GHA: The saga continues

Patrick Cox

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I have been battling GHA and to a lesser extent Bryopsis on and off for almost a year. I tried a refugium and all that did was cause more GHA to grow. The refugium got filled with GHA and then it actually go worse in the tank. I have lost most of my corals but still have a few. Over the past couple of months I have been removing my rock, scrubbing it in buckets, spraying with peroxide as needed and then replacing the rock. This has helped keep the GHA from taking over the tank again but it is still coming back and I am really not sure why. I only feed 1/2 cube of spirulina brine shrimp per day to my fish. Fish are Kole Tang, clownfish pair, hawkfish, possum wrasse. I have also added snails and a couple of urchins several times. I have lost some CUC and I suspect the hawkfish is picking them off. Or maybe the peroxide spray did it, not sure. This has probably contributed to nutrient issues.

I have been running 6 T5 bulbs at 100% for 5 hours per day. I am getting ready to turn those down but I am not sure by how much.

I also have 3 SPS corals that have survived, a clam that seems to be healthy and a bubble tip anemone.

I also have a good skimmer.

In the last few weeks I have added Phosphate RX a couple of times and MicroBacter Clean a couple of times. I am not really on a schedule though.

When I test my water, Nitrate is always 0 and Phosphate has been around 0.01-0.03.

I am thinking about reducing my lights but I am not sure how far I can go since I have the clam, BTA and corals.

So I guess my questions are...

1. How far can I go in reducing light schedule and intensity with the clam, BTA and corals?

2. What else can I do to reduce nutrients?

Thanks!
 

w8lifts

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Have you tired just switching to all blues? I’m currently doing that to fight off some trouble spots in my DT.
 

Jekyl

GSP is the devil and clowns are bad pets
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Current parameters? Tried dosing live phyto?
 

gpd124

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Have you tired just switching to all blues? I’m currently doing that to fight off some trouble spots in my DT.

This is a good point - I was going to ask, how many of each bulb color.

I have been battling some GHA and we switched our lights to more blue, reduced overall lighting schedule, continued addition of CUC (a variety of snails and hermits), and continued water changes.
 

w8lifts

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This is a good point - I was going to ask, how many of each bulb color.

I have been battling some GHA and we switched our lights to more blue, reduced overall lighting schedule, continued addition of CUC (a variety of snails and hermits), and continued water changes.
I switched to LEDs so it’s a matter of me just clicking a few things lol, but there are some good threads about going all blue on here you might check out.
 
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Patrick Cox

Patrick Cox

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This is a good point - I was going to ask, how many of each bulb color.

I have been battling some GHA and we switched our lights to more blue, reduced overall lighting schedule, continued addition of CUC (a variety of snails and hermits), and continued water changes.

I have been running 6 bulbs during the day. Here is the bulb combo...


12K – 16K – Cool white with a noticeable blue and red under-tone
3 ATI Blue Plus
2 ATI Coral Plus
1 ATI Purple Plus
 

OSFF

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I'm curious if you started the tank with dry rock or not. I had the same issue with my last tank for over 2 years and tried almost every recommended solution before I finally just gave up and switched back to live rock. Haven't had any algae issues since then and my nitrates are always 20-40ppm.
 

saltwaterpicaso

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i never in my life had hair algea or any algea in my display until i installed an algea scrubber. i had it for years tried 3 different models and still always had algea. i since have moved on to a sulfer denitrator and it works i also do not do water changes. scrub the algea off the rock while its in the tank let it run replace filters and do that weekly until its gone. i have never had luck growing any algea to out compete an algea it seemed to do the opposite and always make the display have algea
 
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