So, this problem right here... Back again... Here's the newest update
Calcium is at 460
Magnesium is currently at 1550
Phosphates at .05
0 Nitrate
0 Nitrite
0 Ammonia
So, i had upped my Magnesium to 1800 and kept it there for about a month. My fish are in quarantine (ich) so i figured this is a good time to get rid of the algae. After increasing magnesium the stuff died back A LOT... As in... It was all gone from what i could tell and nothing was left but a brown sludge. I cleaned out as much of that as i could. I LIGHTLY fed corals while fish were out and corals did suffer. DURING the mag treatment i ALSO did a black out 3 days at a time. 3 Days black out then 2 days light. 3 Days black out... Did this for 2 weeks... Everything seemed to be going great. Was also pulling / scrubbing rocks best i could to get as much out as i could...
2 days after starting up coral feeding again + adding fish.. It's back. EVERYTHING else as far as algae is dead. All the hair, strand, even some bubble i started noticing once the bryopsis was dying off is gone... The bryopsis is back. The tiny little leaf like fronds are popping up EVERYWHERE. It's not bad, they're still small, but quite obviously making a firm carpet over EVERYTHING. Soon i'm going to start Carbon Dosing (not QUITE setup for it yet, but getting there slowly and surely). I lost all my cleanup crew except my cleaner shrimp (which doesn't eat Algae anyways) and 1 of my mexican turbo snails of my 2. Emerald Crabs, Hermits, Peppermint Shrimp, Cerinth and Nerite snails all done and gone now. So, i'm about to order (will actually do a group buy on here) a new cleanup crew... Question is - what should i focus on to combat this problem? Is there anything that will help? I've heard the caribbean / mexican red leg hermit crabs will actually eat the stuff. Is there anything else? Any and all help is appreciated. I've tried all i can think of at this point. Hydrogen Peroxide, lights out, manual scrubbing, tangs and Kent Tech-M. RO filter is producing 0 TDS mix water (and OMG did that new membrane and carbon filters make a difference... It's literally lasting 10x's longer than before), so carbon dosing is the only thing left i can think of to combat my high phosphate numbers which aren't all THAT bad i don't think (i just don't have the funds to keep up with GFO reactor right now. $15-20 every week or two is out of the question until wife gets a new job or one of my side jobs takes off).