Need some advice... Tank not doing well.

[Oxymoron]

Sounds good, I will get the carbon and rowaphos going asap.

The blenny would probably be a great idea Ill send you a pm griz.

I have read in other situations where covering the tank with garbage bags and leaving it without light for a week will help with certain algae problems?

Is that at all relevant here?

[The Grizz]

It would not hurt, if I had a UV still I would have lent it to you as it sure helped me when I first started my tanks.

[bryceschutte]

Originally Posted by Oxymoron

I have read in other situations where covering the tank with garbage bags and leaving it without light for a week will help with certain algae problems?

Is that at all relevant here?

I did this for cyano. Worked great! Only 3 days though .

[ALang]

I have had that kind of HA, just not quite that severe.
I am very close to no HA now.
What I did/ used, were: GFO, RO water for top-off and changes, water parameters watched and dosed closely to optimal ranges, about 10 MEXICAN Turbo snails/130 gal (don't get any other kind, they don't work for HA), and a seahare.

Then practice patience. One day you will look at your tank and goes, wow, there is the end in sight! I now have sold all of my Mex snails, except for three. And the tank still looks great.
HTH. Lenny.

[Oxymoron]

Thanks for the encouragement, I will keep plugging away at it today.

I have not seen any of my clean up crew around and fear they may have been a casualty as well.

Today I will scrub as much of the rocks as possible then begin another 45 gal water change.

After which I will bring carbon and Rowaphos online.

Hopefully things will turn the corner and start going in the other direction sooner rather than later.

[cathyg_99]

Originally Posted by Oxymoron

Thanks for the encouragement, I will keep plugging away at it today.

I have not seen any of my clean up crew around and fear they may have been a casualty as well.

Today I will scrub as much of the rocks as possible then begin another 45 gal water change.

After which I will bring carbon and Rowaphos online.

Hopefully things will turn the corner and start going in the other direction sooner rather than later.

toothburshes and also a baby bottle cleaner will work... i used the bottle cleaner to get between the rocks... also good luck

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by Oxymoron

I have read in other situations where covering the tank with garbage bags and leaving it without light for a week will help with certain algae problems? Is that at all relevant here?

I wouldn't do that in this case, with that much algea all dying at once all the absorbed nutrients will be released back into your system...

Best bet is to do as suggested, remove and scrub rocks with a brush, mexican turbo snails, lawnmower blenny, tangs if your system is large enough. Regular water changes, gfo and things should clear up in a few weeks.

Oh one more thing. Fire the guy who was doing the maintence

[ScubaSteve]

Alrighty, if you're up for the fight then give'r hell! You will need to be patient and give the system time to recover. First things first, manually remove as much algae as possible and make sure that the system is stable (ie. no paramter fluctuations). Get a seahare and a clean up crew in there to start doing some damage to the general funkyness.

Next, you gotta starve out the algae and cyano. If you are feeling brave, I'd recommend VSV dosing with MB7 and skim the hell out of the tank. Take it easy if you go this route. 20% water change every week. Pull out all the guns!

[e46er]

i fought hair algae for months finally tore the tank down scrubbed the crap outta the rocks and started again
i should have done that right away instead of wasting so much time and energy trying to win the battle

[Oxymoron]

The recovery,
I took a toothbrush and spent about 6 hours scrubbing the rocks, glass etc.
The process released massive amounts of crap into the water
My strategy at first was to stir a bunch of the larger particles up and catch them with a net. This worked well at first as the entire tank was literally covered in hair algae and patches of cyano.
Eventually I came up with an idea to try taking a sock and tying it on the end of a powerhead with an elastic band. (I didn't have any filter socks when I came up with it lol.)
To my surprise this worked beautifully.




I spent several more hours scrubbing rocks and blowing detrius into the mini vacuum.
25 gal water change and a fresh batch of rowaphos and carbon.
I have another 25 gals being made up atm and will do another change on sunday.
Here are some pics of where I am at now.






Sry pics are from iphone.
Appreciate everyone's suggestions and help.
A blenny and some turbos are my next step.
Ill update with my progress in about a week.