I was reading that gha is part of the tank’s beginning cycles. Do I just let it be and it will go away once the tank is completely through it’s cycle? The tank has been running for 4 months. I got some snails for a little bit of a clean up crew.
New cycle green hair algae gha
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Big G
captain dunsel
Time to get your hands wet. I like to use a toothbrush, turn up the powerheads, let them run for a few minutes after cleaning the rock, etc., change filter socks, and when necessary, a decent sized water change. Next, start pondering your lighting. Is it contributing to the GHA; are your feeding habits contributing to the GHA; and of course, take a good look at your water parameters. Ponder if you need to add some fish or CUC that will naturally "mow" the algae. Of course everything I just posted will vary from tank to tank. I like a bit of algae in my tank. Cheers!
Yep the magic toothbrush. Just stick it in ther and scrub. I try to do that the day before I do the wc and change the socks and pads. That way the algae comes out.
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That's what I did. Tooth brush scrub, filter it out. Water changes with good water source, snails, hermits, and emerald crab. Emerald is questionable, but mine eats algae constantly and hasn't bothered anything yet.
There are threads that say to allow growths to cycle in and out of an early tank
Those threads cause the algae fix threads to have continual input forever and ever
Algae doesn't signify a nutrient issue at all
It needs only import, hesitation and it'll secure the rest.
Nutrients impact how often the reefkeeper becomes the deciding point between invaded or not, we work less when we keep a clean tank.
The reason everyone's tank seems to be on a fine balance regarding algae and nutrients is because they have a rule where only actions to the water are allowed to limit algae
Or they'll add clean up crews and wait... hesitation part
But pico reefers know if one takes time to simply kill algae and disallow it, then no algae takes over. We don't even measure nutrients in our pico reefs, cuz we know it's not needed information.
All algae problem reefs on the web were chosen that way by the keeper. We wrestle a few every once in a while to quit doing that
They post the keen after pics in the restoration threads.
Best trick ever: hand kill (not just scrape, kill it) all algae, allow no stages, in time coral and coralline take over, reject algae, and your gardening will stop. It lasts until the reef is matured, and vital space is taken up (how often do we see algae in the mouth of a brain coral polyp? It's on the skeleton where it's not excluded)
Of course one can get lucky by starving it and using cleanup crews but that's a bunch of happenstance on the web you can see...
What isn't happenstance is hundreds of pico reefs full of SPS and LPS and no algae in sight, solid, fed well, exported well, corals grown aggressively into place
These little reefs are doing something big tankers could stand to note, in my opinion. We'll keep posting the proof online. Any searchable thread called problem algae challenge thread has the pics before n after.
We're not against the old school ways of luck and patience and waiting
It's just we've found and documented a different way with no deviation from algae free coral production and that can either be harnessed or not. Merely adding a no algae reefing choice option.
Those threads cause the algae fix threads to have continual input forever and ever
Algae doesn't signify a nutrient issue at all
It needs only import, hesitation and it'll secure the rest.
Nutrients impact how often the reefkeeper becomes the deciding point between invaded or not, we work less when we keep a clean tank.
The reason everyone's tank seems to be on a fine balance regarding algae and nutrients is because they have a rule where only actions to the water are allowed to limit algae
Or they'll add clean up crews and wait... hesitation part
But pico reefers know if one takes time to simply kill algae and disallow it, then no algae takes over. We don't even measure nutrients in our pico reefs, cuz we know it's not needed information.
All algae problem reefs on the web were chosen that way by the keeper. We wrestle a few every once in a while to quit doing that
They post the keen after pics in the restoration threads.
Best trick ever: hand kill (not just scrape, kill it) all algae, allow no stages, in time coral and coralline take over, reject algae, and your gardening will stop. It lasts until the reef is matured, and vital space is taken up (how often do we see algae in the mouth of a brain coral polyp? It's on the skeleton where it's not excluded)
Of course one can get lucky by starving it and using cleanup crews but that's a bunch of happenstance on the web you can see...
What isn't happenstance is hundreds of pico reefs full of SPS and LPS and no algae in sight, solid, fed well, exported well, corals grown aggressively into place
These little reefs are doing something big tankers could stand to note, in my opinion. We'll keep posting the proof online. Any searchable thread called problem algae challenge thread has the pics before n after.
We're not against the old school ways of luck and patience and waiting
It's just we've found and documented a different way with no deviation from algae free coral production and that can either be harnessed or not. Merely adding a no algae reefing choice option.
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Big G
captain dunsel
Yep. Scrub with just enough pressure to remove most of the GHA.
40B Knasty
Valuable Member
Speaking from my experience, I also followed the recommendation of using a toothbrush. What ended up happening for me was spreading of the spores which caused more GHA seeding throughout my tank. This lead me to do further research since I was left with a bigger issue than what I had to begin with.
I recommend cleaning your sponges, change your filter floss or filter socks (whichever you use) a lot more. I would suggest 2-3 times a week. Get your nutrients export under control, lower your light time or do a 3 day blackout anytime you have an outbreak. Just make sure you are ready to syphon out the dead GHA after the 3 days. Leftover dead GHA will feed new algae to grow. It also may cause a mini cycle with ammonia from the die off. A thinner syphon hose will produce better suction to help pull the malnourished GHA off the live rock.
A great way to help with your nutrients export is to setup a cheato reactor or refugium. There is algae that can do well under low light and low nutrients. Get a decent cleanup crew. Not to big. You don't want them to die off from starvation as that will feed your GHA also. Find your balance.
I recommend cleaning your sponges, change your filter floss or filter socks (whichever you use) a lot more. I would suggest 2-3 times a week. Get your nutrients export under control, lower your light time or do a 3 day blackout anytime you have an outbreak. Just make sure you are ready to syphon out the dead GHA after the 3 days. Leftover dead GHA will feed new algae to grow. It also may cause a mini cycle with ammonia from the die off. A thinner syphon hose will produce better suction to help pull the malnourished GHA off the live rock.
A great way to help with your nutrients export is to setup a cheato reactor or refugium. There is algae that can do well under low light and low nutrients. Get a decent cleanup crew. Not to big. You don't want them to die off from starvation as that will feed your GHA also. Find your balance.
Fragmentation
Yep
That leads into how we kill it in our little tanks to stop that effect
Lift out rocks from the tank, most new setups can do this as they’re not locked into place
Set rocks on counter
Take steak knife and score algae out
Damage the surfaces a little, be a parrotfish biter in action (opposite of hesitation way better than toothbrush)
Stab, score, rinse off in sink using clean saltwater.
When the rocks are hawksbill-turtled clean, from the anchors which a brush would’ve left, put peroxide on the former anchor spots (anti fragmentation step, kill step, missing from above)
Wait three mins, rinse off put back. Gha cannot beat that. Repeat a couple times in guidance, keeping the tank and sandbed clean at this phase too. We fixed a google # of tanks this way
Post pics of this Gha challenge
The final trick, order of operations, is to only instate nutrient changes to a tank with a perfectly clean sandbed, and an algae free condition
Never let nutrient changes become the remover of algae make them be the preventer
And, only set your nutrients to what corals want, not what it takes to starve algae. Humans control that part, easily.
Don’t do what the masses do and instate nutrient changes to an invaded tank. Secretly they’re just avoiding work subconsciously
Algae problem= rasping work time to model what nature does, exactly. We make nutrient changes only to the non invaded tanks and use them solely as preventative...same as clean up crews. Our hands and peroxide make the tank algae free, but only for the 1% who are not playing around with the $, the vast majority aren’t that serious yet
Lose a few tanks, become serious
This is all totally opposite of what the books say to manage algae. No book authors run live time cure threads, it’s too much accountability for non compliant tanks which may be using their methods. Safer to write then sit back
Yep
That leads into how we kill it in our little tanks to stop that effect
Lift out rocks from the tank, most new setups can do this as they’re not locked into place
Set rocks on counter
Take steak knife and score algae out
Damage the surfaces a little, be a parrotfish biter in action (opposite of hesitation way better than toothbrush)
Stab, score, rinse off in sink using clean saltwater.
When the rocks are hawksbill-turtled clean, from the anchors which a brush would’ve left, put peroxide on the former anchor spots (anti fragmentation step, kill step, missing from above)
Wait three mins, rinse off put back. Gha cannot beat that. Repeat a couple times in guidance, keeping the tank and sandbed clean at this phase too. We fixed a google # of tanks this way
Post pics of this Gha challenge
The final trick, order of operations, is to only instate nutrient changes to a tank with a perfectly clean sandbed, and an algae free condition
Never let nutrient changes become the remover of algae make them be the preventer
And, only set your nutrients to what corals want, not what it takes to starve algae. Humans control that part, easily.
Don’t do what the masses do and instate nutrient changes to an invaded tank. Secretly they’re just avoiding work subconsciously
Algae problem= rasping work time to model what nature does, exactly. We make nutrient changes only to the non invaded tanks and use them solely as preventative...same as clean up crews. Our hands and peroxide make the tank algae free, but only for the 1% who are not playing around with the $, the vast majority aren’t that serious yet
Lose a few tanks, become serious
This is all totally opposite of what the books say to manage algae. No book authors run live time cure threads, it’s too much accountability for non compliant tanks which may be using their methods. Safer to write then sit back
Last edited:
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