Losing battle with hair algae, thinking of throwing in the towel.

CHSUB

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That looks great! Ok this is a super dumb question probably, but will taking out the four filter pads I have currently and replacing them with floss have any negative effects as far as losing some nitrifying bacteria? I have floss on hand ready to go. I assume I just rip a wad of it out and stuff it in the chambers, and then replace every 3 days?
Good question. Your tank appears to have significant rock and removing filter pads should not have any meaningful effect on bacteria. Your plan on floss use is good.
 

sushiboss

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Hey op.

I’ve had my fair share of algae problems and I’ll tell you how dealt with it.

I have a 15g innovative marine that’s a simple setup like yours. IE no skimmer or sump. Chemi pure blue in the media rack and filter floss on top changed twice weekly.

Just consistent water changes of 25-30% per week.


for me this is 4g water changes every Sunday.

For a 32g tank it would be roughly 8g give or take.

I don’t vacuum sand or do any shenanigans. Just pull water out. Put water back. I’m in and out in less than 5 minutes.

That’s my cleaning regiment. I have never changed it or wavered in the year I’ve had it.

With that being said it at one point had so much hair algae that I could hardly see the corals and the gha killed off my gsp on the back wall.

So when I say I have been there I really mean it hahahaha.

You have to try and boost your nitrate to phosphate ratio on a 10/1 basis. This is the moat important thing to do in my opinion.

I’m not an expert but low nutrients and unbalanced nutrients cause algae. It’s counterintuitive but the corals can’t compete when it’s low and unbalanced.

After this is achieved with stability you must increase your clean up crew.

For reference I have 5 urchins in my 15g. They aren’t starving but i definitely have too many. Got tired of coraline algae on my glass. In addition to the urchins I have a boat load of hermits and snails.

Once I got my levels up to a balanced ratio my algae receded into nothingness with just the clean up crew.

Initially a bit of manual removal (however no scrubbing on my end except near my corals, just grab and remove).

I’m not completely algae free and I don’t imagine anyone is. But the relentless growth is gone and only a couple stubborn spots remain.

To sum it all up
1) establish a 10/1 ratio of nitrate 10 parts to phosphate 1 part
2) invest in a larger clean up crew
3) establish a consistent water change regiment (especially important without a skimmer as this is your primary source of nutrient export)
4) at the end of this once levels are established you can use flucanozole or simply wait it out. It will go away on its own if you get the levels on track and manually remove what you can

Don’t give up and be super persistent!

Thank you for reading and happy reefing!
 
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peterat33rpm

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Hey op.

I’ve had my fair share of algae problems and I’ll tell you how dealt with it.

I have a 15g innovative marine that’s a simple setup like yours. IE no skimmer or sump. Chemi pure blue in the media rack and filter floss on top changed twice weekly.

Just consistent water changes of 25-30% per week.


for me this is 4g water changes every Sunday.

For a 32g tank it would be roughly 8g give or take.

I don’t vacuum sand or do any shenanigans. Just pull water out. Put water back. I’m in and out in less than 5 minutes.

That’s my cleaning regiment. I have never changed it or wavered in the year I’ve had it.

With that being said it at one point had so much hair algae that I could hardly see the corals and the gha killed off my gsp on the back wall.

So when I say I have been there I really mean it hahahaha.

You have to try and boost your nitrate to phosphate ratio on a 10/1 basis. This is the moat important thing to do in my opinion.

I’m not an expert but low nutrients and unbalanced nutrients cause algae. It’s counterintuitive but the corals can’t compete when it’s low and unbalanced.

After this is achieved with stability you must increase your clean up crew.

For reference I have 5 urchins in my 15g. They aren’t starving but i definitely have too many. Got tired of coraline algae on my glass. In addition to the urchins I have a boat load of hermits and snails.

Once I got my levels up to a balanced ratio my algae receded into nothingness with just the clean up crew.

Initially a bit of manual removal (however no scrubbing on my end except near my corals, just grab and remove).

I’m not completely algae free and I don’t imagine anyone is. But the relentless growth is gone and only a couple stubborn spots remain.

To sum it all up
1) establish a 10/1 ratio of nitrate 10 parts to phosphate 1 part
2) invest in a larger clean up crew
3) establish a consistent water change regiment (especially important without a skimmer as this is your primary source of nutrient export)
4) at the end of this once levels are established you can use flucanozole or simply wait it out. It will go away on its own if you get the levels on track and manually remove what you can

Don’t give up and be super persistent!

Thank you for reading and happy reefing!
Wow five urchins. Maybe I’ll add a tuxedo as people say they’re great for gha. As for the nutrients, thats like the trickiest part for me. Back when I was dealing with dinos I felt like I was pouring in liquid N and P but the tests (nyos nitrate and Hannah phos) never budged. And my most recent tests at the LFS on their gold standard machine were 6 and 0.02 which, while not 10/1 like you said, seem like they’re in a pretty good range. I’ll see what the ICP test shows and go from there though. Will definitely add snails like you said. Thanks for the advice!
 

Sump Crab

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Stop with the crazy chemicals, let your tank mature. The rocks need algae colonization to stabilize. Get a RODI system if you don't already. Buy that CUC you mentined then sit back and let nature take care of your problem.
 

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Wow five urchins. Maybe I’ll add a tuxedo as people say they’re great for gha. As for the nutrients, thats like the trickiest part for me. Back when I was dealing with dinos I felt like I was pouring in liquid N and P but the tests (nyos nitrate and Hannah phos) never budged. And my most recent tests at the LFS on their gold standard machine were 6 and 0.02 which, while not 10/1 like you said, seem like they’re in a pretty good range. I’ll see what the ICP test shows and go from there though. Will definitely add snails like you said. Thanks for the advice!
Are you referring to the aqua spin tests?

I get mine done every single week on Sundays

My last reading showed 50 nitrates and .5 phosphate. I went home to double check on my Hana and the Hanna showed 23 nitrates and .28 phosphate.

The Aqua spin tests are not accurate. I only get them as a baseline for calcium and magnesium as I’m too lazy to test these.

If I’m in “range” of my target number I don’t test at home. If my ranges are wacky I test. Simple for me. It’s not cheap but it works for me.

Also I didn’t see you mention the length of time the tanks been running and whether you used dry rock or live rock to start?

In the beginning the sand and rock will bind phosphates so you are highly susceptible to Dino’s gha and cyano.

If you start with live rock the chances are basically nonexistent.

Overtime the rocks will slowly leech back phosphates into the water. That’s why the 1 year mark is the sweet spot.

Gives your rock enough time to build up the beneficial bacteria and to stop binding nutrients. After this point many reefers tend to have their “glory days” of reefing where the tanks look amazing.

This is normal.

Don’t be discouraged.
 
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peterat33rpm

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Stop with the crazy chemicals, let your tank mature. The rocks need algae colonization to stabilize. Get a RODI system if you don't already. Buy that CUC you mentined then sit back and let nature take care of your problem.

Yea, sort of regretting doing reflux now but it’s hard when you see some people say it was like a miracle cure :-/

Same with mine. It got rid of the GHA that completely filled my refugium in about 10 days. It was like a lawnmower !

Tuxedo urchin it is! I’ll see if I can get one after I get my ICP test to make sure nothing is going to kill it. I’m encouraged that my current urchin, conch, and hermits all seem to be doing ok, but snails are dying off.

Are you referring to the aqua spin tests?

I get mine done every single week on Sundays

My last reading showed 50 nitrates and .5 phosphate. I went home to double check on my Hana and the Hanna showed 23 nitrates and .28 phosphate.

The Aqua spin tests are not accurate. I only get them as a baseline for calcium and magnesium as I’m too lazy to test these.

If I’m in “range” of my target number I don’t test at home. If my ranges are wacky I test. Simple for me. It’s not cheap but it works for me.

Also I didn’t see you mention the length of time the tanks been running and whether you used dry rock or live rock to start?

In the beginning the sand and rock will bind phosphates so you are highly susceptible to Dino’s gha and cyano.

If you start with live rock the chances are basically nonexistent.

Overtime the rocks will slowly leech back phosphates into the water. That’s why the 1 year mark is the sweet spot.

Gives your rock enough time to build up the beneficial bacteria and to stop binding nutrients. After this point many reefers tend to have their “glory days” of reefing where the tanks look amazing.

This is normal.

Don’t be discouraged.
I assume it was the spin test yea. I’ll retest my N and P at home tomorrow and see.

And I started with live rock from my LFS but I have no way of knowing how long it had been “live” for. Tank has been up for 9 months at this point.
 

lonhater

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Sorry yea should have included more but was in a rush.

- I feed light, like a quarter of a cube of marine cuisine a day.
- I have upgrade the stock return pump to a sicce syncra 1.5
- no skimmer :-( I could add one to the back chamber but would take some rearranging
- I have filter sponge in 4 of the 6 media basket chambers that I clean out in tank water every water change. Should I change to floss?
- RODI water from the grocery store.
- 5 gallon water changes usually every 2 weeks. Been maybe every 10 days lately while trying to deal with this
- hygger nano wave maker on one side of the tank and another voyager (can’t remember if nano or the next one up) power head on the other. Flow is probably only average overall. Toying with getting the jebao mp10 knockoffs but I want to decide for sure I’m gonna stick with it before spending more money
- I had one big turbo that died, and then I have a handful of trochus and nessarius. LFS didn’t have small turbos last time I went
Why not buy RODI water from the LFS?
 

thedon986

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When I was going through my GHA battle I found the most effective strategy was manual removal with a length of 1/4” tubing siphoning into a filter sock in the sump (or tied to a bucket would work). I did that 3-4 times a week. On top of that I actually kept dosing nitrates and phosphates so there was always some available for other organisms. Besides that it just took time and regular water changes and stability. I know it sucks. GHA is the worst. It gets better.
 

sushiboss

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Yea, sort of regretting doing reflux now but it’s hard when you see some people say it was like a miracle cure :-/



Tuxedo urchin it is! I’ll see if I can get one after I get my ICP test to make sure nothing is going to kill it. I’m encouraged that my current urchin, conch, and hermits all seem to be doing ok, but snails are dying off.


I assume it was the spin test yea. I’ll retest my N and P at home tomorrow and see.

And I started with live rock from my LFS but I have no way of knowing how long it had been “live” for. Tank has been up for 9 months at this point.
For me tuxedo urchins were not a miracle cure. I think when people say they destroyed their hair algae it’s not necessarily them “eating” it but them using it as camouflage and then it drifting to the overflow.

This is not to say they don’t eat gha algae but if it’s “long” they won’t touch it in my experience. For me the biggest gha members have been blue legged hermit crabs and turbo snails.

The urchins do work but once I added 25 blue legs and a turbo snail it went from bad to good in 6 weeks.

And btw I have used flucanozole many times in the 15g reef.

It does not work like a miracle cure for gha. It does “kill” some and weaken the strain but it won’t eradicate it.

Typically I use powdered form of flucanazole. It’s a 1 time treatment per 2 weeks and you cannot do water changes or have a uv sterilizer on.

I did the treatment followed by another immediately after the 2 weeks were up and a water change was completed.

It helps but it will not be a miracle cure.

Establish good parameters and breathe. It will take time but it’s beatable. Don’t be discouraged. You got this!
 
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peterat33rpm

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Second this.

If you can’t get a reliable source of rodi, distilled is basically the same thing. And it will be near or at 0 tds.
Interesting…what’s the difference? This is advertised as being full RODI so what’s the difference between buying that and buying bottled distilled? Either way, I can hopefully test the water I’ve been using tomorrow with the TDS meter I ordered. Turns out they’re cheap, thank god
 

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For me tuxedo urchins were not a miracle cure. I think when people say they destroyed their hair algae it’s not necessarily them “eating” it but them using it as camouflage and then it drifting to the overflow.

This is not to say they don’t eat gha algae but if it’s “long” they won’t touch it in my experience. For me the biggest gha members have been blue legged hermit crabs and turbo snails.

The urchins do work but once I added 25 blue legs and a turbo snail it went from bad to good in 6 weeks.

And btw I have used flucanozole many times in the 15g reef.

It does not work like a miracle cure for gha. It does “kill” some and weaken the strain but it won’t eradicate it.

Typically I use powdered form of flucanazole. It’s a 1 time treatment per 2 weeks and you cannot do water changes or have a uv sterilizer on.

I did the treatment followed by another immediately after the 2 weeks were up and a water change was completed.

It helps but it will not be a miracle cure.

Establish good parameters and breathe. It will take time but it’s beatable. Don’t be discouraged. You got this!

Mine definitely eats the long stuff and oddly does not wear it.

Bald spot behind him is where he begun Dec 25
IMG_6082.jpeg



And today

IMG_6496.jpeg


He was a captive one but grown out very large before I received him.

Ofc with any animal, your mileage may vary.
 

Tamberav

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Interesting…what’s the difference? This is advertised as being full RODI so what’s the difference between buying that and buying bottled distilled?

The workers at the store might be slow to change the filters. Distilled is used in important medical equipment. Just make sure it has nothing added for taste.

TBH I used RO from a grocery for many years without issue but distilled is still the better buy.

This is probably just lack of established rock BS.

My frag tank has like 15 year old live rock in it and the nutrients could be off the charts and it grows nothing but some patches of cyano when over fed times a million (for baby fish).
 

sushiboss

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Interesting…what’s the difference? This is advertised as being full RODI so what’s the difference between buying that and buying bottled distilled?
Well distilled is boiled into vapor and returned to water form (removing the impurities) while also removing all minerals etc from the water.

It’s not recommended but it will work.

Rodi is filtered through a reverse osmosis system removing impurities and retaining the minerals and other benefits of the water.

If you have the option I’d buy reverse osmosis water over distilled.
 

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