.25 phosphates and green hair algae

living_tribunal

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I would first start lowering the phosphate to levels under .1. Also, spot check your nitrates as most algaes will consume ratios of both. When one is lower is does act as a limiting factor. So with a proliferation, and the fact that it hasn't entirely consumed all of your phosphates (most with GHA blooms will have their params drop quick), your nitrates are probably high as well.

Once you have your parameters under control, then lever the fact that you have a nano and remove it all. You can quickly eliminate algae like this in a nano.

I have always used tongs or a turkey baster to grab/suck the larger pieces. For the smaller pieces, blow them off with the turkey baster then grab a small net and swoosh it back and forth removing as much as possible.

Since you have already handled your phosphate/nitrate conditions at this point, it will be much harder for it to return.
 

Tankkeepers

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Ya looks to be gha from the pics ya its just going threw a gta phase I would either pull it out by hand or trim with scissors and remove with a filter sock get a good cuc to keep it in check once you have shortened it by hand may have to shorten it several times start changing your water 3 times a week at least a
25 percent at a time and let the phosphates leach from the aqua scape and it will go away over time as long as you have a cuc tjat can keep it in check in tje future I would not however change out the rocks as that will start a new cycle all over again also blowing out the bad areas with a turkey baster to remove food thats got caught after trimming it will help if had tanks do that to me before and with some care it can be taken care of see if someone will loan you a dobrabella sea hare as it'll make quick work of that stuff
 

Tired

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Changing your water three times a week will likely remove most of the nutrients from the tank. That's a bad thing, because it means pest algae can still do well, but its less hardy competition can't. Starving your tank won't fix the problem.
 

Tankkeepers

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I'd disagree on that as he wont be starving the tank as he already has a high level and he should only be doing the water changes while he has a problem once corrected then go back to regular water changes and if he keeps feeding the tank again he is not starving it just reducing overall nutrients faster untill they are back in the correct range of done this many times and have never hurt anything by doing it
 

Tankkeepers

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But if his levels have been to high for to long tje rockwork needs to be leached back to balance so you have to continually drop the levels as the rockwork will balance with the water level so you have to keep the water lower then the rockwork untill its leached otherwise a spike in the water will cause the levels in the rock to raise again
 
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mikee002

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Thanks,

I removed the rocks and scrubbed them clean a month or so ago, the GHA obviously came right back. I didn’t do aggressive water changes and didn’t have the CUC to keep it in check though.
Ya looks to be gha from the pics ya its just going threw a gta phase I would either pull it out by hand or trim with scissors and remove with a filter sock get a good cuc to keep it in check once you have shortened it by hand may have to shorten it several times start changing your water 3 times a week at least a
25 percent at a time and let the phosphates leach from the aqua scape and it will go away over time as long as you have a cuc tjat can keep it in check in tje future I would not however change out the rocks as that will start a new cycle all over again also blowing out the bad areas with a turkey baster to remove food thats got caught after trimming it will help if had tanks do that to me before and with some care it can be taken care of see if someone will loan you a dobrabella sea hare as it'll make quick work of that stuff
 
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mikee002

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Honestly my nutrients are and always have been low. Almost undetectable nutrients since the cycle completed (except PO4 obviously). I always thought this was a good thing, but have learned than none are not good.

Changing your water three times a week will likely remove most of the nutrients from the tank. That's a bad thing, because it means pest algae can still do well, but its less hardy competition can't. Starving your tank won't fix the problem.
 

Tired

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I wouldn't go scrubbing the rocks, it makes it harder for competition algae to get established. Just add algae eaters and keep the long algae pulled out.

At least your phosphate isn't low. Low phosphate will kill corals, surprisingly fast. Low nitrate is bad for them, but kills them more slowly.
 

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Red and blue leg hermits, as part of suggested CUC, there’s a couple hidden, small, red Hitchhiker crabs in the rock that I only see at night occasionally.
I would return those or give them away. They eat a little algae, and some stuff that blows around but they can be opportunistic carnivores and can eat stuff you don't want to be eaten. These used to be really popular as cuc, but they never really lived up to the hype and there are better cuc that don't eat things you want.
 
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mikee002

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copy, they can always go down to the sump and live happily there.

I would return those or give them away. They eat a little algae, and some stuff that blows around but they can be opportunistic carnivores and can eat stuff you don't want to be eaten. These used to be really popular as cuc, but they never really lived up to the hype and there are better cuc that don't eat things you want.
 

Tankkeepers

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If you scrubbed to rocks in freshwater vs tank water you killed them and are now starting the cycle all over again with rocks very high in nutrients and without a good clean up crew to keep it in check you will almost always have gha problems as its always trying to grow and somthing has to keep it from growing long as there will always be food for it to grow enless you don't feed your tank which will kill everything else anyway so not really an option my guess is your nutrients have been high for awhile even tho undetectable as we can only test for whats in the water at that time and now your rocks are high so it can feed of them once you get it trimmed short and have a cuc to keep it that way and leach the rocks back to almost 0 it'll clear up leaching then will more then likly take a few weeks to a month but you will see it clear up slowly over that time with less and less growth and the eventually to where you no longer have to trim its as its growth rate equals what your clean up crew eats at that point reduce water changes slowly untill it tests in the water again and then go back to to the amount of water changes you were doing right before that could be once a week could be once a month depends on amount of food going into the system vs the uneaten food decomposing and the waste being produced by eaten food as what goes in is not equal to what needs to come out also once it clears up you may find your better off with a few large water changes in a month vs several small ones figure it like this 20 percent every 2 weeks is more nutrients leaving the system the 10 percent every week as each water change your still building up nutrients over time untill they either balance the system or over shell it and cause a problem I can show you the math if need be but the numbers are there overall 20 percent every 2 weeks removes more in the long run then 10 percent every week the end result over time at 10 percent is higher not say you should do 10 or 20 just say find what keeps your system happy and stick with tjat even if it's 50 percent once a month
 

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Example as the math is alittle to long to post here start at 10 rise per month and by week 4 at 10 percent you end with 14 while at 20 percent every 2 weeks you end at 11 give or take alittle as it'll never be a flat rate of gain
 

Tankkeepers

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I really really hope you get it under control I wish you the best of luck and I'm am by no means an expert only sharing what has worked for me over 15 years of time I'm sure there are other ways of doing it that may better suit you listen to everyone try one thing if it does not work try somthing else untill you find what works for you and then stick with it
 

Tired

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Okay, that looks like good advice, but it's basically unreadable. You don't have to be good at grammar, just... maybe some periods. Think about if you were saying the phrase out loud. Where would you naturally stop between phrases? Put periods in there. Whenever you start a new sentence, capitalize the first letter of the first word. Just those two things, without any commas or anything else, would make it a lot easier to read your advice.

Paragraph breaks are also good when you have a lot of words, it breaks the chunk of words up so people can more easily read it. It's especially good if someone is on a phone, and the post is therefore very tall and thin. And they can be used to change subjects. Like how I used one here, when I was going from talking about commas and periods, to talking about breaks. It makes the post more readable.

You don't have to have perfect grammar to give good advice. However, it's a lot easier for people to read your advice if you use some periods and the occasional break.
 

Tankkeepers

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Sry not gunna happen not to be rude but I wouldnt even know where to put a punctuation in let alone care read slow and take a breath when you feel its needed
 

Tired

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Look, I literally can't read some of your longer posts. Without any punctuation or line breaks to break it up, my eyes slide from one line to another too fast. I can't process what you're saying, and I doubt I'm the only one. Readability for everyone is a good thing, and periods are not that hard to use.
 

Tankkeepers

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It's a disadvantage of having dyslexia I would spend more time trying to figure out where to put stuff then actually writing it get feed up and frustrated and just not help
 

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