
No spikes to worry about, although I started off with an established set of foam blocks for my aquaclear50
I've only been performing 50% WCs once a week, and my NO2/NO3 readings have been near nil. Much better results than the last time I did this when I used Seachem's Stability. Although maybe I've been better with my feeding practices this time around. Who knows

I'm 2 days into a Prazi treatment as I suspect worms plus there's the odd shaking and flashing, then I'll give them a couple days off from meds
I'm nicely surprised to see nobody has lost their appetite during the current treatment
I'm hoping I don't end up with Coralgurl's dilemma where her tangs kept eating the poop thus eating the intestinal worms ... my stupid tang eats every poop he sees :doh:, no matter how much I feed them

Next they'll get some Furan-2 as there are some other things to address;
I have no idea what little white 'horns' there were on 2 of the female Anthias' heads that disappeared after a couple days
It left a dent on one poor girl's noggin behind her eyes on top of her head
Plus a wrasse has a white mark directly on her eye, and some of the anthias are flashing on hardware
So Furan-2 it is

I'll re-assess things after that but it looks like I won't be running a hypo this time around

The final introduction to the DT will be;
Yellow Tang right off as he can fend for himself
Next will be the female wrasses into the holding tank I've built and they'll most likely be in there for the majority of a week while the other wrasses calm down

Finally, after I get the Anthias eating pellets, they will have their turn in the holding tank for a day or 5, just to make sure none of the wrasses want to eat them :smile:

Wish me luck

Here's the holding tank I've built, but it's not finished
I still need to clean up the sharp edges and fit it to the DT so it 'hangs' where I want it to

It's 20x10x5 and will hang off the left side and center support
This gives lots of clearance to the corals, although I don't know what will happen a year from now
I realise it's only 4 gallons of space. It's just a holding tank Jim, and that's all I can give her

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps4ed62c7a.jpg

I 'euro-braced' it so I could screw on an access cover

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps4139b5df.jpg

Cover is opaque to help keep the sun burns away
I haven't finished the cover yet, or it's fasteners ...
It still needs a bunch of holes drilled

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psf84e6dc6.jpg

I scabbed a crappy hole (rushed the jigsaw and cracked it) out the bottom that needs some serious cleanup, and there's a cover plate that needs some fasteners
This is for when I'm ready to release fish

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps2da36d3c.jpg

May not work as a fish trap in future, but will be a handy time-out tank for anyone naughty