I think its time to take another leap.
I still have half my rocks in the curing bucket. Dosing it with 4ml peroxide daily; do it by pulling a rock to sit out of the water and dispensing the HP dose over algae. Wait 5 minutes and put back under water. All the HP eventually gets in the bucket. Ammonia and nitrites at 0, Nitrates at 30ppm today after a 33% WC yesterday, and phosphates up to a mind staggering 0.04. At least I know my Hanna Checker can make a reading of other than 0.
In the DT, I am also dosing 25ml HP for about 125 G of water all told. I am using a syringe to dose it into the worst areas of algae, and am being very careful to avoid SPS, as I've read they don't like it. LPS and shrooms don't mind the dose at all. The algae is turning white shortly after the dose. Amm, N2, N3 and Phosphate all at 0 still.
Now I think I need to do something to get ride of the algae, pulling it all out is neither possible, nor feasible in a 31" deep tank. I have mentioned the clean-up crew I'm thinking of and its hefty (to get $35 air freight to the island). $200 worth of critters, including 65-100 dwarf blue leg hermits, 24 scarlet hermits,4 lettuce slugs, 3 conches and an algae blenny.
The other thing I'm considering is changing out my substrate which I think is a crushed coral sand mix. It was 1 year old when I got the tank, and that may have been part of the problem, but I rinsed it very well first before reusing it. I would go with a standard arag sand or PFS (haven't decided yet). I would have to suck out about 1/3 each week with water changes (right side, centre, left side) to avoid shocking the entire system.
So, I'm asking the experts opinions, should I get the clean-up crew and hold off or even cancel the substrate change (I guess I should post a pic of it to confirm what it is), or change the substrate first and see what that does.
Did I mention Grr, algae!
I also pruned the chaeto again (3 weeks) and it dried to 13grams of biomass. Still way less than I'm feeding. Stoopid algae.