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

[KJoFan]

I am not so sure it's as much about controlling/lowering nutrients in all cases as it is simply having enough grazers to keep algae growth in check. I am amused at those who say to lower/control nutrients while suggesting an army of tangs at the same time. Tangs are some of the messiest/highest bioload fish. I'm not saying I disagree with adding them, but they certainly won't help lower nutrients.

I have been battling the GHA as well as I've noted in this thread. My plan is to do a complete rock swap to live rock that is not covered in algae. I have also added a Kole Tang for more grazing. My foxface rabbitfish will be moving on, as he does not graze. My goal being to reduce the overall amount of algae and hope the grazers will be able to manage it going forward. I may need another grazer though, we'll see.

I have also been using Vibrant and unsure if I'll continue it as at least a maintenance dose or not. TBD.

 

[LesPoissons]

I appreciate the input, a lot has been addressed before in this thread, so Im sorry if I miss anything. I have 3 tangs, none of which have ever eaten gha. Im concerned about adding more fish to a full system, dealing with qt and tang v tang issues, and them also not eating gha? I have a yellow, a hippo, and a bristletooth right now. Also a foxface. (and about 20 other fish including an emp. angel.) What would be a good addition?

I had 5 massive turbos the size like 3 inches, all died- still gha everywhere. Sea slugs/alage blennies etc are also fails for me. I tried to feed every other day/every few days. It led to increased aggression and stressed fish so now i feed 1x a day- but its like 1 tsp for 20+ fish. I do have a fuge, lit 17 hours a day, with a red fuge light with some whites, but my macro algaes dont grow bc I register low to no phos or nitrates, even after i have removed 95% of the gha from the tank. My corals are barely showing any growth and low colors because I have shown low to no phos or nitrates for a year, my chaeto has reduced from maybe a small soccer ball when I got it, to about a large golf ball size. I run gfo and carbon 24/7 to decrease these mythical nutrients-which took my phos from possibly 0-0.05 to a strong 0 as far as I can test. I run a skimmer sized (theoretically) for a 300-420g tank. If I have a nutrient problem, I am in total agreement that fixing that is the main issue- but thats the problem- I dont know how to correct it at this point. I register 0 phos, 0-2 nitrates, and thats with maybe idk 2 handfuls of gha in a 220g w 50g sump. I dont see how the gha is using up "all the nutrients" that are fueling the issue if I cant detect them when there is barely any gha in the tank after I clean it. I feed the fish such a small amount, I use rodi- my tds reads 0, my filters are only a few months old. I store my water in a food grade 35g water storage container made for RVs and human consumption. I use my 5,280gph wave maker to blow off my rockwork every 4-5 days. My sump is a 55g aquarium.

I cant seem to find where all the nutrients that are supposedly the fuel for this are coming from, I cant get them to show up on test kits, meanwhile my corals and my chateo seem to indicate nutrients are lacking, even when there's just a couple handfuls of gha in the tank. Once the bulk of the gha was removed, wouldnt I get a jump in nutrients? So frustrating.

So, vibrant is next on the list to try.
After that Ill consider new tangs- open to suggestions about species = )

Thank you all for reading along and for your continued suggestions! Im not giving up yet!

 

[Hermie]

I appreciate the input, a lot has been addressed before in this thread, so Im sorry if I miss anything. I have 3 tangs, none of which have ever eaten gha. Im concerned about adding more fish to a full system, dealing with qt and tang v tang issues, and them also not eating gha? I have a yellow, a hippo, and a bristletooth right now. Also a foxface. (and about 20 other fish including an emp. angel.) What would be a good addition?

I had 5 massive turbos the size like 3 inches, all died- still gha everywhere. Sea slugs/alage blennies etc are also fails for me. I tried to feed every other day/every few days. It led to increased aggression and stressed fish so now i feed 1x a day- but its like 1 tsp for 20+ fish. I do have a fuge, lit 17 hours a day, with a red fuge light with some whites, but my macro algaes dont grow bc I register low to no phos or nitrates, even after i have removed 95% of the gha from the tank. My corals are barely showing any growth and low colors because I have shown low to no phos or nitrates for a year, my chaeto has reduced from maybe a small soccer ball when I got it, to about a large golf ball size. I run gfo and carbon 24/7 to decrease these mythical nutrients-which took my phos from possibly 0-0.05 to a strong 0 as far as I can test. I run a skimmer sized (theoretically) for a 300-420g tank. If I have a nutrient problem, I am in total agreement that fixing that is the main issue- but thats the problem- I dont know how to correct it at this point. I register 0 phos, 0-2 nitrates, and thats with maybe idk 2 handfuls of gha in a 220g w 50g sump. I dont see how the gha is using up "all the nutrients" that are fueling the issue if I cant detect them when there is barely any gha in the tank after I clean it. I feed the fish such a small amount, I use rodi- my tds reads 0, my filters are only a few months old. I store my water in a food grade 35g water storage container made for RVs and human consumption. I use my 5,280gph wave maker to blow off my rockwork every 4-5 days. My sump is a 55g aquarium.

I cant seem to find where all the nutrients that are supposedly the fuel for this are coming from, I cant get them to show up on test kits, meanwhile my corals and my chateo seem to indicate nutrients are lacking, even when there's just a couple handfuls of gha in the tank. Once the bulk of the gha was removed, wouldnt I get a jump in nutrients? So frustrating.

So, vibrant is next on the list to try.
After that Ill consider new tangs- open to suggestions about species = )

Thank you all for reading along and for your continued suggestions! Im not giving up yet!

why did the Turbo snails die... And it's a balance between both grazers(manual removal) and nutrient export, not lowering nutrients but exporting them.

 

[Cheche]

Look like you doing everything on the book .. try some tangs and the only thing that work for me was reducing the light intensity and raise up the lights good luck

 

[LesPoissons]

Why did they die? Wish I knew. My water parameters are: ph 8.3, nitrates 0-2, ammonia 0, cal 420, alk 8.3ish, mag 1450, phos 0, temp 77, sal 1.026
There's plenty of algae. Plenty of other snails. But the turbos didnt last. There may still be 1, actually. Have to check.

I agree. My method is manual removal w scrub brush and siphon and h202 and living grazers- Paired with a sump/fuge/live rock/sand bed/skimmer/carbon/gfo/filter socks and water changes for nutrient export. Im not sure what else I can do to remove nutrients I cant test for or find a source for from my tank. My main thought now is- my tank IS low nutrient, and keeping my tank so low nutrient is what is maybe keeping the GHA problem from getting worse? Like from completely exploding and overtaking everything in days? I dont know. But its def not killing it off.

 

[Hermie]

Why did they die? Wish I knew. My water parameters are: ph 8.3, nitrates 0-2, ammonia 0, cal 420, alk 8.3ish, mag 1450, phos 0, temp 77, sal 1.026
There's plenty of algae. Plenty of other snails. But the turbos didnt last. There may still be 1, actually. Have to check.

I agree. My method is manual removal w scrub brush and siphon and h202 and living grazers- Paired with a sump/fuge/live rock/sand bed/skimmer/carbon/gfo/filter socks and water changes for nutrient export. Im not sure what else I can do to remove nutrients I cant test for or find a source for from my tank. My main thought now is- my tank IS low nutrient, and keeping my tank so low nutrient is what is maybe keeping the GHA problem from getting worse? Like from completely exploding and overtaking everything in days? I dont know. But its def not killing it off.

well the algae's roots are on the rock no matter what, unless the rock is physically scraped or grazed down to the "bone" the algae will grow back. Also I am pretty sure it doesnt take many/much nutrients for algae to grow. I agree that going even lower nutrients won't solve it. IMO either you have to use a chemical solution to "kill" the algae down to the roots or else your grazers have to get more efficient (or you do more manual removal). Significantly lowering the lights IMO won't be a long term solution because you will have to have lighting for the corals eventually, that may just help get handle on the algae while you are doing other things... Have you tried Fluconazole? I may try that soon to be honest.

 

[ReefPiracy]

I would look into my RO/top off water. yeah growing algae means you can grow coral just want the coral to overtake algae. I wouldn't shoot for low P/N. Coral doesn't like it. I feed tank even if I see algae. I just do maintenance when N/P get high. I only use a skimmer.

 

[Tastee]

For what it is worth here is what worked for me. I set up my 65g tank in Sep 17. Cycled, added fish, started to add corals. GHA started to show around Mar 18. Progressively got worse. Started to reduce Phosphates in Apr 18 with Phosguard. Went away for a week in May 18 with an auto feeder feeding too much (pellets) and the GHA took off.

For the next 12 months I really got nowhere with it. I quickly got nutrients under control, initially using LC but later switching to NoPoX. Weekly scrubbing etc. At this point I had NO3 and PO4 at zero. The problem I feel with GHA is that once it is established it doesn’t need many nutrients to keep it alive.

In Feb this year I dosed Reef Flux and added 4 Money Cowries. The GHA started to die and the Cowries did a great job eating it. Much better than my Yellow Tang, Lawnmower Blennie and 4 Turbos. They left a clean swathe behind them!

The GHA however started to show signs of recovering after a few days and I got good advice on the forums to ‘stop chasing numbers’. I took that on board and stopped the NoPoX dosing and let NO3 and PO4 rise. Almost instant results - corals picked up, GHA looked sad and Cowries kept devouring it. My NO3 is now 0.25 ppm and PO4 0.08 ppm. No GHA and everyone is happier and healthier than ever. The Tang and Blennie do a good job of picking off anything that grows and the Cowries are continually zooming around the tank and bigger than ever.

Again this is just what worked for me.

 

[itisjp]

I feel for you ... had a battle with it myself a few months back. Similar situation as you similar tank size, similar gear. I tested and all good results but it didn’t seem to help with the gha problem. I cut the amount of food I was feeding my fish about 1/3 to 1/2 the amount I was feeding. Cranked my skimmer up and pulled all the gunk it would pull for about a month. While all this was going on I grabbed two mason jars, filled one with my tank water and the other with fresh mixed saltwater set the on the window sill put in a similar sized chunk of gha in each just to see what happened. To my surprise the jar with tank water stared to grow and the one with new water died off about a week later. But cutting down what I put in the tank and pulling out more helped me. The mason jar test just was a way I verified my results. Not saying that’s your problem, just sharing what worked for me. I don’t remember if you ran gfo or not but I run it occasionally after a few days of carbon.

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

I am not so sure it's as much about controlling/lowering nutrients in all cases as it is simply having enough grazers to keep algae growth in check. I am amused at those who say to lower/control nutrients while suggesting an army of tangs at the same time. Tangs are some of the messiest/highest bioload fish. I'm not saying I disagree with adding them, but they certainly won't help lower nutrients.

I have been battling the GHA as well as I've noted in this thread. My plan is to do a complete rock swap to live rock that is not covered in algae. I have also added a Kole Tang for more grazing. My foxface rabbitfish will be moving on, as he does not graze. My goal being to reduce the overall amount of algae and hope the grazers will be able to manage it going forward. I may need another grazer though, we'll see.

I have also been using Vibrant and unsure if I'll continue it as at least a maintenance dose or not. TBD.

My nutrient removal is so superior that I could have an army of tangs and drop a pot roast in the tank with no ill effects (only half kidding on the pot roast). But I do feed way too much and the tangs are very fat. And still no nuisance algae in the DT. But the fuge, besides the copious chaeto, does have some GHA and other types of undesirable algae, which I just ignore while harvesting the chaeto. I have attached a pic of the fuge light

 

[mcarroll]

I happened to catch your thread, how it's going in circles, and was going to PM you about it but you seem to have PM disabled. Please PM me with any responses as I don't get around here very often.

Your tank is very new as well as very packed with fish.

These two things are the fundamental problems that have been unaddressed so far and they are why the algae keeps making an aggressive comeback.

Aggressive algae growth has to be expected when these conditions are set up.

The lack of effectiveness of your herbivorous fish is actually an aspect of the overstocked tank — herbivorous fish consume more algae when they can consume a higher protein diet. So fish that are on limited feedings will actually consume less algae. It has to do with metabolizing chemicals that algae produce.

You are going to have to address the overpopulation of fish in your tank before things get better in my opinion.

Once you have depopulated the fish somewhat the remaining fish can be fed more including the herbivores which will then consume more algae. This will also lower the most persistent nitrogen supply for algae which is ammonia.

Various comments have been made about your cleanup crew but I don't think any have totally hit the mark. Your cleanup crew consists of what seems like a high number of snails, but they're mostly tiny snails. I think that's a side effect of where you were shopping rather than of decisions that were made about optimal cleanup crew members. You could probably make up the difference by having twice as many tiny snails as you have but that seems kind of absurd to me.

Instead, continue adding full-size snails ONLY like Astrea, Turbo and Trochus...no more than 10 at a time until you start seeing a difference. I'd wait a few weeks between each batch.

Lastly, you want to stop attempting to starve this tank — no progress is being made during any of these time periods. Including the starvation times you put the tank through kind of gives your tank the illusion of being older than it really is since it was being held back all that time.

It seems like your gut instinct is to keep nutrient levels higher and I would encourage you to do that — it may be surprising but fast growing healthy algae is more edible to herbivores than old growth, slow growth or starving algae which all tend to be unpalatable. Having some excess nutrients is also the best and perhaps only way to get the multitudes of microbes that you want growing in your tank to take over from the pest algae.

P.S. The UV filter was probably the best thing you tried so far...it should be slowing the re-spreading of algae after you clean by killing spores. Make sure the filter is set up right and with proper flow rates according to the manufacturer. A micron filter (or two) can get the same effect by filtering out spores.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Is your tank at or near a window? if so- that will do it. A sea Urchin May go agter this.
I had similar 2 months ago, Got myself some Liquid Vibrant and all GONE. Be sure to follow dosage on the bottle.

 

[PhreeByrd]

If you're scrubbing your rock in an attempt to rid yourself of nuisance algae, I suggest this as a much simpler approach:

Leave the rock alone. Remove as much algae as you can manually. Try to get a nice big hand full of it. Place the algae in a blender with some tank water. Turn the blender on and let it run until the contents resemble pea soup. Pour this soup back into the tank. It might help to turn off your flow for a while.

No, I'm not recommending that anybody actually do this. Nor would I ever recommend scrubbing your rocks. The short term results will be about the same. In the longer run, nutrient control and tank maturity are the keys.

 

[brandon429]

Phree
Do you have any work threads where you have defeated gha in another’s tank other than your own? If you recommend a polar opposite approach I’d like to see that taken to completion / in a thread that shows the whole system or approach

Well said McCarroll especially the palatability part. I cannot stand making shakes with flimsy brown celery ha lol never thought about plant life cycle appeal, really neat.

Gha will not self correct given time and maturity unless one is lucky. It is a tank wrecker unless specific physical conditions are caused by the keeper

Not saying it can’t self correct for anyone, luck does occur but that’s what work threads do-they separate luck from true pattern so we can see for ourselves. Rock scraping with surgical peroxide is an ideal rebalancer, work threads show, this thread shows, it’s a way to kill mass and reduce dieoff in tank as major themes are reworked as preventatives.

De clouding the tank of waste detritus either in initial design or as part of the cleanup is vital, detritus is ongoing gha food for localized breakdown on site, to take back ground we need to restore accessibility so we can impart manual controls and work that fine biological side MC mentioned for long term controls. be hands on with gha where possible, it can save your tank.

Having a purposeful uglies phase in reefing as a society caused this OP’s invasion, nobody is allowed to be hands on until the very end.

We can thank the people who write and promote reef rules without any work thread tests for gha invasions in our hobby, it’s cause is psychological (we like to repeat design methods that promote GHA vs prepare for it) and it’s persistence is botanical afterwards. What MC wrote impressed the heck out of me, he’s described the ideal preventative method, never seen it explained like that before.

If you manually kill that algae and set your design up in the preventative mode you can take back ground. This is the price of large tanking with lots of rock, that’s lots of garden space for either you or something else to manage -early on from day one allowing no takeover- if you want to control what deposits there. Don’t forget about the power of healthy coral flesh as algae excluders...your rock cannot have gha if it’s one solid brain coral mass. In nobody’s work thread did a brain coral show up with algae in its mouth adhered, or a mushroom coral with bryopsis attached. Candy corals get algae on the skeleton, never on the actual flesh portion. Building excluding mass on your rocks is ideal. Plants will choose the rock surface where feed exists and no grazing

Focusing on coral growth and manual controls with easily accessible rock scapes (for hand guiding we expect, out of the tank) long before fish are introduced has its appeal... but isn’t a common tank design approach (people love to load up on fish and fertilizer first as we recirculate gha-friendly tank designs)

It took a lot of resolve for the OP to spend those hours hand guiding. That’s exactly opposite of the psychology of being invaded. We linked this thread as an excellent example of resolve in our peroxide thread

Any reef tank undergoing gha issues can know ahead of time if the direct kill method will work, all you do is test a single rock before you do the whole tank. Ten minutes and a week of observation on one rock worked allows you to learn the anchor details, death rates, growback rates, amounts of detritus you inherently store based on system design, all before you do the whole tank for ten hours.

 

[brandon429]

To make something of these 8 pages, what’s the takeaway? If a new owner of a giant reef is reading for prep, how should they approach initial design considering the direction we are heading now here

 

[2Sunny]

I happened to catch your thread, how it's going in circles, and was going to PM you about it but you seem to have PM disabled. Please PM me with any responses as I don't get around here very often.

Your tank is very new as well as very packed with fish.

These two things are the fundamental problems that have been unaddressed so far and they are why the algae keeps making an aggressive comeback.

Aggressive algae growth has to be expected when these conditions are set up.

The lack of effectiveness of your herbivorous fish is actually an aspect of the overstocked tank — herbivorous fish consume more algae when they can consume a higher protein diet. So fish that are on limited feedings will actually consume less algae. It has to do with metabolizing chemicals that algae produce.

You are going to have to address the overpopulation of fish in your tank before things get better in my opinion.

Once you have depopulated the fish somewhat the remaining fish can be fed more including the herbivores which will then consume more algae. This will also lower the most persistent nitrogen supply for algae which is ammonia.

Various comments have been made about your cleanup crew but I don't think any have totally hit the mark. Your cleanup crew consists of what seems like a high number of snails, but they're mostly tiny snails. I think that's a side effect of where you were shopping rather than of decisions that were made about optimal cleanup crew members. You could probably make up the difference by having twice as many tiny snails as you have but that seems kind of absurd to me.

Instead, continue adding full-size snails ONLY like Astrea, Turbo and Trochus...no more than 10 at a time until you start seeing a difference. I'd wait a few weeks between each batch.

Lastly, you want to stop attempting to starve this tank — no progress is being made during any of these time periods. Including the starvation times you put the tank through kind of gives your tank the illusion of being older than it really is since it was being held back all that time.

It seems like your gut instinct is to keep nutrient levels higher and I would encourage you to do that — it may be surprising but fast growing healthy algae is more edible to herbivores than old growth, slow growth or starving algae which all tend to be unpalatable. Having some excess nutrients is also the best and perhaps only way to get the multitudes of microbes that you want growing in your tank to take over from the pest algae.

P.S. The UV filter was probably the best thing you tried so far...it should be slowing the re-spreading of algae after you clean by killing spores. Make sure the filter is set up right and with proper flow rates according to the manufacturer. A micron filter (or two) can get the same effect by filtering out spores.

To the OP,

8 Pages with lots of people chiming in, but few with science behind their recommendations. Here is one post, however, from someone with deep knowledge and experience and his recommendations are:

1) take out some fish
2) add serious clean up crew from a quality supplier
3) feed more not less

I have had many successful reefs over the years including my most famous reef of 2011

and I have restarted many times. In my most recent start when I added pieces of old LR from my sump it quickly became covered with GHA. Sadly I did not take pictures, but I did beat it quickly and easily with normal maintenance and a good clean up crew that included Turbo snails and long spine urchins. I saw the GHA disappear daily and quite dramatically as it got eaten by Turbo snails and long spine urchins. I have a 240 gallon system and the long spine urchins had no trouble squeezing into nearly every nook and crevice and, of course, the turbos reach everywhere. The fact that your Turbos died is problematic, but as was mentioned it may be a function of where you shopped. Regardless my additional recommendations are:

4) add 2 long spine urchins to the recommended clean up crew and buy quality livestock
5) stop all dosing, GAC, or use of socks and stick with water changes, skimmer, UV, and manual siphoning of your sand bed
6) keep your hands out of the tank do not scrape your rock
7) clean up your sand bed by removing corals, rocks, and rubble that are not part of the main rock work
8) make your sump spotless, keep it that way, and get rid of your macro algae until this is under control

Anyways, keep us posted, and I'll try to find the link to the quality Florida supplier I used to purchase my snails and urchins (all of which are still alive by the way - although I did have to take the long spines out and put them in my sump since they are bulldozers and eat every speck of coralline algae once the good stuff is gone).

Joe in NY

 

[Hermie]

To the OP,

8 Pages with lots of people chiming in, but few with science behind their recommendations. Here is one post, however, from someone with deep knowledge and experience and his recommendations are:

1) take out some fish
2) add serious clean up crew from a quality supplier
3) feed more not less

4) add 2 long spine urchins to the recommended clean up crew and buy quality livestock
5) stop all dosing, GAC, or use of socks and stick with water changes, skimmer, UV, and manual siphoning of your sand bed
6) keep your hands out of the tank do not scrape your rock
7) clean up your sand bed by removing corals, rocks, and rubble that are not part of the main rock work
8) make your sump spotless, keep it that way, and get rid of your macro algae until this is under control

Anyways, keep us posted, and I'll try to find the link to the quality Florida supplier I used to purchase my snails and urchins (all of which are still alive by the way - although I did have to take the long spines out and put them in my sump since they are bulldozers and eat every speck of coralline algae once the good stuff is gone).

Joe in NY

Where is the science behind these recommendations (bolded) ? I see the anecdotal rational based on experiences but not any scientific explanation as to why make these specific changes.

 

[little_sardines]

Maybe try adding in a coraline booster? I had some algae issues when i moved my tank last and noticed I wasn't growing any coraline - it looks form the pictures like you don't grow a ton of it either if your tank is 3 yrs old. When i got my coraline growing again my hair algae started to come back down to manageable levels and now my tang/foxface keep everything in check.

With coraline encrusting the rocks (my theory is) it would be tougher for any other kind of algae to take hold. Maybe an idea?

 

[LesPoissons]

Hi everyone,
Thank you all for the continued input. Interestingly enough, many of these replies (whether very scientific or not) are genuinely about people's successes- and yet are in complete opposition. Starve the tank/feed it more. Get more tangs/get rid of fish. Bring the phos and nitrates up/keep them low. Scrub the he** out of it/let it grow. Buy a (insert a fish or invert) and it will take care of it. Skim more/skim less. Water change more/ get your hands out. In summary- i think the take away is that there are a variety of things you can do to try and remedy a gha situation, but there is no tried and true way that works for every tank. Prevention is best,but if not, there are many options and opinions and all have some validity- it just depends on the tank and the reefer. So I thank you all for your valuable advice on this thread, it has been very helpful.
As an update for my tank- I bought a bottle of Vibrant. The gha has started melting away over the last 3 or 4 weeks. There are some lingering tufts, 0 new growth, no signs of any cyno or new issues (other than my poor cuc dropping off, but the crabs are happy), no spikes in any nutrients despite the cuc losses. Ill go another couple weeks and then disconnect my gfo and let everything come back up to wherever it wants to be (which is usually low anyway) and see what happens next. Attached are pictures from june (which was still a decrease in gha for me) but everything I was trying for 5 months still wasnt sucessful. I started vibrant Mid August. The sept pics are where I am now. (I tried to get similar pics for comparison but things got moved around in the tank).

 

[ZoWhat]

Taking several steps back, we need to determine "WHAT" the GHA is feeding on.

* Is it NO3?
* Is it PO4?
* Opportunistic organics that immediately hit the water (i.e. over feeding the tank with uneaten food swirling b4 the nitrogen cycle begins).

For me I have handle on NO3 for quite some time with vodka dosing with test results btwn 0-2ppm.

But my PO4 has been over 2ppm. Yikes! I suspect my LR is saturated with PO4 and keeps leaching back into the water. I've since started dosing Lanthanum to bound PO4 into a compound and filter it out via a sock.

So....have you got a handke on what your GHA is feeding on?


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