GHA CUC recommendations for 15 gallon?

[DragonWrasseFan]

Hey all,

I combed through posts before writing this because I couldn’t really find what I was looking for. I really need good recommendations for a good cleanup crew, in a 15 gallon AIO, when it comes to hair algae please? I currently have

3 Trochus
2 Margaritas (I didn’t know they liked cold water before I bought them)
1 tiger conch
2 nassarius snails
4 blue legged hermits
1 green legged hermit

I also have a Yasha Goby, a candy cane Randall’s pistol shrimp, one baby clown fish, and some soft corals along with a feather duster.

No one seems to be touching the hair algae. I used to have a tail spot blenny that constantly picked at algae, but he had to be rehomed because he would constantly harass my Yasha Goby and pistol. I added an emerald crab and it made the pistol shrimp constantly jump into the filter sock at night. So he’s gone too. I was excited because I thought I was going to be able to add an urchin, and then I found out that they are all going to get too big for my tank. Apparently, even the tuxedos and the pin cushions are too big. If you guys have any more ideas, I would greatly appreciate it. I tried manual removing and I can’t get the stuff off good enough. Also, I did have some strands get loose in the tank and I couldn’t recover them. My tank is roughly 9 months old and some of the GHA is trying to grow in between my Zoas. I even have algae growing all over one of my trochus snail shells

 

[Rocks reef]

You have a good clean up crew already.
What are you parameters? Something is out of whack that is causing the algae to thrive.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

IMO turbo snails are amazing.
But with what you describe, something seems to be off, hair algae IMO is often an imballance between import and export. What do you have for flow in the tank? How much do you feed? Do you do weekly water changes? Do you use rodi water? What do you have for filtration?

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I would be curious to know more about your tank as well, your CUC is fine for a tank that size

 

[DragonWrasseFan]

IMO turbo snails are amazing.
But with what you describe, something seems to be off, hair algae IMO is often an imballance between import and export. What do you have for flow in the tank? How much do you feed? Do you do weekly water changes? Do you use rodi water? What do you have for filtration?

I was doing weekly water changes at 10% and then I did a few at 15% because my nitrates and phosphates were climbing. Then I added Chemi pure blue, not the entire bag, only about one to 2 tablespoons, and I don’t know if that was the whole issue, but my nitrates and phosphates dropped dramatically. I had nitrates that were between 20 and 30ppm that dropped to 10ppm within a week. Phosphate started getting so low it was almost undetectable and my nitrates dropped it down to almost undetectable as well.
What was odd is that my Chemi blue was in the tank for at least three weeks before this happened. I only had three small coral frags at the time. All of my soft corals looked awful. So I stopped doing water changes, and started dosing 5 mL of AFR once a week, because I wasn’t doing water changes. My nutrients climbed a little bit but not much. My corals actually prefer nitrate that is no less than 10 and they even looked really good at 20ppm. Now my phosphate on the other hand is climbing back up, but it’s starting to get too high again. Last Saturday my readings were phosphate was 0.5, and nitrate was 10 ppm. The phosphate seems to be climbing a bit faster. I’m waiting for my nitrate to climb up a tad bit more before I do a water change. Also, I took my filter sock out because it was the only thing that worked in getting my perimeters to rise back up and as soon as they did, my corals started looking fantastic again. I also took my filter sock out because it started catching way too many copepods. I do a sock polish once a week where I leave my sock in for 24 hours. This has been going on for about 3 to 4 weeks now.

Now, when my nutrients dropped to a very low level, and my filter stock was still in, that’s when the hair algae popped up and when my bubble algae started to grow out as well. I do feed my tank a little on the heavy side, because I have a cleaner shrimp that will eat everything and steals from everybody if I don’t feed a little bit more. I feed twice a day. Since my tank is as small as it is, everybody really competes for food. I have one return pump on the right hand side of my tank and a wave maker on the left-hand side of the tank. Flow is good. In fact, the areas where the two bushes of GHA have grown have very good flow. I even have GHA on top of my wave maker which also has good flow. I use only RODI water, but I do get it from my LFS because I do not have a system in place at home. They’ve personally showed me their system though and they look like they do keep up on the filtration changes.
EDIT: I should add that most of the stuff that I did was at the instructions of the local fish store I always go to.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I was doing weekly water changes at 10% and then I did a few at 15% because my nitrates and phosphates were climbing. Then I added Chemi pure blue, not the entire bag, only about one to 2 tablespoons, and I don’t know if that was the whole issue, but my nitrates and phosphates dropped dramatically. I had nitrates that were between 20 and 30ppm that dropped to 10ppm within a week. Phosphate started getting so low it was almost undetectable and my nitrates dropped it down to almost undetectable as well.
What was odd is that my Chemi blue was in the tank for at least three weeks before this happened. I only had three small coral frags at the time. All of my soft corals looked awful. So I stopped doing water changes, and started dosing 5 mL of AFR once a week, because I wasn’t doing water changes. My nutrients climbed a little bit but not much. My corals actually prefer nitrate that is no less than 10 and they even looked really good at 20ppm. Now my phosphate on the other hand is climbing back up, but it’s starting to get too high again. Last Saturday my readings were phosphate was 0.5, and nitrate was 10 ppm. The phosphate seems to be climbing a bit faster. I’m waiting for my nitrate to climb up a tad bit more before I do a water change. Also, I took my filter sock out because it was the only thing that worked in getting my perimeters to rise back up and as soon as they did, my corals started looking fantastic again. I also took my filter sock out because it started catching way too many copepods. I do a sock polish once a week where I leave my sock in for 24 hours. This has been going on for about 3 to 4 weeks now.

Now, when my nutrients dropped to a very low level, and my filter stock was still in, that’s when the hair algae popped up and when my bubble algae started to grow out as well. I do feed my tank a little on the heavy side, because I have a cleaner shrimp that will eat everything and steals from everybody if I don’t feed a little bit more. I feed twice a day. Since my tank is as small as it is, everybody really competes for food. I have one return pump on the right hand side of my tank and a wave maker on the left-hand side of the tank. Flow is good. In fact, the areas where the two bushes of GHA have grown have very good flow. I even have GHA on top of my wave maker which also has good flow. I use only RODI water, but I do get it from my LFS because I do not have a system in place at home. They’ve personally showed me their system though and they look like they do keep up on the filtration changes.
EDIT: I should add that most of the stuff that I did was at the instructions of the local fish store I always go to.

One thing we can't test for are dissolved organics which will contribute to a algae growth. I would increase the water changes, 10% is for maintenance but when you have an algae problem you should increase it. If you have no skimmer then water changes are the only way to remove organics. Nutrients are at low level because algae is absorbing it, so your not doing water changes to attempt to increase the nutrients is actually feeding the algae more. If you want to kill something, find out what it eats and starve it. As algae starves and dies it will release nutrients back into the water, so you have to keep up the water changes until you bring it under control. I feed 3-4 times per day, but very small amounts, uneaten food will rot and feed more algae growth, so avoid any uneaten food. This is just how I've always handled hair algae and its worked out for me, good luck.

 

[DragonWrasseFan]

I was doing weekly water changes at 10% and then I did a few at 15% because my nitrates and phosphates were climbing. Then I added Chemi pure blue, not the entire bag, only about one to 2 tablespoons, and I don’t know if that was the whole issue, but my nitrates and phosphates dropped dramatically. I had nitrates that were between 20 and 30ppm that dropped to 10ppm within a week. Phosphate started getting so low it was almost undetectable and my nitrates dropped it down to almost undetectable as well.
What was odd is that my Chemi blue was in the tank for at least three weeks before this happened. I only had three small coral frags at the time. All of my soft corals looked awful. So I stopped doing water changes, and started dosing 5 mL of AFR once a week, because I wasn’t doing water changes. My nutrients climbed a little bit but not much. My corals actually prefer nitrate that is no less than 10 and they even looked really good at 20ppm. Now my phosphate on the other hand is climbing back up, but it’s starting to get too high again. Last Saturday my readings were phosphate was 0.5, and nitrate was 10 ppm. The phosphate seems to be climbing a bit faster. I’m waiting for my nitrate to climb up a tad bit more before I do a water change. Also, I took my filter sock out because it was the only thing that worked in getting my perimeters to rise back up and as soon as they did, my corals started looking fantastic again. I also took my filter sock out because it started catching way too many copepods. I do a sock polish once a week where I leave my sock in for 24 hours. This has been going on for about 3 to 4 weeks now.

Now, when my nutrients dropped to a very low level, and my filter stock was still in, that’s when the hair algae popped up and when my bubble algae started to grow out as well. I do feed my tank a little on the heavy side, because I have a cleaner shrimp that will eat everything and steals from everybody if I don’t feed a little bit more. I feed twice a day. Since my tank is as small as it is, everybody really competes for food. I have one return pump on the right hand side of my tank and a wave maker on the left-hand side of the tank. Flow is good. In fact, the areas where the two bushes of GHA have grown have very good flow. I even have GHA on top of my wave maker which also has good flow. I use only RODI water, but I do get it from my LFS because I do not have a system in place at home. They’ve personally showed me their system though and they look like they do keep up on the filtration changes.
EDIT: I should add that most of the stuff that I did was at the instructions of the local fish store I always go to.

One thing we can't test for are dissolved organics which will contribute to a algae growth. I would increase the water changes, 10% is for maintenance but when you have an algae problem you should increase it. If you have no skimmer then water changes are the only way to remove organics. Nutrients are at low level because algae is absorbing it, so your not doing water changes to attempt to increase the nutrients is actually feeding the algae more. If you want to kill something, find out what it eats and starve it. As algae starves and dies it will release nutrients back into the water, so you have to keep up the water changes until you bring it under control. I feed 3-4 times per day, but very small amounts, uneaten food will rot and feed more algae growth, so avoid any uneaten food. This is just how I've always handled hair algae and its worked out for me, good luck.

I’ll start resuming water changes weekly again. How much should I increase the percentage I remove? Would 15% be suitable? Thank you for all of your help.