My experience with GHA and Reef Flux

GillMeister

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After a full year of no algae issues I had a sudden outbreak of GHA. It got unsightly pretty quickly and I felt manual removal wasn't going to work. I have a ton of rock and their was no way to remove enough GHA to keep it in check.

My nitrate and phosphate levels are undetectable so I was dosing a very small amount in my ATO. Still, levels rarely show higher than zero.

My parameters have been fairly steady.
Salinity 34.7 - 35.0
Temp 78.0- 79.0 F
Calcium 425 - 440
Alkalinity ~10.0

My corals had been growing and very colorful right up to....

I emptied 29 capsules of Reef Flux into my 300 gallon system to eliminate the GHA.

Within 3 days I lost 75% of my SPS. All the expensive ones died first, of course. It's been a slow battle of attrition since then and I now have only a few, barely surviving, bleaching, corals left. I can't say it was the Flux for certain but all indicators point that way.

Moral of the story here is be very cautious when adding anything new to your tank. I learned a very expensive lesson.

By the way, it did NOT kill the GHA. Bonus lesson.
 

Spare time

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I have used it and flux rx as well as numerous customers of mine and it worked with derbesia and bryopsis. None of them had any issues with corals or any other invert.
 

Billldg

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Sorry for your loss, but I also have used it, and dosed 150 percent above recommendation with no SPS loss. I'm wondering if something else is causing the loss. I have seen some reefers talk about losing SPS and most have not. Its not to say this is right or wrong and that is right or wrong, I am just wondering if something else in the tank is causing the issue, when Reef Flux is introduced.

It may be something that is needed to be studied and logged.
 

workhz

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Here’s an SPS fluconazole related thread.

A bit of talk about alkalinity drops.

I got a prescription for actual pills and crushed them, mixed with tank water and poured the mixture over 2 days. Bryopsis dead and GHA looking like it’s about to die off too. No SPS in my tank so can’t comment on that. Zoas, fish, anemone, inverts and frogspawn don’t look to be affected at all.
 

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Sorry to hear about your loss. You dosed to 290 gallons of water volume per the instructions. Is your tank a 300 gallon or do you have 300 gallons actual water volume with sump and such?
 
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GillMeister

GillMeister

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Sorry to hear about your loss. You dosed to 290 gallons of water volume per the instructions. Is your tank a 300 gallon or do you have 300 gallons actual water volume with sump and such?
It's a total volume of 300 with the sump.
 
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GillMeister

GillMeister

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Here’s an SPS fluconazole related thread.

A bit of talk about alkalinity drops.

I got a prescription for actual pills and crushed them, mixed with tank water and poured the mixture over 2 days. Bryopsis dead and GHA looking like it’s about to die off too. No SPS in my tank so can’t comment on that. Zoas, fish, anemone, inverts and frogspawn don’t look to be affected at all.
Alkalinity is the parameter i monitor most. There was a drop of about 0.4 dkh over 3 days. It wasn't enough to alarm me.
 

DeeBee

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Unfortunately, after using Reef Flux three other times without incident on other tanks I had a similar negative result. My tank was growing so well I was hesitant but was tired of the algae that persisted despite nutrient control measures. I tried the Blue Life version measured to my tank which has precisely 105 gallons.

After one week I lost a blue Stag frag, then a gold hammer which I didn’t attribute to the fluco. My alk spiked and then other corals starting going downhill. At two weeks my two large birds nests started having issues and my PC rainbow turned gray with stn.

I hit the UV to hopefully neutralize the Fluco. It seemed to slow the effects down but once I saw my bullet proof monti cap dying then I did a water change and started running carbon. Now I’m just crossing my fingers.
 
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GillMeister

GillMeister

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After my die-off from fluconazole, and still having plenty of algae to deal with, i tried manual removal for a while. It was like playing whack-a-mole. About three months ago I started dosing Vibrant. Today i have zero GHA and I'm hard pressed to find any bubble algae. Best of all not one single coral has been affected. I think the key is the slow, steady approach dosing vibrant has that prevents crazy changes in reef chemistry.
 

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