Advice? Leaching Rock / Cleaning

Well if you dont have anything to take up the excess nutrients then yea your gonna get algae thats why most people run some kind algae like cheato mangroves ect. Because those things starve out the bad algae you dont want in your system. So if you dont have that, the nutrients are be taking in by something else the alge your scrubbing off your rocks all the time.

 

Research lanthanum chloride in reef central. I am actually going to this to cycle my new rock for my 65

 

When I got my 120 with about 150 pounds of rock, the previous guy had let the tank go to crap over about 4 years. I fought with every type of nasty algae for a LONG time. I was trying to figure out what to do as well before I discovered that it was the rock leaching things out.

For me it came down to 2 things. 1) let the algae grow.... Yes it is ugly, but the algae is actually consuming the nasty crap leaching from the rock. Some "trimming back" is OK, but let nature do its thing. 2) Running GFO. At first this seemed to make things worse, but it was just that the crap in the rock had a super clean water source to leach out to, so things got worse for a while.

It took a solid 1 year of just letting the algae consume stuff before I got the GFO reactor, and then about another year before all was well.

Pain in the butt for sure, but the African savanna of flowing hair algae has been gone for a while, and I still deal with a little bit of stuff, but the GFO is managing it nicely. It was a SLOW process, but I was warned about that up front. A lot of research said to either be patient, or scrap it all and start with *new* dry rock (not someone's old rock that is now dead). That was too much money for me, so I just stuck it out.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like it is horrific the full 2 years, but it really took the 1/2 punch of letting the algae do its thing AND the GFO before it really started to improve.

FYI, as odd as it sounds, I can't hardly get any macro algae growing in the sump, even with recommended lighting, etc. Never could.

 

You mentioned that you've tried many different treatments for phosphate removal, what were those and how long did you give them a try for?

 

Those recommendations from the manufacturer of the product is simply a rough timeline for changing out the media. You can keep using the product its just that it needs to be replaced. Purigen is good and it can even be refreshed and used again.
Have you done any research on vodka dosing?

 

When my rocks were leaching phosphate i use rowaphos i used a whole 50 buck tub from amazon and used the whole thing on my 40 breeder im sure i replaced it before it needed it but thats some good stuff.