sfin52
So many pedestrians so little time
Not nearly as efficient as a turf scrubber
Green turf algae won t go away
- Thread starter isaacfish
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You got a pic of your algae scrubber growth we can have a look at?
JNalley
Valuable Member
It looks like you're doing all of this with HOB equipment, do you not have a sump? Your ATS options will be limited without a sump. I'd recommend looking at the HOG series scrubbers from Santa Monica Filtration if you're going that route.
If the goal is ONLY nutrient reduction and some pH boost, you're better off with an ATS
If the goal is Nutrient Reduction, pH boost, AND growing your own food, you're better off sticking with the Refugiums
An ATS is better than a small refugium (heck it's better than a large refugium in most cases) but an ATS doesn't give the same amount of pH control as a nice sized refugium, and it doesn't give you a place to grow Pods or Macroalgae to feed your fish. An ATS will generally outcompete your refugium for nutrients, so you're better off choosing one over the other...
If the goal is ONLY nutrient reduction and some pH boost, you're better off with an ATS
If the goal is Nutrient Reduction, pH boost, AND growing your own food, you're better off sticking with the Refugiums
I'm no doubt in the minority here but if you use vibrant or some similar to kill all the algae your just going to have a tank full of white rocks. I guess that's fine if that's the look you want. I don't mind a little alage here and there to add color. It's not like it's evil. Maybe get some coral growing on the rocks.
Also read up on Vibrant. Several threads on this forum about it.
Flame2hawk
Well-Known Member
I’ve had same problem in the past in my FOWLR. Got rid of it by shutting the lights off and frequently vacuuming sand and removing turf algae. It hasn’t returned for years since. Took about 2 -3 months of no lights. May want to remove your anemone during the process.
You will probably never get rid of that turf algae. I have been battling it for way longer than you. I have tried just about everything and NOTHING works. I have spoken to the real experts in this hobby and tried most of their suggestions. One of the problems is that the algae gets so deeply attached into the rock that there is no grip on it to remove it, you have to wait until it grows out and then tear it out in chunks which always leaves the “roots” and of course there is always the piece that is impossible to get to.
The algae also starts to outcompete the coral and smothers them. From all my experiences the water quality has very little to do with it, as I have had pristine water quality and very poor water quality.
I am planning on tearing the entire tank apart, get rid of all the rock and basically start from scratch.
It is a daunting task, one I am not looking forward to, as the display tank is 450 gallons and the sump is 200 gallons.
I wish you the best of luck. You are welcome to listen to whom ever but unless they have dealt with this problem they have no idea what you are going through.
I have not followed this forum for quite a while, but I am now interested to see what the outcome is.
The algae also starts to outcompete the coral and smothers them. From all my experiences the water quality has very little to do with it, as I have had pristine water quality and very poor water quality.
I am planning on tearing the entire tank apart, get rid of all the rock and basically start from scratch.
It is a daunting task, one I am not looking forward to, as the display tank is 450 gallons and the sump is 200 gallons.
I wish you the best of luck. You are welcome to listen to whom ever but unless they have dealt with this problem they have no idea what you are going through.
I have not followed this forum for quite a while, but I am now interested to see what the outcome is.
EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal
Just another girl who likes fish
A healthy tank is going to have some algae. As long as it's not bothering corals, my advice is to embrace it and worry about other things
liddojunior
Well-Known Member
I’m surprised no coralline algae. I would introduce some of that. Can get a small pebble kr frag plug or something from your lfs and just scrape it in your tanks flow. Corralline algae actually can help prevent other algae types from growing on it.
The thing about algae is that your water parameters look good because of the algae growing. It’s like a natural filter.
If there’s no corals, no harm in having it. It seems you have urchins that eat it. You might be losing fish food to the flow and filter and it’s making nutrients be high.
Need a way to export nutrients or algae will do that for you and grow
The thing about algae is that your water parameters look good because of the algae growing. It’s like a natural filter.
If there’s no corals, no harm in having it. It seems you have urchins that eat it. You might be losing fish food to the flow and filter and it’s making nutrients be high.
Need a way to export nutrients or algae will do that for you and grow
This is not run of the mill algae, this is the nastiest stuff you could ever hope to have. I had it under control to an extent for a while and then it was in places I could not get to and of course it started to get out of control from there.A healthy tank is going to have some algae. As long as it's not bothering corals, my advice is to embrace it and worry about other things
I am definitely not trying to hijack this thread, just adding some perspective on what the OP is dealing with.
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I used fluconazole to knock back gha. Did not eliminate, but got to where manual cleaning with a toothbrush helps.
You need to get something else growing on the rocks like coraline or bacteria. I have also started diy coral snow with bacteria to help seed bare spots.
sfin52
So many pedestrians so little time
Do you have a black spot foxface?
EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal
Just another girl who likes fish
Assuming his is the same as yours and not a regular kind that just needs more herbivores...
NanJ
Active Member
In our experience battling hair/turf algae is a many months commitment. I have written about our experience on this thread (post #3) with a video link of how bad our problem was:
www.reef2reef.com
Long story short-ish - scrub the rocks at least weekly with very stiff bristles brushes and stick to it. It is a battle, not a once or twice and done. If you can take the rocks out and scrub, that is awesome. We couldn’t - a 300g tank with a ton of rock work.
In retrospect I don’t know that the Brightwell products mentioned in the thread actually helped. Maybe they did make the algae easier to scrub off. Currently I am turned off to chemical fixes because of the unintended consequences. Everyone’s tanks are so different and what helped in one tank could kill livestock in another.
We still are scrubbing rocks but the patches of hair algae are greatly diminished, just a little patch here and there. We installed an algae scrubber unit from Santa Monica Filtration a couple of months in hopes that we are not tied to weekly/biweekly rock scrubbing.
GHA battle
I've been battling GHA for the past 4 months and feel like I've thrown the kitchen sink at it. I run aquatic life t5 hybrid with 3xhydra26 HD's on a 125 gallon mixed reef with 30 gallon sump with roller mat, skimmer, and refugium, although the GHA has basically taken over and just about killed...
www.reef2reef.com
Long story short-ish - scrub the rocks at least weekly with very stiff bristles brushes and stick to it. It is a battle, not a once or twice and done. If you can take the rocks out and scrub, that is awesome. We couldn’t - a 300g tank with a ton of rock work.
In retrospect I don’t know that the Brightwell products mentioned in the thread actually helped. Maybe they did make the algae easier to scrub off. Currently I am turned off to chemical fixes because of the unintended consequences. Everyone’s tanks are so different and what helped in one tank could kill livestock in another.
We still are scrubbing rocks but the patches of hair algae are greatly diminished, just a little patch here and there. We installed an algae scrubber unit from Santa Monica Filtration a couple of months in hopes that we are not tied to weekly/biweekly rock scrubbing.
reefedandconfused
Community Member
I used vibrant (follow direction) and it worked great but I also lost one fish and a two members of my CUC since I started using it. Not sure if it’s related to the vibrant or just natural causes. I scrubbed my rocks then started treating with vibrant and it worked quickly.
If you are worried about your fish and CUC I would recommend relocating them to a temporary setup for a couple weeks until the algae is gone. Then do a large volume water change and bring the fish and CUC back into the main tank. I would continue dosing every other week until you hit the 6 week mark.
I haven’t had green hair algae for about two months and I am now only doing small doses every other week. I plan on getting off of it soon.
tfeeken
Community Member
Leading out here, I feel that the responses you've received here are decent, however they're just throwing things out without identifying the what or why.
Turf algae is one of the most difficult to get rid of. Why? Because there really aren't many herbivores that actually consume it. First off, have you confirmed it's turf algae? It's difficult to tell from your photos but it does look like it. Is it growing in mats and very short? Never gets long or flowing? If so, then that's the first step to confirm.
Next, I'd recommend controlling your input, meaning what is going into the tank to ensure you limit what it uses to grow. What kind of lights are you running? Ensuring you're not throwing too much red and green lights will reduce the spectrum needed for algae growth. While your .03 phos levels appear to be good, it's likely masked due to the uptake of the turf algae. What are you feeding and how frequently? If you're feeding pellets or flakes, that's step one, stop and go to thawed and drained frozen so to minimize as much phosphate input as possible.
Export for not having a sump makes is going to reduce options and be more difficult but it's possible to manage. What is your water change process like and where are you getting the source water? Ensuring it's from a reliable source, even a local fish store can have suspect water. If you're getting mixed saltwater from a shop, check new/fresh saltwater before putting it in to see if there's any issues there. Clean water is means no additional nutrients for the algae to consume. Also maybe up your water change frequency for a while to keep those nutrients really low.
Lastly, natural control. Largely the only inhabitant that will touch that stuff is true turbo snails, even though they don't do all that great, but the Pithos crab should be your go to. They readily eat the stuff, albeit slow, but they do consume it.
With control of input, light spectrum, food and water quality. Export, water changes. And inhabitants, Pithos crabs, you should be able to work on getting rid of it.
Turf algae is one of the most difficult to get rid of. Why? Because there really aren't many herbivores that actually consume it. First off, have you confirmed it's turf algae? It's difficult to tell from your photos but it does look like it. Is it growing in mats and very short? Never gets long or flowing? If so, then that's the first step to confirm.
Next, I'd recommend controlling your input, meaning what is going into the tank to ensure you limit what it uses to grow. What kind of lights are you running? Ensuring you're not throwing too much red and green lights will reduce the spectrum needed for algae growth. While your .03 phos levels appear to be good, it's likely masked due to the uptake of the turf algae. What are you feeding and how frequently? If you're feeding pellets or flakes, that's step one, stop and go to thawed and drained frozen so to minimize as much phosphate input as possible.
Export for not having a sump makes is going to reduce options and be more difficult but it's possible to manage. What is your water change process like and where are you getting the source water? Ensuring it's from a reliable source, even a local fish store can have suspect water. If you're getting mixed saltwater from a shop, check new/fresh saltwater before putting it in to see if there's any issues there. Clean water is means no additional nutrients for the algae to consume. Also maybe up your water change frequency for a while to keep those nutrients really low.
Lastly, natural control. Largely the only inhabitant that will touch that stuff is true turbo snails, even though they don't do all that great, but the Pithos crab should be your go to. They readily eat the stuff, albeit slow, but they do consume it.
With control of input, light spectrum, food and water quality. Export, water changes. And inhabitants, Pithos crabs, you should be able to work on getting rid of it.
Based on your earlier posts, you're able to remove rocks to scrub them. You've done it it until you're tired of it. I suggest you do it again, but then soak those rocks in Hydrogen Peroxide, the normal 3% stuff from the drug store, for a minute or 2. Then rinse them off in some tank water before you put them back. The algae will weaken and discolor and eventually fall off and disappear. It may take a couple iterations and it will probably take a day or two before significant changes are noticed.
If you've got corals on the rocks, try to keep the H2O2 away from the coral, but the vast majority are unaffected. Maybe squirt the corals with a turkey baster while in the tank to get them to close up first before you remove the rock. There's a very long thread here about this technique that has been successful for a large number of reefers. Some will advocate dosing the whole tank, but that's much less effective, more dangerous to some animals, and it takes longer. Since you seem to be able to take the rocks out without too much difficulty, definitely try the removal/scrubbing/soaking approach. I think you'll be very happy.
If you've got corals on the rocks, try to keep the H2O2 away from the coral, but the vast majority are unaffected. Maybe squirt the corals with a turkey baster while in the tank to get them to close up first before you remove the rock. There's a very long thread here about this technique that has been successful for a large number of reefers. Some will advocate dosing the whole tank, but that's much less effective, more dangerous to some animals, and it takes longer. Since you seem to be able to take the rocks out without too much difficulty, definitely try the removal/scrubbing/soaking approach. I think you'll be very happy.
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