GHA managed?

[JHSteepat]

I’ve been fighting green hair algae/turf algae/cyano in my 150g (total) aquarium for a year or so. The tank is otherwise stable. Many corals are growing, but not the more sensitive acros. Nitrates <10, phosphate <0.1, alk 9.5, Ca 400, Mg 1350. Skimmer + turf scrubber (not growing algae well).

This is anecdotal but I went from a mess to a few light spots in about three weeks. As people have said on other threads, the herbivores probably made the difference. I was afraid to add snails again, because my last ones died off quickly.

Here are four changes that I believe turned things around. No feeding changes.

Clean up crew. Herbivores+. Added 6 Mexican Turbos, 5 trochus, a bunch of astrea, nassarius, and cerith snails, and a couple conchs. I think this was the thing that made the largest difference as my original cleanup crew didn’t last. I have three tuxedo urchins but they were not effective. Thanks to John at Reefcleaners. My original clean up crew didn’t last due to a number of things including new tank, tulip snails, hermits of unknown origin, and drip acclimation.

I don’t think it mattered, but I ran a little gfo + rox 0.8 carbon for a week. I think what matters is I have been running rox 0.8 carbon since, around 1/3 of a BRS regular reactor.

I am growing tigger pods and am dosing them once a week. I am Just dumping half a culture into the sump and adding water back to the culture. I have them in Ikea snap containers with a slow bubble and feed RG Complete, about 1ml per day.

I am dumping on alternating days 5-10 ml live nanno and tetra phytoplankton (Florida Reef Labs).

I can’t say all algae has gone, but the rocks are 99% cleaner and the corals look happier. I siphoned off some of the remaining longer algae last week and it basically fell off the rocks.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

What do you think made the biggest impact for you? I've always heard pods is a good way to get rid of algae issues, but I have never tried it myself.

 

[JHSteepat]

I couldn’t say. All of the above? Crossing my fingers that I turned a corner.

I think the CUC made the greatest visual impact and turned things around. For the rocks, the Mexican Turbos are beasts, supplemented with Trochus and astreas.

I did a lot of things pretty much all at once but the pods and phyto I think may be helping with keeping things clean. Maybe dumping live phyto in the tank in the morning and skimming it out is removing nutrients, too, aside from feeding corals and pods.

 

[NyReefer]

Did you change anything to do with you lighting schedule?
I'm battling GHA and starting to get some red cyano now to.