Gha- is it dying? Or can things actually be getting worse?

LesPoissons

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Hi everyone,
I have been battling a green hair algae, again, for months. I have tried vibrant- it has not done the slightest bit. My reef tank is a 220 gallon with the 55 gallon sump. It is five years old ish. I have been keeping corals and anemones and fish happy for years. This is my second GHA outbreak and it is brutal. I did the fluconazole, The rock scrubbing, the peroxide treatments, increasing the cleanup crew, and buying specialized Fish slugs etc. meant for gha distruction. The first time vibrant knocked it out in a few weeks. This time, nothing. I do 20% biweekly water changes. I have a protein skimmer and carbon in a reactor. I run UV and skim 12 hours a day. I turn it off 12 hours to dose 200ml of Phytoplankton. I just made a diy algae scrubber set up in the sump. My lights are on 10 hrs a day, white only on for 4. I feed enough frozen reef blends to keep 20 odd fish happy and healthy. I have Turbo nails, a variety of nassarius and trochus. I have hermit crabs and urchins. I have a lawnmower blenny, 4 tangs, and a rabbit fish. I had 5 or 6 nems and a variety of lps and aps coral. Ph 8.2, alk 8.5, sal 1.026, temp 77, ca 435, mag 1350, phos 0 (Hanna) nitrates 1 (Nyos). Auto top
Off and spectrapure 5 stage rodi. Ca and alk on dosing pumps.
NOTHING is healthy anymore. Over the last several months My corals are bleaching. I have two anemones left that I can see and I’m missing probably half a dozen fish. Icp test came back fine.
Since I started dosing phyto a couple weeks ago my GHA has turned browner and longer and stringy at the tops. But it kind of looks like Dino’s. And cyano has appeared. And the gha has not like lessened. It’s just worse looking.
Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? I said if it wasn’t better by the end of July I am going to break it down. I’m so frustrated and it physically hurts to watch hundreds Or dollars in fish and coral and my pets die a slow creeping death that I can’t figure out.
The first pics are my tank a couple weeks ago. And next is my phyto and brine set up and just the DIY mats in the sump. (I know the set up doesn’t look right for those it was because I was messing with them but they are growing) and then the gha today.

939F74B1-102D-49F7-9B65-40BBAC0CEA5B.jpeg DA1D856C-68FD-4E9A-B50A-5C7A8B9FAD29.jpeg 5A3C0306-9A42-44DF-8E32-6BC2CDC1DDC6.jpeg 8C9993F1-B2DA-48FA-BB62-8661F330414D.jpeg 1EFFBA01-CCEF-48EF-A198-F7D5B647B443.jpeg 11FE65F8-153B-42E2-AA95-98A17556D280.jpeg DF3E60A8-2A1E-46D0-BB53-FE646F58A121.jpeg F5C5A94F-4532-4321-83B8-BB5F9EA6A358.jpeg 38E75AC8-C7A0-42A5-957A-F13012A7E064.jpeg D38EF0F3-18A1-4C9C-AC41-D405AE045EAF.jpeg
 

gentlefish

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Heartbreaking to see. IMHO of all problems dinoflagellates is worst. In my opinion it thrives on 0 phosphate/nitrate, and I have successfully brought it below detection with phosphate/ nitrate dosing. Sadly it fuels algae and cyanobacter. To me , this sounds like a 6 month battle to come. It will take 2-3 month to outcrowd the Dino’s, before you can push back on the rest. I would run the skimmer without cup, decrease refusing light as well. I would invest in a UV, if you did not already. At a later stage, cyanobacter is easy with chemiclean and I would not quite give up on Fluconazole. It works slowly over a month, and during that time you can’t remove it, can’t absorb it either. I hope someone here has a better, shorter battle than plan. Hang on in there!
 

Daniel92481

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Hi everyone,
I have been battling a green hair algae, again, for months. I have tried vibrant- it has not done the slightest bit. My reef tank is a 220 gallon with the 55 gallon sump. It is five years old ish. I have been keeping corals and anemones and fish happy for years. This is my second GHA outbreak and it is brutal. I did the fluconazole, The rock scrubbing, the peroxide treatments, increasing the cleanup crew, and buying specialized Fish slugs etc. meant for gha distruction. The first time vibrant knocked it out in a few weeks. This time, nothing. I do 20% biweekly water changes. I have a protein skimmer and carbon in a reactor. I run UV and skim 12 hours a day. I turn it off 12 hours to dose 200ml of Phytoplankton. I just made a diy algae scrubber set up in the sump. My lights are on 10 hrs a day, white only on for 4. I feed enough frozen reef blends to keep 20 odd fish happy and healthy. I have Turbo nails, a variety of nassarius and trochus. I have hermit crabs and urchins. I have a lawnmower blenny, 4 tangs, and a rabbit fish. I had 5 or 6 nems and a variety of lps and aps coral. Ph 8.2, alk 8.5, sal 1.026, temp 77, ca 435, mag 1350, phos 0 (Hanna) nitrates 1 (Nyos). Auto top
Off and spectrapure 5 stage rodi. Ca and alk on dosing pumps.
NOTHING is healthy anymore. Over the last several months My corals are bleaching. I have two anemones left that I can see and I’m missing probably half a dozen fish. Icp test came back fine.
Since I started dosing phyto a couple weeks ago my GHA has turned browner and longer and stringy at the tops. But it kind of looks like Dino’s. And cyano has appeared. And the gha has not like lessened. It’s just worse looking.
Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? I said if it wasn’t better by the end of July I am going to break it down. I’m so frustrated and it physically hurts to watch hundreds Or dollars in fish and coral and my pets die a slow creeping death that I can’t figure out.
The first pics are my tank a couple weeks ago. And next is my phyto and brine set up and just the DIY mats in the sump. (I know the set up doesn’t look right for those it was because I was messing with them but they are growing) and then the gha today.

939F74B1-102D-49F7-9B65-40BBAC0CEA5B.jpeg DA1D856C-68FD-4E9A-B50A-5C7A8B9FAD29.jpeg 5A3C0306-9A42-44DF-8E32-6BC2CDC1DDC6.jpeg 8C9993F1-B2DA-48FA-BB62-8661F330414D.jpeg 1EFFBA01-CCEF-48EF-A198-F7D5B647B443.jpeg 11FE65F8-153B-42E2-AA95-98A17556D280.jpeg DF3E60A8-2A1E-46D0-BB53-FE646F58A121.jpeg F5C5A94F-4532-4321-83B8-BB5F9EA6A358.jpeg 38E75AC8-C7A0-42A5-957A-F13012A7E064.jpeg D38EF0F3-18A1-4C9C-AC41-D405AE045EAF.jpeg
Sorry to hear about your struggles. I agree with you that it is looking similar to Dino’s. I would definitely raise your nitrate and phosphate levels and do some manual removal.
 

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