GHA (15 gallon tank)

[hoopzers3]

Hey guys, I'm currently battling some what I believe is GHA. This originated on a frag plug that I received from my LFS. was on the (Rainbow zoa you can see in this video) . I tried to contain it when I first started noticing it just around the zoa plug. I did the infamous (tooth brush) scrub the rock idea to try to get it all. Unfortunately as you can see its pretty much all over the tank and entire rock. Tank is about 7-8 months old now. So this didn't originate from my tank itself, but rather a hitchhiker.

I tried during my water change last week to get as much off the rocks as I could but it really is tough to get it all. I feel like I really cant get it all by the pinch and siphon method. Any recommendations? Is this a monitor and keep just trying to remove during weekly water changes? Phosphates are around the 0-0.03 range currently. so hopefully it will eventually starve the algae? I know product GHA removal is out there, but alot are against/some are for it. So not sure what to do. Any tips would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

What does your CUC look like?
Manual removal is always something I reccomend
What are your nitrates?

 

[hoopzers3]

What does your CUC look like?
Manual removal is always something I reccomend
What are your nitrates?

Nitrates in the 0-2 range. Sorry for the range. (Its hard reading the nitrate phosphate Salifert testers) lol

As far as CUC goes, this might be a problem is I have one Nassarius snail. So I am definitly lacking on that front.

 

[dvgyfresh]

That is a lot of algae , I would recommend more clean up crew and manual removal. If it becomes too much you may want to consider taking rocks out of tank and scrubbing in saltwater

 

[dvgyfresh]

As you can see I am also battling GHA, but I have 8-10 hermits , 2 urchin, 5-10 snails , 3 nassarius, and 1 conch in 20G

 

[hoopzers3]

As you can see I am also battling GHA, but I have 8-10 hermits , 2 urchin, 5-10 snails , 3 nassarius, and 1 conch in 20G

Wow. Nice looking tank :D

Yeah I have heard that a Turbo snail may be good. for my 15 gallon i might pick up 1 or 2?

 

[scoot]

Hey guys, I'm currently battling some what I believe is GHA. This originated on a frag plug that I received from my LFS. was on the (Rainbow zoa you can see in this video) . I tried to contain it when I first started noticing it just around the zoa plug. I did the infamous (tooth brush) scrub the rock idea to try to get it all. Unfortunately as you can see its pretty much all over the tank and entire rock. Tank is about 7-8 months old now. So this didn't originate from my tank itself, but rather a hitchhiker.

I tried during my water change last week to get as much off the rocks as I could but it really is tough to get it all. I feel like I really cant get it all by the pinch and siphon method. Any recommendations? Is this a monitor and keep just trying to remove during weekly water changes? Phosphates are around the 0-0.03 range currently. so hopefully it will eventually starve the algae? I know product GHA removal is out there, but alot are against/some are for it. So not sure what to do. Any tips would be appreciated. Thank you!

I also have a 15 gallon and just went through a gha phase that almost got to this level. I was scrubbing it weekly and doing stuff like rinsing frozen food and being really careful not to overfeed so that phosphates would stay low, these steps helped a bit but it was still growing pretty crazy.

Idk what your cleanup crew is but what ended up working for me was i got 5 new astrea snails (og cleanup crew was too omnivore heavy - hermits and nassarius), brushed all gha as much as possible right before adding them, and made sure that they are always on the rockwork. Literally just counting all 5 whenever i am near the tank and if any fell or were on the glass pulling them off and putting them on the rocks wherever i feel like they are needed most. This was only about two weeks ago that i added them and now my gha problem is probably 95% resolved so they have been quite fast.

I assume you are using RODI water with 0 tds? If not this can contribute to algae growth.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Wow. Nice looking tank :D

Yeah I have heard that a Turbo snail may be good. for my 15 gallon i might pick up 1 or 2?

Thanks I love anemones if you couldn’t tell lol
I had 3 turbos as well so great additions , my hermits wanted their shells however

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

More snails and algae grazers will help as mentioned, IMO the tank needs more flow, there's very little movement on the bottom half of the tank.

The most common reason for bad gha is excessive nutrients in the system. Does your filtration system export any nutrients? More water changes and manual removal during water changes

IMO there is no point is testing nitrate/phosphate, most of it is absorbed by the algae so it won't show the true level