GHA and dosing nitrates

[ilikefish69]

Pictures as requested! I’ll take a look at lynbya..



The places where you dont see the algae growing is because i used peroxide dip

dude that is hardcore

 

[ilikefish69]

but those corals look happy lol

 

[rueric]

but those corals look happy lol

lol I'm trying!

 

[ilikefish69]

what is that tangerine looking thing your clowns are right next to? I have a serious love for orange corals

 

[rmorris_14]

I am seeing good results with my last h202 dip for the smaller rocks. I think i'll need to take a similar approach to my main rock structure which is all glued together. It's going to be a PITA because I do have a single frogspawn mounted using glue+putty on it...

I had my husband hold a cup over top of the leather coral that was attached to one of the rocks while I sprayed on the H202. I then used a paint brush to get in closer around it. To be honest, the whole process was a PIA and I definitely had a drink (or two ) after each undertaking. My suggestion would be to work in sections rather than try to do the whole thing at once and get a container large enough to fill with water from your tank during a water change. Have the big rock almost completely submerged while you scrub. H202 then let it sit out , then rinse with more fresh water from your tank. Despite it being a huge PIA, it is the only thing that worked and it has been months since. I have had some algae start to try to return a small places within the last couple weeks but my CUC has been able to keep it under control so far.

 

[rueric]

what is that tangerine looking thing your clowns are right next to? I have a serious love for orange corals

That would be a green candycane lol

 

[rmorris_14]

Also, not trying to mom you but if you do go that route, make sure wear gloves and protective eyewear.

 

[Dan_P]

Pictures as requested! I’ll take a look at lynbya..



The places where you dont see the algae growing is because i used peroxide dip

Oh boy, you have a project on your hands.

If the snails are not eating this stuff, it might be covered in cyanobacteria. You would need a microscope to determine that. I mention this because your display tank looks like it has been going off the rails for some time. The build of algae might be creating a resilient problem.

I would start feeding the snails to keep them or get them healthy for task ahead. Sick snails may not eat. Try a piece of dried seaweed. If they don’t eat that, they are probably goners.

I had a 75 gallon aquarium that resembled your situation and added 15 Mexican turbos. It was clean in a week. After two years the snails are plum size and cost about 15 USD per month to feed. One spawned recently. Not everyone’s cup of tea. Just thought I’d mention it.

 

[rueric]

It's a 32g tank, with 3 turbos in there, not making a dent in the matter.
I'm looking to see where I can pick up pitho crabs, reefcleaners appear to be OOS

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thanks for the guidance, the last emerald crab I got try and tackle this ~4 weeks ago died, along with the other stuff i bought. Did not include pitho crab or astrea snails.

What do you suggest doing for the back wall?
I suspect the brushing in the tank is causing the spores to float around and grow on everything else so I'll stop doing in-tank scrubs immediately.

Back wall, edge of old credit card works well as does razor. Net up the loose matter when you’re done

 

[rueric]

Back wall, edge of old credit card works well as does razor. Net up the loose matter when you’re done

Tooth brush a bad idea?

 

[reeftankdude]

I would cut the lights out for about four days. This just may losen the base of the algae, which can then be pulled out. Then I would do four 25 percent water changes with distilled water and Reef Crystals. Just my two cents. Still new to the hobby.

 

[tnw50cal]

In my many battles with GHA the only thing that worked was time. Time for the tank to mature to be exact. For me this has always been more than 2 years. I always fight the battle(fighting one now) but know that it will take time to win.

 

[rueric]

What do you do to help fight the battle?

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

I would look at your phosphate levels, as GHA ‘generally’ can use it as a food source and therefore give a false low reading

If it were me I would try something like rowaphos (I use a lot of it) or more of your GFO and it will remove any excess phosphate from the system and starve the GHA. Remember it needs changing when spent or it won’t work

Also look at what your adding, food types etc which may contain high phosphate levels.

I don’t understand how people always say to lower nutrients to stop GHA. I’ve had massive rapid growing forests of GHA with 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates. They will suck up any as they’re created every time your fishs poo breaks down. If your nitrates phosphates are 0 0 you’re starving your coral also, so low nutrients just doesn’t seem reasonable as a way to fight GHA or most algae for that matter.

We’ve been battling GHA for months. I’m talking 3-5 inch forest growing in 3-4 weeks after full scrub down to the rocks.

We've tried a lot of things. The only ones that really seemed to help much in order of highest you lowwere:

*Sea Hares: ******* finally something works. These guys are AMAZING for GHA.
*Dropping lighting to 20% intensity and only 6 hours a day. Now that sea hares are defeating the GHA, turning lighting up slowly.
*Tuxedo urchins, but they’re a bit aggressive against the rocks lol. They actually eat into the rock and definitely eat coralline.
*Tang Gang: They eat the shorter algae, and stop it from growing back I think after the Sea Hare or Urchins eat the long stuff. Tangs don’t seem to eat long GHA though for me. They eat it before it can get long though which is great once you get it under control.
*Snails work a bit but you need a million of them. Sea hare is my favorite by far, and in surprised it isn’t number 1 in every GHA thread.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

Hi folks..

I'm at my wits end with trying to battle GHA.
For the past 4 months, I've been battle GHA. I'm looking to know if I should perhaps dose nitrates in an attempt to "balance" out my nutrients.
Here are the various things I have tried thus far:
- Weekly 30-40% water changes after scrubbing and pulling out the long one-inch strands
- Reduced feeding, only 1x a day
- Chemipure Elite (Has GFO)
- Reef Flux AND Flux RX
- Setting up a breeder box refugium
- Added lots of CUC, only to have them all die within a week. (Probably contributed to even more growth?)
- Peroxide 50/50 dips for rocks that can be moved out

Currently, I'm in my 2nd week of my 2nd fluc treatment, this time using Reef Flux. This does not appear to be having any impact on the GHA, it is still growing back, albeit slightly slowly.

As of last nights testing:
Alk: 7.8
Nitrate: 0.0
Phosphate: 0.06

At this point, what are my options, what should I try?
Should I try dosing Nitrates to see if that would reduce my phosphate, bring some balance to the tank, and pray it weakens the GHA?
OR, would it only serve to strengthen the GHA?

I don’t have experience with all of the chemicals you’re adding, but it seems like you’re really messing with chemistry a lot which could have consequences.

Try Sea Hares. They’re magical. I have 300 Gallob tank with insane GHA forest, and 4 Sea Hares ranging from 1.5inch to 4 inch are finally defeating our GHA problem. I broke it down more in another post on your thread replying to someone else. Good luck soldier!

 

[djf91]

I don’t have experience with all of the chemicals you’re adding, but it seems like you’re really messing with chemistry a lot which could have consequences.

Try Sea Hares. They’re magical. I have 300 Gallob tank with insane GHA forest, and 4 Sea Hares ranging from 1.5inch to 4 inch are finally defeating our GHA problem. I broke it down more in another post on your thread replying to someone else. Good luck soldier!

Don’t listen to this. Clearly there is already an issue with CUC survival. The sea hares likely wouldn’t make it. I had the same issue, lost snails and a seahare.

 

[KonradTO]

I still have not found a single post where this "phosphates are there you just cannot test them because of algae" theory is justified in a convincing way. Nutrients are either in the water column or not. If GHA absorbs them for growing then you don't have enough for the other organisms and you might start seeing dinos at some point when you start removing them manually.
Also, if you can move the coral frags in the sump you could try to blackout the dt for long time to kill them. For me a fuge worked well, I still have gha but it grows much slower now. Only problem, I dosed nitrates to lower phos, phosphate went to near zero values for weeks and I got dinos now. So be careful with this gfo stuff
Can you access a cheap microscope somehow to look at those algae?

 

[SPR1968]

I don’t understand how people always say to lower nutrients to stop GHA. I’ve had massive rapid growing forests of GHA with 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates. They will suck up any as they’re created every time your fishs poo breaks down.

Thats why you use the phosphate removal media. It removes it before the GHA can use it as a food source…….. and then it has no food so starves…..

But you need to use it 24/7 and change the media when spent or it wont work.

And just to be clear Im not talking about reducing nitrate levels here, just phosphate

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I don’t understand how people always say to lower nutrients to stop GHA. I’ve had massive rapid growing forests of GHA with 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates. They will suck up any as they’re created every time your fishs poo breaks down. If your nitrates phosphates are 0 0 you’re starving your coral also, so low nutrients just doesn’t seem reasonable as a way to fight GHA or most algae for that matter.

We’ve been battling GHA for months. I’m talking 3-5 inch forest growing in 3-4 weeks after full scrub down to the rocks.

We've tried a lot of things. The only ones that really seemed to help much in order of highest you lowwere:

*Sea Hares: ******* finally something works. These guys are AMAZING for GHA.
*Dropping lighting to 20% intensity and only 6 hours a day. Now that sea hares are defeating the GHA, turning lighting up slowly.
*Tuxedo urchins, but they’re a bit aggressive against the rocks lol. They actually eat into the rock and definitely eat coralline.
*Tang Gang: They eat the shorter algae, and stop it from growing back I think after the Sea Hare or Urchins eat the long stuff. Tangs don’t seem to eat long GHA though for me. They eat it before it can get long though which is great once you get it under control.
*Snails work a bit but you need a million of them. Sea hare is my favorite by far, and in surprised it isn’t number 1 in every GHA thread.

Low enough nutrients will always stop algae growth, but it can starve corals too and may risk dinos.

The flip side that you observe is that sufficient algae (macroalgae or microalgae) can drop nutrients to low levels as it consumes them rapidly.