[Myka]

Originally Posted by christyf5

The brown cyano isn't dinoflagellates. No bubbles and it doesn't come back in a matter of hours like dinos.

Ok, well that's good.

I've already got a ridiculous amount of flow (wavebox, tunze 6100, 6080 and 6045, vortech MP40, dart return full open). I have been turkey basting and siphoning where things pile up (I've angled the flow to pile detritus in easy access points).

Ok, move them around then so that you stir up crap. Put a filter sock on the drain(s) so you catch it all. In the cleanest of tanks you can move the powerheads around and stir crap up.

No vodka/vinegar dosing. Even if its the holy grail I'm done with that stuff, its too "smoke and mirrors" for me.

It's not smoke and mirrors, but ok.

Might have a look for a foxface rabbitfish, fish are slim pickins around here

Getting a fish or invert (like seahare) isn't the best option anyway since that method will not necessarily remove the nutrients from the system. The nutrients will go into the animal and come out the other end as nutrients. Once the nutrients have become fish/hare poop again they have a second chance at being skimmed or filtered out though so there is that benefit.

Plucking it out with tweezers (or removing the rock and scrubbing if you really want to) is often the best idea since you are permanently removing the nutrients that are within the algae.

Mg is at 1290, working on raising it up but I rarely go past 1300. The tank uses a ridiculous amount of Mg. I use Elias magnesium mix, he does the Randy Holmes-Farley recipe for me and a doser takes care of the rest.

Since magnesium chloride hexahydrate is only abut 35% magnesium (epsom salts are about 39% Mg) and the total amount of Mg within the system is relatively high (hopefully) around 1300-1400 ppm it does take a lot of Mg supplement to increase Mg. If you use aquarium products rather than bulk chemicals (like BRS) then you may need to use even more since some aquarium Mg products have less than 10% Mg. Anyway, use as much as you need to get Mg up at NSW value, it will help with algae problems. If you want to prevent adding so much chloride to the tank you can use 10% epsom salt.

Already running GFO, can't say I'm impressed with this last batch from BRS, it doesn't seem to be doing a bloody thing, all the phosphate just goes straight to whatever algae is breeding away in the tank so PO4 levels are usually low.

GFO can only get nutrients that are in the water column, so it doesn't do a darn thing for the algae that is already present. GFO prevents the growth of more algae.

No pH meter, it died awhile ago and I never replaced it. Tank was always 8.1-8.3 though and frankly the tank used to run at 7.8 and looked the best it ever did.

Maybe you did more frequent waterchanges or had lower stock back then...who knows. The tank doing so well couldn't be attributed to lower pH, or rather it would be highly unlikely that pH below 8.0 was singularly the beneficial factor.

I think Ocean diver has it right though, elbow grease and time.

Thanks for the ideas

Hey! I said that too!

You're welcome, good luck!