Carbon dosing, undetectable nutrients, and green hair algae

[tmerritt]

I’ve watched Lou present the benefits of carbon dosing for coral and I’m curious if it’d be a good or bad idea to carbon dose with my scenario.

I currently have a 0.0 phosphate (Hanna ULR phosphate) and a 0.5 nitrate (Nyos). My system has a Refugium which grows quite a bit of Chaeto, but there’s also a pretty strong presence of green hair algae in the display.

I realize the nutrients are actually bound up and being consumed by the GHA, but I don’t know where that leaves me in regards to carbon dosing.

Should I use the product based on a low nutrient system since my readings are low/undetectable? This seems like it would compound the issue that’s causing the GHA.

Should I use the product based on a high nutrient system? This seems like it could work but could also be too big of a drain on the already limited nutrients for corals? Not sure though.

Should I use the product based on already balanced nutrients within the ideal range? This seems like a good middle of the road approach, but I don’t know if it’ll compete with the GHA?

Or should I hold off on carbon dosing until my GHA problem is resolved.

TIA!

 

[pusanpa]

GHA needs po4 and light to survive which means you have po4 in your tank. PO4 is not detectable because GHA consumes it when it becomes available. I would guess that your corals look pale because the GHA steals all the PO4.

Here are my suggestions :
- Dosing amino acids that boost your coral health since you have very low nutrient levels. It is good for skeleton development and protein pigment (color).
- I would stop dosing carbon sources to prevent the fast depletion of po4 and no3 if your corals are pale.
- I would add bacteria products to diversify as it competes against algae as well as bad bacteria.
- Bacteria is good coral food
- Add more coral so that they can outcompete the GHA (It is a challenge if you don't have many corals).
- Manual removal
- Add lots of cleanup crew. When there is even a small amount of po4, you always see some algae here and there no matter what. This is a must.
- Refugium to outcompete but this is becoming an old trend since there are better ways.
- You could also consider Fluconazole treatment.

 

[Hans-Werner]

In your situation, 0,0 phosphate, the Plus-NP is recommended. Usually low phosphate concentrations are the cause of GHA and some other nuisance algae. The reason is that corals can't compete for iron and nitrogen with algae when their growth is phosphate limited. Plus-NP supplies the phosphates for the corals to compete with the GHA.

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[tmerritt]

Thank you both for the replies! A lot of good information and have a direction to move forward now.

I think I'll do the following:
* Continue the manual removal of GHA
* Dose Plus-NP to help the good bacteria to thrive in this environment where the GHA is pulling out the nutrients
* Run through a bottle of Microbacter7 to make sure that the tank has a diverse pool of good bacteria. Will probably just go through a single bottle, but I'll monitor the conditions in the tank after that has been depleted.
* Dose aminos until at least the nutrients are back to a detectable level. May continue after as well.
* Add additional snails. The right half of my tank (where I placed all of my snails at the beginning) has very sparse amounts of GHA (I could live with the amount there currently). I'll get another dozen astrea snails and add to the left half of my tank.

 

[MartinM]

Let us know how it goes!

 

[Rams]

Thank you both for the replies! A lot of good information and have a direction to move forward now.

I think I'll do the following:
* Continue the manual removal of GHA
* Dose Plus-NP to help the good bacteria to thrive in this environment where the GHA is pulling out the nutrients
* Run through a bottle of Microbacter7 to make sure that the tank has a diverse pool of good bacteria. Will probably just go through a single bottle, but I'll monitor the conditions in the tank after that has been depleted.
* Dose aminos until at least the nutrients are back to a detectable level. May continue after as well.
* Add additional snails. The right half of my tank (where I placed all of my snails at the beginning) has very sparse amounts of GHA (I could live with the amount there currently). I'll get another dozen astrea snails and add to the left half of my tank.

Any updates on this? I am also facing similar issue

 

[tmerritt]

Any updates on this? I am also facing similar issue

Not really. Been busy with life.

Finally got around to doing manual removal a couple of days ago. I am hesitant to go in and mess with things chemical wise as I worry I could just wind up with a new issue.

I think the main thing is just getting more snails. The rockwork on the side of the tank I added the initial snails to is mostly spotless (as far as GHA is concerned).

I did just get my ICP test results and it shows 0 ppm nitrate and 0.11 ppm phosphate. I had a torch coral frag die and I'm not sure if it was the low nitrate that did that or not.

 

[SPS2020]

For me, it was daily manual removal, adding a ton of CUC including six tuxedo urchins, about 500 ceriths, numerous turbos snails and installing a Turbo Aquatics L2 ATS and finally food grade peroxide spot "feeding" the GHA at a rate of 1ml per gallon per day.