LR to cook or scrub?

[Covey]

Freaky Matt just freaky. I was headed toward to computer to post this thinking "what section am I going to post it in"? POOF the new LR section.

Anyway the 3reef regular probably have heard my working on my hair algae problem for the last 3 months an I think I have decide to start the War to end all War against my hair algae problem.

Timeline for those not up to speed:
1. No Hair Algae
2. Moved
3. Little algae
4. Ton of Algae
5. Figured out I need to upgrade my DI to handle chloramine=>ammonia
6. Started to make progress cut, off the algae food.
7. Skimmer Dies!!!!:mad:
8. Almost a whole month with just a seaclone100. Gave back all of the progress I made.
9. Got new monster skimmer Can total strip everything out of the water.

So here I am now. I have solved the input problem. RO and Skimmer. My lawnmower blennie and Rainsfordi gobie both eat small amounts of the stuff.

So here are the options.

A) Leave it alone and in 6-8months it might be gone.
B) Make up SW. Set up buckets. Dunk, swish and blast the rocks with a powerhead to remove the algae and pent up detritus.
C) Cook my LR(Dark Curing). With kill all algae and any other photosynthetic live forms for that matter.

What do you think? I am making up RODI water as I type.

[Diver_1298]

I say go with option "B" instead of "You've got to cook your rocks man"
I have watched "read" you struggle thru all this and I am hoping it turns out better fast.

Jim

[Blade_Runner]

Option B.
Between it and the other changes, you should turn it around. You can always cook the rock later if necessary.

BTW, how old is your sand? Do you think it has too much accumulated detritous built up too?

[Jason McKenzie]

I would go with B as well. Scrub the rock with a brush. It has worked for me

J

[RiMo]

For what it is worth. I dipped a zoo colony for nudis in a Lugol's iodine dip. It had quite a bit of hair algae on it. The algae was gone the next day. Maybe you could add a few drops to your bucket.

[Covey]

The sand is about 10 months old not counting having moved it 6 months ago. Well I am leaning toward B as well. The algae grows and I have a few things that eat it but there is so much of it. I think if I just knock it back the lawnmower blennie, gobie, and snails can stay on top of it.

[Covey]

It is amazing how much time a 12GPD RO gives you to think about something.
drip........................drip.................. ....drip......................
I think I got almost 18 gallons made.

[Blade_Runner]

12 GPD? Wow, where did you find that monster?

Well the sand isn't that old, but as long as you are at it you might want to pull "sections" of it out over time so you don't knock off all your bio at once and rinse it clean.

[Covey]

I am going to need a young priest and an old priest....
Let the exorcism begins
I got my 20G of SW mixed up and a day off so I decided to drive into it.
Here is the before pics:

[Covey]

So one by one I removed my rock and started scrubing. I went and got a Libman dish scrub brush from the supermakert. It worked perfect. I started with the LR that had coral attached to it and then moved on the the normal LR. I spent about 2.5 hours work on it but boy was it worth it. I got more than 95 percent of the algae. The LR without coral I scrubbed the h@ll out of. The only real tough spot were the rock with encrusting corals. I kinda hand pick algae of my star polyps and zoos. Along with the hair algae and detritus I found two kinds of calerpia, bubble algae, and even one aiptasia. They all met Mr. Libman wonder brush. Blah blah blah. Pictures.
Scrub scrub

Step1unk and swirl
step 2:Scrub
step3: Blast with powerhead

20 gallons of reef waste BYE BYE. This has to improve the nutrient levels in the tank.