So many things wrong. And some advice needed

[mpderksen]

Weekly maintenance time. First weekend of the month I do a little extra. But it seems I've gotten behind a bit. Tank isn't crashing, but it's no TOTM either.
Tests: all Red Sea
Mg. 1160
NO3. <0.25, but barely pink, so not zero either
Alk. 7.0 dKH
SG. 1.027

I mixed up a cup of Kent Mg crystals and added it. (Will retest tomorrow). Changed the GFO/carbon, using ROX and BRS GFO, just over 1/4 cup each. Picked out the GHA where I could, pic below. Blasted all the rocks and dead spots with a PH. Removed a snail that had actually stopped the right side WP25!! Removed a frag of clove polyps that hadn't QTd and saw bubble algae on it! Dumped and washed the skimmer cup and neck.
Now the questions:
1. I'm having the hardest time dialing in my Alk using B-Ionic 2-part. I'm currently running ~20ml/day, split into 4 different times/day. I don't want to over shoot, but how to you figure out how much to change at a time? 10% more per dose for a few days?
2. I have Aipatsia in the overflow. If I just scrape them off, will the spores get caught in the sock? Or should I use AiptasiaX with the flow off and kill them the same way I do in the DT?
3. Vermetid snails (sorry for the spelling). I don't use or have Kalk to make a paste. How about superglue gel? That seems expensive for the number I have.
4. The hanna checker I have for Phosphate is the HI713 model. I'm wondering if the zero reading I get is because I have the wrong one, or because the GHA is simply sequestering it, so testing is useless. Seems like the presence of algae means I do have PO4 in excess, regardless of the test results.
Below is a picture of today's harvest. Please tell me if this is regular GHA, or something more nasty.

[Dkuhlmann]

Looks like it's very healthy GHA

[GimpyFin]

+1, looks like some nice hair algae. The hair algae will consume phosphate, so you often will have a low reading when testing. However, the 713 kit doesn't work the best in saltwater. The 736 ULR Phosphorous is really the one you want.

Aiptasisa-x seems to make the Aiptasia mad and they just come back worse, IME. Some people use hot water or lemon juice in a syringe, even peppermint shrimp. Personally, I've found a matted file fish works the best, but it does mean adding another fish and there's a chance they may nip at some corals once your aiptasia is gone.

[mpderksen]

Originally Posted by GimpyFin

+1, looks like some nice hair algae. The hair algae will consume phosphate, so you often will have a low reading when testing. However, the 713 kit doesn't work the best in saltwater. The 736 ULR Phosphorous is really the one you want.

Aiptasisa-x seems to make the Aiptasia mad and they just come back worse, IME. Some people use hot water or lemon juice in a syringe, even peppermint shrimp. Personally, I've found a matted file fish works the best, but it does mean adding another fish and there's a chance they may nip at some corals once your aiptasia is gone.

Thanks to both of you. Glad it's "only" GHA, rather than a more destructive kind.
Since the aipatsia is only in the overflow, predators won't work. I've read about lemon juice. I may try that.
Any suggestions on the Vermetid snails? They're getting out of hand and irritating my corals.

[Dkuhlmann]

You can get Mexican Turbo snails they will eat tons of GHA. I wouldn't get more than one snail per 20gal of tank size. If you do get too many they will die off once there isn't any GHA left. One per 20 gal can do fine with normal algae growth on rocks and glass. I had 4 of them in my 40b and now I only have two left. I had two for the longest time in my DT but there isn't enough food for two, so the other one is in my sump now.

Matted filefish are awesome, I have one that was tank bred. I had one a few months ago but he was eating my blasto's and I gave it to a friend. Well my aiptasia grew out to massive proportions so I had to get another one. Yep they're kinda ugly at first but they have such an awesome personality, kinda like a puppy

[mpderksen]

I have a single turbo. Had 3. I saw this one go right past a patch, so I wondered.

[pisanoal]

Vermetid Snails are a pain. Usually their numbers will rise and fall with available food. What are you feeding? I had a few of them in my tank for a year or two, then when I moved and reset the tank up, they exploded. I recently upgraded and as I move coral over, im dipping everything in bayer and manually removing all that I can see. I have heard mixed reviews on the superglue, but I think where people struggle is they don't completely seal the tube. You could try a mix of waterweld epoxy and superglue. Also the kalk paste is cheap and easily available to make. Buy a small bag of pickling lime at walmart by the canning supplies. Same stuff as kalkwasser. more or less.

For the aptasia in the overflow, do you have a valve you can close on your overflow? If so, you could shut your return pump down, let your overflow empty, valve it out, and fill it with boiling RO water. Problem solved.

[mpderksen]

Originally Posted by pisanoal

Vermetid Snails are a pain. Usually their numbers will rise and fall with available food. What are you feeding? I had a few of them in my tank for a year or two, then when I moved and reset the tank up, they exploded. I recently upgraded and as I move coral over, im dipping everything in bayer and manually removing all that I can see. I have heard mixed reviews on the superglue, but I think where people struggle is they don't completely seal the tube. You could try a mix of waterweld epoxy and superglue. Also the kalk paste is cheap and easily available to make. Buy a small bag of pickling lime at walmart by the canning supplies. Same stuff as kalkwasser. more or less.



For the aptasia in the overflow, do you have a valve you can close on your overflow? If so, you could shut your return pump down, let your overflow empty, valve it out, and fill it with boiling RO water. Problem solved.

Excellent. Thanks for help.
Should I snap the ends off the little tubes that are growing up? Or just stop the flow and syringe the stuff to cover the ends?
For the Aptasia, they are mostly on the teeth of the overflow, but a few are lower. I could close the valve, hit them with something (Aptasia-x or lemon juice). Then wait a bit and scrub the whole area. Then open the valve to catch everything in a container, and dump it. Then just refill with new saltwater. Decent plan? My overflow is the depth of the tank, so I'd need a few gallons only.

[pisanoal]

Sounds like a good place to start.

For the vermetids, ive scraped the whole thing off for manual removal. Just breaking the tubes won't get ride of them. If you squirt the kalk paste in them, whatever is easier for you I would say. Leaving the tube on May help the paste not get washed away. Side note, be careful how much you use at once because it may cause a pH spike

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[kmbyrnes]

Nice harvest