GHA and tank age

Trever

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New reefer, I've been battling GHA for several months now. The dominant species of GHA seems likely to have changed, can't say for sure, but a couple "waves" of it.

Tank is 7.5 months old.

Started with dry pukani rock that had been cured and carib sea live sand.

Is this something I can still attribute to a new/immature tank? Or no way in hell?
 
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Trever

Trever

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Just asking about the possibility that age could be a significant factor here. I don't want to get into the whole of husbandry here. Thanks
 

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You can grow algae in old tanks easily with lots of light and fresh substrate. It’s just new tanks with corals, especially sps, are all new substrate and lots of light.
 

monkeyCmonkeyDo

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Gha is a product of high nutrients. If u are a doser or dont have adequet flow or filters...thats your problem. Do small frequent wcs and pull the hair algae manually. Trying to help you.
D
 
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I have heard that new tank uglies are typical in the first 6 months, others say first 6 months to year and a half.

Of course, GHA could come anytime with an imbalance- 10 years later, whatever. But new tanks I have heard it is expected (especially with newbies), unless that tank was not started from scratch, or some folks who basically get lucky and never have uglies. And BTW AFAICT experts seem to really believe this is almost always just luck, nothing else- not something that can be replicated by doing various things- otherwise it seems safe to assume the industry would have worked out what the magic is and no one would have new tank uglies. The only solution seems to be live rock, which present other problems though.

I'm wondering what time frame is considered "new" for a tank started from scratch without live rock etc..

[@monkeyCmonkeyDo thanks sincerely but I don't want help with this problem here today. I have lots of other information, help, advice and a plan. This is a topic and question which really has nothing to do with my tank, other than I'm motivated by my situation. I should have been more clear in my top post.]
 
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Jekyl

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I had GHA until close to a year of my tanks age. Never to be seen again after.
 
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Trever

Trever

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@Jekyl thanks. Was it ever pretty much all over everything? Lit surfaces and not sand? Or just small amounts here and there?
 
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Jekyl

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It was everywhere.
 

Greg P

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From personal experience, GHA was difficult to control when starting with dry rock. Over a year later, with thriving coral, and I still had GHA.
When starting with live rock, I had algae under control within months.

The general consensus is the PO4 leaching from dry rock. It's difficult to measure as it's used up almost as fast as it's released.
When you 'cured' the rock, did you test PO4?
Even with live rock, I 'cook' it in tubs. After it's 'cured' (cycled), I test weekly for any PO4 and only use it when there is no longer any PO4 present. 100% WCs while cooking is my preferred method.
 
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Trever

Trever

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@Jekyl lol. Yes- I hear this a lot. Had it, then it just went away.

@Greg P the leaching theories are I think party what people use to explain what @Jekyl reports.

Don't buy it at all myself- even if I'm a minority? And I believe the stuff in the rocks theories can't explain the locations of my algae and various other phenom. My rock was dry for over a year, and about half way through that, underwent a mercuric acid bath at my LFS. So cured in that sense. I know that's not what is usually meant by curing. It's fairly clean rock. Like it, actually. So light weight!

I have the Hanna LR range checker and have never been able to detect phosphate, not even when I had no algae (which was several months, lights off).

But... all of this gets into my situation which I don't want to do. Just looking for data, reports, etc. on the new tank notion.
 

Jekyl

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Algae is a normal part of the cycle. If people didn't freak out about it how are they supposed to sell all those products for it? Lol
 

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