Continual battle with GHA
- Thread starter jakeb
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jakeb
Active Member
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
Reefin’ Ain’t Eazy
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.
jakeb
Active Member
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
2500 Club Member
Tiny little brains...Haha, I like it! I'd find it difficult to put mine in a place without algae!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.
jabberwock
2500 Club Member
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!
www.reef2reef.com
CONTEST - Write a poem about your REEF for a chance to win something SWEET!
I have a tank which has a tang and yellow blenny with a fang they leave each other much alone now I'm looking for an abalone and a rose bubble tip anemone which now really is no friendome it moves almost wherever it wants and noting lives in its old haunts it has a stagnant growth of Duncan...
www.reef2reef.com
jakeb
Active Member
Thanks, that made me smileI 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!
CONTEST - Write a poem about your REEF for a chance to win something SWEET!
I have a tank which has a tang and yellow blenny with a fang they leave each other much alone now I'm looking for an abalone and a rose bubble tip anemone which now really is no friendome it moves almost wherever it wants and noting lives in its old haunts it has a stagnant growth of Duncan...
jakeb
Active Member
So my current plan is to do the following and see where I am after a few months:
In case anyone is interested, Reef Therapy has an interesting podcast on nuisance algae https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/3587295
- 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.
In case anyone is interested, Reef Therapy has an interesting podcast on nuisance algae https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/3587295
jakeb
Active Member
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:
Here is how the tankis looking now:
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:
- Tuxedo urchin (only have one)
- Astraea snail
- Tectus (turban) snail
- Money cowrie
- Turbo (fluctuosa) snail
- Trochus snail (I can't keep these alive)
Here is how the tankis looking now:
jabberwock
2500 Club Member
WOW! It looks great! Nice work!
fishface NJ
5000 Club Member
Nice!
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