GHA pep talk needed

[Davem24]

Hi all,

Just looking for a GHA battle pep talk. I'm about 2 months into the war and not gaining ground. I know I'll get it it's just frustrating.

A little dignostic background :

Life got in the way last spring and I ignored some drastic changes.
1) refugium crashed - This causes unoticed gha increase because:
2) asterina outbreak - Such a massive increase must have kept the gha at unoticable levels.
3) natural loss of CUC went unnoticed. - possibly due to the massive increase of competition or possibly due to age. They were all around 3 years old then.
4) routine feeding of nori continued since no signs of gha making herbavoirs lazy
5) harlequin shrimp added to tame the asterina. - massive reduction in numbers must have caused gha to go unchecked
6) GHA hit plague proportions even killing off some corals.

By the time I reacted it got a good foot hold. Even all over the sand bed.

It regrows so fast I assume the nutrient numbers are actually much higher but the gha is taking it down.

Current action:
Rebuild CUC. Added urchin, turbos, and 30 hermits
Rebuilt refugium. Cleaned it out really well, got new sea lettuce and repopulated copepods
Increasing carbon dosing to drive down nutrients
No supplemental nori feedings for the fish
Manual removal every other day.

75 gal display with 20 gal sump. Sps dominate
Parameters have been consistently :
Alk 9.5
Cal 420
Mag 1300
NO3 1.0- 2.0
PO4 0.03- 0.10 ( majority of the time at the lower end)

Any suggestions ? Comments? Agreements ?

Thanks !

 

[Isaac Alves]

You’re doing all the right things. A big CUC is the way to go…go heavy on snails and urchins. You can rehome them later.

 

[slingfox]

What do you feed and how often. What kind of nutrient export do you have? If you can switch to mostly frozen food that should held reduce nutrients which tend to fuel the GHA growth.

As mentioned above, I would focus on snails. In my experience they do a much better job at keeping algae in check than hermit crabs. I like hermits for the entertainment value but they are not as good at keeping algae under control as urchins and snails.

Most importantly, when dealing with a major outbreak of the ugliest, the single best thing you can do is manual removal. Siphon out that sand and scrub those rocks. Every few days if needed until things get into balance.

I have personally stopped running a lighted refugium. Running a cryptic refugium is much less maintenance and I don’t have macroalgae competing against coral for nutrients. Instead I deal with nutrients via very careful feeding (food is eating up within 30 seconds with very little waste) and basic nutrient export (filter roller and protein skimmer). My phosphates are 0.5 and nitrates are 1 which I have been dosing in an effort to get it up to 5. I have pretty much zero nuisance algae in the display tank since my range, urchin and snails keep things in check (usually).

 

[Davem24]

What do you feed and how often. What kind of nutrient export do you have? If you can switch to mostly frozen food that should held reduce nutrients which tend to fuel the GHA growth.

As mentioned above, I would focus on snails. In my experience they do a much better job at keeping algae in check than hermit crabs. I like hermits for the entertainment value but they are not as good at keeping algae under control as urchins and snails.

Most importantly, when dealing with a major outbreak of the ugliest, the single best thing you can do is manual removal. Siphon out that sand and scrub those rocks. Every few days if needed until things get into balance.

I have personally stopped running a lighted refugium. Running a cryptic refugium is much less maintenance and I don’t have macroalgae competing against coral for nutrients. Instead I deal with nutrients via very careful feeding (food is eating up within 30 seconds with very little waste) and basic nutrient export (filter roller and protein skimmer). My phosphates are 0.5 and nitrates are 1 which I have been dosing in an effort to get it up to 5. I have pretty much zero nuisance algae in the display tank since my range, urchin and snails keep things in check (usually).

Feeding schedule is one frozen cube of mysis in the am (rinsed ).
Noon is an auto feeder of pe mysis pellets and nori pellets about 75%/25%
And same at 4pm
The amount of feed seems reasonable I don't think much is wasted and the little that does get past the fish is taken up by the hermits nasari and other opportunist eaters

Nutrient export is filter socks that get changed about every other day and protein skimmer that removes about a liter of waste every few days. Also carbon dosing and refugium as mentioned. Lastly the over flow box has mangroves.

 

[Davem24]

You’re doing all the right things. A big CUC is the way to go…go heavy on snails and urchins. You can rehome them later.

I think I'm light on snails at the moment. I only have about 12.

Planning on adding more.

I have had a rash of bad luck with them lately.
I tried adding some more turbos and margaritas but they would fall off the glass and die pretty quickly about a week.

I think I was acclimating them properly. About an hour floating and slowly adding water. Staring with 500ml and adding 500ml over 30 min then dumping 500ml and doing again for another 30min.

I was worried there's a contaminant but my old snails are fine.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I think your on the right track, IME beating a bad hair algae infestation takes months, its a war of attrition with gha so keep it up.

In addition to what your already doing, I would suggest to wet skim while your home, and maybe lay off the pellets for a while, stick to frozen for now if you can. All the small things add up

Good luck

 

[Davem24]

I think your on the right track, IME beating a bad hair algae infestation takes months, its a war of attrition with gha so keep it up.

In addition to what your already doing, I would suggest to wet skim while your home, and maybe lay off the pellets for a while, stick to frozen for now if you can. All the small things add up

Good luck

Thanks sir. I wound up making a post after all

 

[Old Man Sauce]

For what it's worth, we just got to the winning end of our battle with gha. Something that helped us... cuc does little against the longer bits. We used a long 1/2" tube brush to twirl up the longer stuff. Did that daily and within a few weeks, the cuc was able to get ahead of it. The tube brush really was a godsend for us as our purple tang does not like hands in his yard.

 

[Davem24]

For what it's worth, we just got to the winning end of our battle with gha. Something that helped us... cuc does little against the longer bits. We used a long 1/2" tube brush to twirl up the longer stuff. Did that daily and within a few weeks, the cuc was able to get ahead of it. The tube brush really was a godsend for us as our purple tang does not like hands in his yard.

Great to hear from someone who just won. Thanks for the advice. I was scrubbing it for a while just for it to come back but I think that was before I realized my lack of CUC.