GHA - Why not?

[GarrettT]

Curious, why do people choose to grow chaeto over GHA? Don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone keeping GHA in their refugium and wondering why.

 

[Eatfrenchfries]

Just because it can grow on coral skeleton and be somewhat hard to remove. I personally like green hair algae and if it's in my tanks I don't target it. Just let it do its thing. If you know where your nutrients are going then there's no need to worry.

Green hair algae would be an excellent refugium choice. There might be some convenience issues in handling since it'll get everywhere.

My mollies, guppies, and gsp like to eat it too as an added bonus.

 

[Eatfrenchfries]

Just to add. I think chaeto is boring. GHA can look so much cooler.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Curious, why do people choose to grow chaeto over GHA? Don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone keeping GHA in their refugium and wondering why.

I have made this argument several times!

 

[MarshallB]

Curious, why do people choose to grow chaeto over GHA? Don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone keeping GHA in their refugium and wondering why.

I think the biggest issues is that it just spreads so easily. I'm just now getting over the GHA hurdle in my DT. the GHA covered all the macro in my refugium. So you could say I have a GHA refugium.

On a side note, isn't that exactly what algae scrubbers do? Grow turf/hair algae?

 

[john92708]

I think chaeto is easier to clean/remove and more suitable for pods. However a DIY algae (GHA) scrubber is more efficient in my experience

 

[GarrettT]

I currently have green and red turf algae, Mexican caulerpa, red garcilaria, and GHA in my display tank. None of them really get out of hand or dominate the other. When I dose silicate, my turf algae will quickly outcompete the other algaes, but that is the only time and something that I can easily control. I haven’t noticed any difference otherwise. I’d imagine once you get a good amount of GHA going in a refugium, much of the growth would be taking place in there and not the display. I mean majority of us already have a good amount of it in our overflow boxes right?

 

[Mr Fishface]

Algae turf scrubbers take advantage of exactly what you are saying. Because GHA grows so fast, it can remove nutrients quickly. I never worried about gha myself, I had a pretty big refugium with mostly prolifera. There would be spots here and there with gha in the tank or more often in the fuge and the pods just loved it. I mean, they really loved it. More than anything else I had in my tank in fact.

 

[TWYOUNG]

After GHA kept growing over my Chaeto I came up with this. Marinepure blocks are elevated on light diffuser/eggcrate with coarse mesh over it. Flow is from the lower left under and over blocks. GHA grows on mesh which is easily removed and power washed. Thoughts on this? Should I even try to keep the Chaeto in there or pitch it?

 

[xiongsy]

After GHA kept growing over my Chaeto I came up with this. Marinepure blocks are elevated on light diffuser/eggcrate with coarse mesh over it. Flow is from the lower left under and over blocks. GHA grows on mesh which is easily removed and power washed. Thoughts on this? Should I even try to keep the Chaeto in there or pitch it?

That is such a great idea! Why can't I place a screen mesh (rolled) into my reactor wrapped with red/blue grow lights and have the GHA grow there instead. And, I don't see why it has to be a scrubber when I've already purchased a reactor. Thoughts?

 

[Cthulukelele]

The one thing for me is a big part of the refugium is actually removing the growth as it grows in. Chaeto is vastly easier to remove and wash to keep free of detritus than gha. Also as others have mentioned chaeto is like 1 giant pod hotel

 

[xiongsy]

Algae turf scrubbers take advantage of exactly what you are saying. Because GHA grows so fast, it can remove nutrients quickly. I never worried about gha myself, I had a pretty big refugium with mostly prolifera. There would be spots here and there with gha in the tank or more often in the fuge and the pods just loved it. I mean, they really loved it. More than anything else I had in my tank in fact.

Your pods loved it because they consume the gha?

 

[ryanjohn1]

I purposefully let some grow in my sump. Main tank has tang gang who destroy all algae in it so.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

That is such a great idea! Why can't I place a screen mesh (rolled) into my reactor wrapped with red/blue grow lights and have the GHA grow there instead. And, I don't see why it has to be a scrubber when I've already purchased a reactor. Thoughts?

Google "algae reactor"

 

[TWYOUNG]

The one thing for me is a big part of the refugium is actually removing the growth as it grows in. Chaeto is vastly easier to remove and wash to keep free of detritus than gha. Also as others have mentioned chaeto is like 1 giant pod hotel

My issue thus far has been the GHA vastly outperforming the chaeto. Would be great if chaeto was growing but it's pretty much dormant at this point and getting covered with GHA. So I'm thinking at least for the time being to take advantage of it. I found it easy to remove from the mesh with a power sprayer.

 

[xiongsy]

My issue thus far has been the GHA vastly outperforming the chaeto. Would be great if chaeto was growing but it's pretty much dormant at this point and getting covered with GHA. So I'm thinking at least for the time being to take advantage of it. I found it easy to remove from the mesh with a power sprayer.

Does your chaeto get 24 hrs lights to give it a chance to pull nutrients while the DT light is off?

 

[X-37B]

I get green hair algae on my powerhead grates. Its from high flow.
I also get red turf that comes and goes.
My tanks cleanup crew keep in tank algae at bay.
I prefer red macro algae in my sump. I can remove it and feed the tangs.
Cheato is great if you have it in a seperate contained area.
Quick cell pic.

 

[TWYOUNG]

Does your chaeto get 24 hrs lights to give it a chance to pull nutrients while the DT light is off?

I run it from 4pm to 8am.