Not giving up..but what then?

[Dbichler]

Looks like you may be waiting too long to harvest some of your macros and they may be releasing nutrients back into the system.

 

[KonradTO]

In that case, a lawnmower Blenny should come first... Watch that sucker clear the Entire tank of gha in a few weeks..

I have been reading tons of threads from reef2reef and seems that people have success with lawnmower blennies, urchins, sea hares, mexican turbos, emeralds and hermits. At the same time you will find many having each of these ones NOT eating GHA. I suppose there are different types of GHA and probably some of them are not very good to eat. So far I tried mexican turbos (died) and lettuce slug (died). They ate some but not enough to make a difference. Before spending more $$ and risking more critters' life I need to make sure that I do not have other issues.

 

[rmorris_14]

About your GHA control- you are going to get lots of opinions that are different. Some may work for some people and it doesn't work for others. I've been dealing with it for months now as well.

here is the short version of my journey
While working on getting my parameters under control, I:
-Dosed vibrant for 12 plus weeks (only worked marginally, and wouldn't recommend since the product it fake magic sauce made by a company that lied about the actual ingredients.)
-Purchased lawnmower blenny. He only at film algae and frozen foods and ticked off my watchman. (just re-homed this past weekend) some people swear by them. I have been told the success rate it 50/50. In my experience he didn't help.
-Manually scrubbing (comes back within a week)
-Removed one rock per week. scrubbed off algae really good with steel brush then sprayed with H202 (you can also paint on to be careful around corals). Let it sit out for 5 minutes (3 is probably better) rinsed with old water change water and put back. Repeat the next week with a different rock. This has been the most effective treatment I have tried so far. Algae has not come back on any treated rock (its only been a few weeks, but I will take it!).
-I have also upped my CUC to help keep it at bay. I think most snails and such don't prefer the LONG algae. So if you can get it back down to a manageable length, they can keep up better.

H202 is inexpensive so it wont break your bank. Hopefully some of this info I shared is useful to you.

 

[KonradTO]

Looks like you may be waiting too long to harvest some of your macros and they may be releasing nutrients back into the system.

That's a good point.. hard to tell how much is enough.

 

[KonradTO]

About your GHA control- you are going to get lots of opinions that are different. Some may work for some people and it doesn't work for others. I've been dealing with it for months now as well.

here is the short version of my journey
While working on getting my parameters under control, I:
-Dosed vibrant for 12 plus weeks (only worked marginally, and wouldn't recommend since the product it fake magic sauce made by a company that lied about the actual ingredients.)
-Purchased lawnmower blenny. He only at film algae and frozen foods and ticked off my watchman. (just re-homed this past weekend) some people swear by them. I have been told the success rate it 50/50. In my experience he didn't help.
-Manually scrubbing (comes back within a week)
-Removed one rock per week. scrubbed off algae really good with steel brush then sprayed with H202 (you can also paint on to be careful around corals). Let it sit out for 5 minutes (3 is probably better) rinsed with old water change water and put back. Repeat the next week with a different rock. This has been the most effective treatment I have tried so far. Algae has not come back on any treated rock (its only been a few weeks, but I will take it!).
-I have also upped my CUC to help keep it at bay. I think most snails and such don't prefer the LONG algae. So if you can get it back down to a manageable length, they can keep up better.

H202 is inexpensive so it wont break your bank. Hopefully some of this info I shared is useful to you.

Thanks for sharing your experience. "Fortunately" I have no frags left aside from the ricordea, which is on a pebble and the lepta, so I could try H202. Unfortunately my main rock work cannot be detached from the other rocks unless I want to destroy my scape. I can try with the other small rocks though and see how it goes. To be honest I don't even mind brushing every week, the main issue is why I get GHA, and the fact that it grows over corals. I see so many nice tanks on the forum and I would like to have at least few frags growing. I even considered giving up and get some Xenia.. at least that should survive.

 

[Dbichler]

If your main issue is that your getting gha then cut back on your light time and find out where your phosphates are in your rodi water and stop feeding so much if there’s none in your rodi.

 

[KonradTO]

Question to everyone: what would be, in order, the first few things you would do right now to fix such problems?
I was thinking to:
1) Clean all GHA manually and black out one more time
2) At the same time measure all the params with my test kits and then send some samples for ICP testing. In this way I will know if some tools/tests are not reliable.
3) take some macros out, blackout them in a container (in order to clean from GHA) and then slowly put them back.

Once I do this I can tell whether I need more CUC, a skimmer, more/less light (?), or maybe add some LR for increasing diversity.

Does it sound good?

 

[rmorris_14]

Thanks for sharing your experience. "Fortunately" I have no frags left aside from the ricordea, which is on a pebble and the lepta, so I could try H202. Unfortunately my main rock work cannot be detached from the other rocks unless I want to destroy my scape. I can try with the other small rocks though and see how it goes. To be honest I don't even mind brushing every week, the main issue is why I get GHA, and the fact that it grows over corals. I see so many nice tanks on the forum and I would like to have at least few frags growing. I even considered giving up and get some Xenia.. at least that should survive.

It can take a while to get it to stop growing. If I had to guess your phosphates "near zero" reading is not accurate because your GHA is absorbing the phosphates and giving you a false low reading. Phosphates can be absorbed by your rock and your sand and then slowly leach back into the system feeding the algae. In my opinion, this is why there is no easy quick fix, if you have been battling for some time. You have to stay on top of it for awhile before you start to see a difference. I really have very little experience though. Most of what I have learned is just reading thread after thread and then my personal experience. So take what I say with a grain of salt. I really hope you get to the bottom of it. You are on the right path, trying to get to the root of the issues.

Sorry if you have already said but
Are you doing water changes?
Are you using RODI water?

 

[KonradTO]

If your main issue is that your getting gha then cut back on your light time and find out where your phosphates are in your rodi water and stop feeding so much if there’s none in your rodi.

How much would you cut? 50%? For testing PHOS at rodi concentrations I probably would need a precise test like the Hanna checker. I was thinking to see how much I have from the ICP testing, and if I have a phosphate problem then I can test with the ICP my rodi as well.

 

[KonradTO]

Sorry if you have already said but
Are you doing water changes?
Are you using RODI water?

Sorry forgot to mention. Yes I have a RODI system, never tested with TDS meter though. Also yes I used to do 1.5% for each day with an automatic WC system and now I am back at weekly 10% until I fix the automatic WC.

 

[KonradTO]

Also, I forgot to mention that at the moment the fuge/sump goes with the same times as the DT, because I have problems with light spill. I will try to cover properly the sump and run the fuge lights on night only.

 

[SlugSnorter]

I have been reading tons of threads from reef2reef and seems that people have success with lawnmower blennies, urchins, sea hares, mexican turbos, emeralds and hermits. At the same time you will find many having each of these ones NOT eating GHA. I suppose there are different types of GHA and probably some of them are not very good to eat. So far I tried mexican turbos (died) and lettuce slug (died). They ate some but not enough to make a difference. Before spending more $$ and risking more critters' life I need to make sure that I do not have other issues.

Lettuces don't necessarily eat GHA

 

[KonradTO]

Lettuces don't necessarily eat GHA

Mine did but after 1 week disappeared despite I masked the intakes and the wavemaker.

 

[KonradTO]

Ok I have a short update on this. I removed manually most of the GHA again. I scrubbed rocks and cleaned everything as much as possible. Also I bought an Hanna checker URL and I get 0.00 phosphates. How can it be that I get 0.00 PO4 if GHA is growing and my macros are alive? I will doublecheck the Hanna checker with some reference solution in case it is broken or something and keep monitoring the nutrient levels for few weeks while I wait for the ICP test results.

 

[elysics]

Ok I have a short update on this. I removed manually most of the GHA again. I scrubbed rocks and cleaned everything as much as possible. Also I bought an Hanna checker URL and I get 0.00 phosphates. How can it be that I get 0.00 PO4 if GHA is growing and my macros are alive? I will doublecheck the Hanna checker with some reference solution in case it is broken or something and keep monitoring the nutrient levels for few weeks while I wait for the ICP test results.

It can be 0.00 precisely because GHA is growing.

Any PO4 pooped out by critters or bacteria is immediately assimilated into algae instead of staying in the water. The solution is to have a CUC that kills the algae and poops it out faster than the algae can regrow.

Or increase your PO4 input, but that would increase GHA growth until something else is limiting and the work you have to do instead of the CUC as well...

 

[KonradTO]

It can be 0.00 precisely because GHA is growing.

Any PO4 pooped out by critters or bacteria is immediately assimilated into algae instead of staying in the water. The solution is to have a CUC that kills the algae and poops it out faster than the algae can regrow.

Or increase your PO4 input, but that would increase GHA growth until something else is limiting and the work you have to do instead of the CUC as well...

My sensation is that those beautiful tanks with countless corals are actually like that because corals absorb stuff before algae.
In my tank I have 2 fragments so they cannot compete. The problem is that unless I see growth in those frags I cannot risk it

 

[SlugSnorter]

My sensation is that those beautiful tanks with countless corals are actually like that because corals absorb stuff before algae.
In my tank I have 2 fragments so they cannot compete. The problem is that unless I see growth in those frags I cannot risk it

Its because they are mature. all the rocks have corraline, a large healthy cuc, an expansive diverse microbiome, and other algae.

 

[KonradTO]

Also I recently inverted the sump/fuge light cycle compared to the dt. Before they were running simultaneously. Let's see if it gets better

 

[KonradTO]

Its because they are mature. all the rocks have corraline, a large healthy cuc, an expansive diverse microbiome, and other algae.

Yep but I guess they started somehow. Does everyone gets months and months of GHA and nearly every frag dead for the first year then? I surely am doing something wrong.

 

[SlugSnorter]

Yep but I guess they started somehow. Does everyone gets months and months of GHA and nearly every frag dead for the first year then? I surely am doing something wrong.

liverock can help. Start slow with easier corals, take chemical measures to destroy GHA if it lasts a long time.