Continual battle with GHA

[kpoj9]

Have you tried Reeflux?

 

[jakeb]

Have you tried Reeflux?

I haven't tried Reeflux, but I have tried Flux RX (which has better availability in the UK). Flux RX didn't seem to make a noticeable difference.

 

[kpoj9]

I haven't tried Reeflux, but I have tried Flux RX (which has better availability in the UK). Flux RX didn't seem to make a noticeable difference.

My advice is to be patient and stick with the basics….Manual removal, blackout/reducing light period, less feeding, water changes, CUC, and if you dose anything make sure that you give it a chance to work. Try it for several weeks. Nothing good happens in a tank overnight.

 

[Who me?]

Have you tried bottled bacteria? MicroBacter 7 and MicroBacter clean dosed as per instructed on the bottle.... Should see strong results in 2 weeks with the majority of gha gone in 6-8 weeks.

 

[jakeb]

Have you tried bottled bacteria? MicroBacter 7 and MicroBacter clean dosed as per instructed on the bottle.... Should see strong results in 2 weeks with the majority of gha gone in 6-8 weeks.

I haven't yet, but I have started researching MicroBacter. The shop I usually buy from is currently out of stock, so I have time to read up on it.

 

[jabberwock]

Haha, I like it! I'd find it difficult to put mine in a place without algae! :face-with-hand-over-mouth: It is an odd animal though. It will crawl over tonnes of algae, to go eat identical looking algae on the over side of the tank.

Tiny little brains...

 

[jabberwock]

I have been there... I had a catastrophic tank failure that may have actually been a blessing because I was loosing the battle. I left the hobby for 4 years and am just getting back. I see this time and again with dry rock starts. Dry rock starts were the gospel in 2018. Not so much anymore, unless you want to be an algae farmer. If I am not helpful, I do sympathize. At least your livestock are doing well, and your floor is dry. It was pretty crushing loading my livestock into tubs and emptying the tank in a hurry. At least I was home to mitigate the disaster. I was able to save everybody and the LFS was willing to accept them as refugees. Hopefully my poem will cheer you up!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/w...n-something-sweet.924800/page-2#post-10410543

 

[jakeb]

I have been there... I had a catastrophic tank failure that may have actually been a blessing because I was loosing the battle. I left the hobby for 4 years and am just getting back. I see this time and again with dry rock starts. Dry rock starts were the gospel in 2018. Not so much anymore, unless you want to be an algae farmer. If I am not helpful, I do sympathize. At least your livestock are doing well, and your floor is dry. It was pretty crushing loading my livestock into tubs and emptying the tank in a hurry. At least I was home to mitigate the disaster. I was able to save everybody and the LFS was willing to accept them as refugees. Hopefully my poem will cheer you up!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/w...n-something-sweet.924800/page-2#post-10410543

Thanks, that made me smile :)

 

[jakeb]

So my current plan is to do the following and see where I am after a few months:

• Reduce my light intensity to peak at 50%, and the spectrum to peak at 20% white.
• Reduce my lighting period to 7 hours.
• Change my schedule of cleaning algae. Instead of spending most of a day cleaning all of my rockwork every 3-4 weeks, spend no more than 20 minutes every few days.
• Run an internal filter when scrubbing rock.
• Keep running my skimmer and algae scrubber, but run my rowaphos in a media bag instead of a reactor.
• Put an air pump near my return and run as a bubble scrubber every few days.

If this makes an impact, add some CUC once the tank has a little more of a balance of algae types.

In case anyone is interested, Reef Therapy has an interesting podcast on nuisance algae https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/3587295

 

[jakeb]

tldr: Algae is hopefully under control. It took a lot of manual removal, but also needed a decent CuC and better filtration.

I thought I'd post an update incase anyone reads this. I've been able to keep algae in my tank under control for around a month by spending 5 minutes a week turkey basting the rock work. I'm hoping this means algae is finally under control!

I think these are the main things that helped:

• Run lights at a fixed intensity of 50% and the spectrum to peak at 25% white, 75% blue.
• 7 hour photo period.
• From August 2022 to January 2023, scrub algae off rocks with a toothbrush whenever it started growing. For a long time this meant spending around 30 minutes every other day, but reduced over time.
• Kept my skimmer, algae scrubber and rowaphos media reactor.
• Changed filter socks every 2 or 3 days (putting them in the washing machine once a week). This was very tedious, so have recently changed to a roller filter.
• As the last step, I tried as many different types of snails and urchins as I could (within reason). I then added more of the ones that worked. Once I had a total of around 10-15 I stop needing to scrub the rock. In order on effectiveness these were:
  1. Tuxedo urchin (only have one)
  2. Astraea snail
  3. Tectus (turban) snail
  4. Money cowrie
  5. Turbo (fluctuosa) snail
  6. Trochus snail (I can't keep these alive)

I never bothered with the power scrubber, and only put an air pump near my return (to 'bubble scrub') once or twice.

Here is how the tankis looking now:

 

[jabberwock]

WOW! It looks great! Nice work!

 

[fishface NJ]

Nice!