My Fight with Green Hair Algae - You CAN win!

[Seeko]

Nice write up. I am also battling GHA. This got me thinking. When I scrub my rocks I use a long dish bush and a toothbrush zip tied to a wooden dowel, put on some mesh fiter socks, crank the vortechs up to 100% NTM and start scrubbing. The junk blows all over and eventually tank will clear with a good amount caught in the filer socks. Rinse socks, repeat until happy or tired. Is there any real threat to the scrubbed off GHA that may be getting stuck in the tank and not blown into the overflows. May be a dumb questions, but can it reattach and cause more problems, I have been doing this for a long time and it keeps growing back. Wondering if the siphon method you used is much much better than what I'm doing or If I just haven't got my nutrients and algae phases balanced yet. Tank is 5 years old, but I feel like it got rebooted with a velvet outbreak this summer. All of this is going on while fallow, so very little food added.

I personally don't really like to do this because it gets caught on my coral and kills my coral. It's way too messy. Not worth it. Siphon is a way cleaner job.

 

[Deezill]

so as I await my CUC i notice my two clown fish are just laying in a patch of GHA i mean they look really comfortable. the two of them are like taking turns in it. I gotta get these guys an anemone. I mean i wish i had my camera they look like me after a steak dinner relaxed not a care in the world laying there. I thought something was wrong until the smaller one got up and the bigger one did the same.

 

[Sirspeedy77]

Old thread I know lol. I’m starting my second fight with GHA - certain it’s too much nutrients, between AB+, roids, food etc. everyone eats healthy. Gonna try your tips and see how I do thanks!

 

[Deezill]

I have been using vibrant. Working great but my sps don't like it. I am seeing stn since I started the treatment but I gotta push forward this algae must die. I also had the problem when algae would die it would release nutrients back into the water so now I am running gfo. so far so good. My rocks look like they had wigs but now looks like they got hair cuts lol.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I have been using vibrant. Working great but my sps don't like it. I am seeing stn since I started the treatment but I gotta push forward this algae must die. I also had the problem when algae would die it would release nutrients back into the water so now I am running gfo. so far so good. My rocks look like they had wigs but now looks like they got hair cuts lol.

I always dose Vibrant at 80% of recommended

 

[RobertP]

Patience is the toughest test of a reef tank. After the move my tank has been set up since January and have gone through all of the new tank syndrome issues like diatoms and algae blooms. GHA has not been one of them but I am also staying away from buying a bunch of corals until there is good stability. This also limits the exposure to introducing GHA from coral frags during this period of instability. I picked up a coral pack from a local reefer early this year to see how they are growing or not. Had some die-off but other corals are doing great.
I will NOT throw in chemicals that might or might not hurt other things in the tank, but to each his own.
Good luck everyone!

 

[t5Nitro]

Any ill effects on SPS from driving nutrients into 0s with nopox and rowaphos? Your tank in the original photos looks clean. Mine is a solid lawn of green. Still a battle.

 

[RobertP]

Any ill effects on SPS from driving nutrients into 0s with nopox and rowaphos? Your tank in the original photos looks clean. Mine is a solid lawn of green. Still a battle.

As long as your alk is not too high...7-8 would be fine but if you are close to 10 or higher then you can easily burn your acros if your nutrients are sitting at 0. My target alk is 8.5 now but I was closer to 8 when I was fighting this stuff.

 

[t5Nitro]

As long as your alk is not too high...7-8 would be fine but if you are close to 10 or higher then you can easily burn your acros if your nutrients are sitting at 0. My target alk is 8.5 now but I was closer to 8 when I was fighting this stuff.

Good to know!! I'm at mid 7s now. I'll aim to keep it steady here.