The Great Algae Genocide War of 2010….

Its been rough, I'll admit. But all my steps so far have been based on the wonderful help and advice I've received from everyone here on this forum. :^:

 

Looks good. Glad it's working out. I forget, do you have a refugium?

 

I do. Re-did it as part of this overhaul.

 

Not using tap water anymore and the new bulbs should help allot. I am getting algae on one side of my tank cause I had a bulb burn out and put in an old one till I can get some fish funds.

 

Yeah, I can't wait to see what my new lights look like. I took some shots of my tank under the old lighting, with 10k bulbs. But I've upgraded to 14k bulbs and have a serious itch to see them in action. However, I am erring on the side of caution and allowing my lighting fixture an extra long time to cure from its fresh coat of paint.

I am ALSO waiting to hear back from IceCap customer service to see if my ballast will be covered under warranty or not. Repairs cost $95, plus $10 to ship it back to me. Total cost of repair would be $40 less than the original purchase price.

 

It looks like it is coming along nicely.

 

Finally there! I reinstalled my lighting fixture today. Here is it with it's fresh coat of paint and bulb fixtures:




And here it is remounted on my canopy, just look at that sheen!



And, as promised, here is the video. Take it easy on me guys, my video camera is getting older. The tank looks quite bleached out according to these images. I also only have my MH lights on, as the actinics are still outta commission. I will be slowly increasing my photo period over the next week to avoid shocking the system and allow a little more time to get my ballast back from the IceCap repair center. The only fish in the tank at the moment is the little diamond goby you see in the beginning. The other three are chilling out in the QT at the moment.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP8vyDc9mOE"]YouTube - Aquarium Video.mpg[/ame]​

 

Your video was very good I thought. Great music choice too. Nice shout out at the end AG.

 

Tank looks good and the video is nice as well. Good documentation. I'm fighting a hair algae war too.

 

Good luck Hiker!!! I hope you find success. It can be very frustrating.

 

AG, I have been through all of this before and was ready to put the whole thing up for sale till I figured one of the keys to this out. Algae can't grow where there is flow. I tore out my rocks and all but 1/2" of sand and redid my aquascaping with nothing but large pieces. I also doubled my in tank flow going from 2 koralia 2's to adding 2 3's and a 4. My tank is a 110. 4' wide. I have crazy flow, my fish and coral love it. I have huge wholes in my scaping and verylittle sand in the bottom so I have no dead spots. I sill get a little hair algae on my powerheads and some on the glass but it feeds my snails crabs and urchin. It really has been working well with no filtration other than a skimmer and monthly water changes.

I was there and beat it and you can too!

 

BP...increasing my flow AND reaquascaping were BOTH on my to-do list. My flow is SO much better now, and I also have much larger rocks with a lot of space around them. I hope its enough to keep it all at bay.

 

wow your tank looks sooooo much better, that was really sad to see all of the ones who didn't make it. But congrats! your hard work is paying off.

 

Frustrating for sure.

 

If you start to see a comeback in spots, go get another power head. Seeing the die off tho, I wouldn't expect it.

 

Here is an updated FST for you guys, WITH fish

 

Yup I wish you much luck, you have done alot, and sounds like what I will be doing too, your thread has taught me alot, Thank you,

 

You're welcome!