GHA- Is there anything else I can do???

[IslandLifeReef]

Thread officially high jacked!!

 

[brandon429]

we can all copy/ improve upon the mass kill off of gha collective refusal all in before/after pic sequence ha fun

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

If you put a long-spined urchin in there today, the GHA will be gone by Tues

 

[KJoFan]

If you put a long-spined urchin in there today, the GHA will be gone by Tues

I have two pincushion urchins in my tank and I can confirm it is not the silver bullet some claim it to be. They don't seem to make any noticeable dent. I'm sure they're well fed but they aren't wiping it out just like that.

 

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

hey lets work it live here, post pics!
B

Thanks, I will try and post some tonight

If you put a long-spined urchin in there today, the GHA will be gone by Tues

I have one plus a tuxedo and a pin cushion. They did eat a lot of it right after I put them in there but it came back and they don’t seem to want anymore.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Thanks, I will try and post some tonight



I have one plus a tuxedo and a pin cushion. They did eat a lot of it right after I put them in there but it came back and they don’t seem to want anymore.

I would pull the rock, scrub the GHA off in a bucket of water with a brush, put the rock back in, shut the lights down for a few days, and then fire them back up.

Right now, GHA is winning the turf battle. You’ve got to let the refugium algae get a foothold. When GHA has a foothold, caulerpa/Chaeto/etc can’t outcompete it. If you knock it back while simultaneously getting refugium algae going, and then have the appropriate algae grazers in the tank, you should be able to flip the field for the other algae.

Urchins can only eat so much, so if you ensure there’s a fairly limited amount of food, they will find what is there and take care of it. When you turn your system back on, just make sure you brush off any new GHA you see growing.

 

[LesPoissons]

HI all, thank you for the input so far. Its great to have so many ideas. For those of you hijacking my thread, Im not bothered, we're all having the issues. So an update on my tank: 9 days ago I scrubbed and syphoned for about 2 hours. My cuc is about double what reef cleaners suggested for my tank. I have tons of dwarf ceirths, zebra turbos about 3 inches around, trochus snails, emerald crabs, nerite snails, fuzzy chitons, short spine/pnincushion/tuxedo urchins, algae blennies, yellow tang, hippo tang, bristle tooth tang, pitho crabs, paved mithrax crabs. The thought was that if I doubled the cuc # and added more variety, after i scrubbed off the long stuff, the cuc would keep it mowed down and under control. At this point I would say that I have added about $200 worth of cuc over the last month, and that that has NOT worked, the algae seems to be growing back just fine. My fish for some reason are showing sick symptoms (maybe the stress of all the messing around ive been doing) so this weekend is a water change, a last round of scrubbing and then next I will be trying vibrant.

 

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

HI all, thank you for the input so far. Its great to have so many ideas. For those of you hijacking my thread, Im not bothered, we're all having the issues. So an update on my tank: 9 days ago I scrubbed and syphoned for about 2 hours. My cuc is about double what reef cleaners suggested for my tank. I have tons of dwarf ceirths, zebra turbos about 3 inches around, trochus snails, emerald crabs, nerite snails, fuzzy chitons, short spine/pnincushion/tuxedo urchins, algae blennies, yellow tang, hippo tang, bristle tooth tang, pitho crabs, paved mithrax crabs. The thought was that if I doubled the cuc # and added more variety, after i scrubbed off the long stuff, the cuc would keep it mowed down and under control. At this point I would say that I have added about $200 worth of cuc over the last month, and that that has NOT worked, the algae seems to be growing back just fine. My fish for some reason are showing sick symptoms (maybe the stress of all the messing around ive been doing) so this weekend is a water change, a last round of scrubbing and then next I will be trying vibrant.

I was dosing Vibrant before I replaced my sand bed and it was working (slowly, but steadily), then I got a nasty case of cyano. Which also persisted after replacing the sand. Killed it (and some coral) with chemiclean. Tempted to go back to vibrant, but I dislike cyano even more than hair algae. Maybe its all about picking the least worst offender that you're willing to live with

 

[Shluffer]

I havent used vibrant but have heard good things. My understanding if what it does is that it builds up backteria to kill off either the algae or the nutrients that feed the algae. For a FOWLR I would try it, but with coral I would be nervous. I just wonder where the nutrients go. When the ba kteria no longer has a food source it dies and the nutrients return. I would expect the problem returns unless you stay on vibrant which I wouldnt want to do.

 

[Mykawl]

Umm I have no experience or credentials but feel inspired to chime in. Also feel free to ignore this considering the previous statement. Lol

#1 WHAT IF I TOLD YOU... Ammonia is causing your algae problems?

After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you keep believing that nitrate and phosphate are the cause of your algae problems. You take the red pill - I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. This image was created by @Fish_Sticks, ©2019, All Rights...

www.reef2reef.com

Have you read this? Maybe you have too much stuff in your tank : D providing an unlimited amount of ammonia which algae prefer, in which case you should actually be happy you have GHA else everything else would be dead.

GHA is growing because nature is looking for balance.
How much do you feed the tank? Like when you feed the fish does food fall to the bottom?

I think your way overfeeding despite having 0 detectable nutrients you might simply have super advanced export methods.
I have a young planted freshwater tank and started going through green and brown algae stages and noticed if I started starving the tank by feeding tiny amounts or even every ther day the algae would grow to a point and then die off, I think if algae is growing there are excess nutrients simply put.

Accordingly I let the algae grow once it started cause unless I’m mistaken it’s removing excess “unwanted” nutrients. Once it died I cleaned the tank and lessened my feeding even more, fish are still fat btw I think a lot of bugs fall in my tank lol

And it having gone on this long you may have killed some of the beneficial bacteria (pour some more in)?

It seems you’ve tried everything else maybe back to basics? I’d suggest feeding every other day or simply cut feeding in half. There seems to be an infinite amount of strategies for any particular problem but what is the root cause? Pun intended

If this was a waste of time reading just ignore me but it’s hard to believe we need rocket scientists every time things go wrong.

In a nutshell I’d suggest starving the tank and find that perfect amount of feeding.

Also if it were me I’d probably reach in the tank and remove all the useless invertebrates, maybe you could freeze them and use as food brs suggests like 1 snail per 10 gallons (more info on the clean up crew video) but sounds like your way over that

 

[brandon429]

don't forget the crucial detail driving the work thread pics: that pre cleaning step, with a knife (a rasp, what the urchin does) before any peroxide is applied. you hand work the rock, and learn that algae's invasion characters as it was permitted to spread...see how it anchors, notice how deep it goes if any.

got a big job= price of delay, but at least do a test rock and make one area comply fully. invaluable command practice

check the porosity of your rocks in this inspection, look to see if clogged or open

remove the algae on target area by using a scraping action from the tip of a kitchen knife

its not crazy slashing, its dental quality precision.

a dentist doesn't just brush your teeth, you already do that

we leave bleeding due to rasping at the dentist chair

time to pony up for the wait on any gha tank

I'm not saying you have to do the whole tank at once, just do a section and compare to what you've been doing the last two weeks. learn something about your invader without subjecting your whole tank to an experiment

brushing alone is spreading fragmenting bits and pressing them into other rock surfaces.


the ideal is to rasp a test section clean, use peroxide on the cleaned spot, rinse then put back and chart what that spot does over a few days

 

[ThatFishGuy]

Keep us updated with pics when you use vibrant! Been watching this thread to try and eliminate my gha issue as well and considering vibrant.

 

[LesPoissons]

So it sounds like I need to do more research on vibrant first as it may not be successful in my tank. Darn.

Okay. So one rock at a time to the dentist. I like your metaphor! I can at least do a few that arent going to cost me the whole structure and see. Maybe if I can lessen it a bit the cuc can still catch up.

Still on the horizon are the icp test and +/- hanna tester to see if difference results.

@Mykawl if you read through the intro few posts, yes the article has already been read and responded to and reposted none the less, lol. My tank has been low to no nitrates and low to no phos (0.05 or less) since the tank began and gives the same readings with 0 gha. Gha is new, tank parameters are not. Rocks get blown off weekly, sump was changed out for an entirely new one free of detritus and build up etc.

Likewise the bacteria has already been added, new cured live rock and bottled bacteria were added, no change unfortunately.

I typically feed 1x a day, maybe 2 cubes. If I remember I'll do it twice. If people are around and like to see, it might get fed a 3rd time. If I'm busy sometimes a day is missed. Id say it averages to 3 cubes a day for about 25 fish and a (now) a huge clean up crew and nori every few days. I haven't fed my corals in about 7 months. I dont think food is the issue as again, my tank has always tested low before gha explosion this year.

I'll update after a weekend scrub and do a test dental rock with pics to follow. Thank you all again!

 

[jda]

I know that I am late to the party, but if the rest of your stuff is in line, then get an army of urchins. They eat a lot of algae and are quite effective, but you have to get enough of them to make a dent... otherwise they stay full and the algae can outgrow what they eat. I used 20 pincushions from ReefTopia in the Keys to knock mine out in a new tank. It took them a few months, but now they did their job and I will cut back to probably 4 or 5 - the locals love to get algae eating urchins locally and I don't want them to starve with less algae in the tank.

These dudes are like $7 and VERY hardly in reef quality water. If you get some, get 100 Astreas to help too and maybe some emerald crabs.

IMO, vibrant is just organic carbon. If you decide to use it, just use some sugar or vinegar. They claim that there is bacteria in there, but we looked at some under four different power microscopes and found nothing. There is a lot of fanboy stuff in their thread combined with some successes that are worth considering, but also enough failures to also consider those.

 

[KJoFan]

I’m just planning to completely replace my live rock with clean live rock. In the end it’s money vs hard labor. What can I say? I’m lazy.

Oh, I also plan to catch my non grazing foxface and replacing it either with one that does graze (hopefully) or a tang that will graze. Maybe a captive bred yellow? I wonder if they are good grazers...

 

[Katrina71]

My personal experience on a smaller scale, chaeto did much better in the fuge competing with the gha. It did go away. It wasn't overnight, but no other treatments were used. It's worth a shot!

 

[LesPoissons]

Im on my 2nd fox face and i have a yellow and 2 other tangs. They dont seem to graze on the gha. As other have pointed out they like it when it is very low to the rock, almost not visible as gha. They will not eat the long filament strands.

 

[KJoFan]

Im on my 2nd fox face and i have a yellow and 2 other tangs. They dont seem to graze on the gha. As other have pointed out they like it when it is very low to the rock, almost not visible as gha. They will not eat the long filament strands.

Also my experience. I’m just hoping to find/get a grazer that once the GHA is gone or gotten in check, will help maintain it going forward.

So, maybe current foxface would keep up with the new/small growth and just doesn’t like the long stuff. But, it was all short at one time and look how much good he did then. [emoji23]

 

[krash7172]

Op said "anything else I can do". This is just a thought. I'm in control of algae and my tank is 2 yrs old now. I really didn't do much more than a cuc even after a gha outbreak when on vaca. I've had a scrubber for about a month and I can't say if it has helped much yet but manual cleaning, water changes, cuc, scrubber is working. BUT, here is a thought worth considering: I have a huge sump. My Dt is 180 and my sump is a 120 about half full so 60 gallons. I keep some rock in the sump. I recently learned that algae can out compete bacteria for ammonia. So here is an idea. Is it possible to create a sump that hosts enough bacteria to compete with algae?

 

[Mykawl]

I don't understand why simply feeding less won't work. Anyone care to enlighten me or point me in the right direction? It seems like a super simple balancing act. Also when you start feeding the fish less they will actually start eating the algae : D