[gregr]

Background: I was far too late in doing something about a hair algae outbreak in my tank. By the time I finally tried to fix it the algae had completely taken over the tank. I removed the causes (bad bulbs, bad ro/di water and overfeeding) and started trying some of the recommended cures- gfo, gac, snails, hermits, massive quanitities of water changes, etc. but still the hair algae thrived. The water was nice and clear and the corals actually looked good but the tank itself was hideous. Then I tried Algaefix. I think I got to 9 doses and it made a small dent but didn't solve the problem. Then I did 4 months of vodka dosing. Skimmer output increased, mushrooms, anemones and leathers hated it, algae decreased a bit but not a lot. Ok. Oh yeah- it took the nitrates down from about 12.5 to 5.
About a month ago I stopped dosing vodka and added some sea hares and manually plucked algae (was plucking during vodka dosing days too). Forgot to mention that there was cyano present, mostly starting with that Algaefix. Well, a month after stopping the vodka and the cyano is gone and the hair algae is about 75% gone. I was expecting a big increase but no.
It sure seems like stopping the vodka has cleared the tank up. But how could that be?