Another GHA thread - need advice!

[hllb]

My tank is about 6 months old now. Initially, I had some very minor hair algae, but it wasn't a big deal. I had some almost invasive red macroalgae too. My water parameters were always good (they never read high) with Nitrates around 2 to 3 and po4 around .05. I do water changes of around 15% once a week in my 32g biocube. At the beginning of November, I upgraded to Nanobox reef lights (keep them on from 1:30 to 11, with whites on from 3:00 to 8:30). Then I took a vacation for about 2 weeks around Thanksgiving. My husband fed the tank. With 4 fish, I feed once a day about 1/4 to 1/3 of a cube of frozen. My husband fed that, plus some pellets each day (I sometimes double feed them too, depending on how far apart I can space the feedings based on my schedule). I came back to a huge cyano outbreak.

I did a water change then treated with chemiclean. The cyano was gone within a couple of days, and that's when I discovered tons of hair algae was under the cyano. At this point, my nutrients were closer to nitrates 5, po4 still .05. I thought I could get it under control with water changes and lighter feeding. I couldn't. It grew. A lot.

Since the maintenance wasn't working, and the GHA was starting to affect my corals, I decided to try Reef Flux. My tank is a 32g, with a water volume of maybe around 26 or 27 gallons. Initially, I dosed 4 capsules of Reef Flux. I turned the skimmer off, took out the Purigen and Carbon. Here's the schedule below.

January 18: Dosed 4 capsules Reef Flux
January 21: Nutrient spike: Nitrate 25!, Po4: .25
January 23: Added phosguard, replaced carbon (oops, made a mistake here)
January 25: Po4 .19, realized my mistake removed carbon (left phosguard in place)
January 25: Dosed 3 capsules reef flux
January 27: Po4 .16
January 28: Po4 .14, Nitrate 25
January 30: Po4 .13, Nitrate 25
February 1: Dosed 3 capsules reef flux
February 4: Po4 .14, nitrate 25
February 6: nitrate 25

So here I am, either 2 or 3 weeks into treatment with Reef Flux (depending on if you could my initial dose that I probably accidentally removed with carbon). My GHA is still out of control. It's spread during this treatment too.

So now, I need other suggestions. I think I'm going to do some WCs this weekend (I only do them 5 gallons at a time so I'll likely do them 3 days in a row to replace 15 g). And I don't know where to go from there. What else can I try? I've tried CUC (urchin, turbo snails, emerald crab, etc) and none of them touched it. I've tried removing manually, but even in a small tank, this is s never ending battle. I have not tried a sea hare, though considered it. I have ordered a set up to do a small fuge in chamber 2, but haven't started that yet due to the reef flux. I figured once I got rid of the GHA, I would use that to keep it at bay.

What can I do to get rid of this stuff? Other things I've considered:

Peroxide dosing (I ordered some that will be here next week - 35% food grade)
Vibrant (I'd prefer something quicker to get this under control initially.
???

 

[ScottR]

I’d just go vibrant to be honest. It may take time but everything does. Nothing happens overnight. Vibrant has worked for me. I’m on week 4 and seeing a little less but fortunately it hasn’t continued to grow.

 

[Rosie]

I feel your GHA pain! I managed to win the war with it by taking out all my rock work and scrubbing each one with a toothbrush in a bucket of tank water. It was messy and I was lucky enough that I hadn't glued many of my corals to the rocks, so they stayed in the tank. I then upgraded my cleaning crew (as it wasn't the best) and started running Vibrant slowly and ramped it up over time. I had never seen my tank so clean after that!

 

[Sticker shock]

6 months is still pretty young for a tank. What is your source water? And what do you have for a clean up crew. Any chance your are running a refugium? Are you skimming dry or wet?

My tank at about 5 months had a bout of hair algae, bryopsis, and some type of macro that I didn't identify. I switched to RO/DI, bumped up my cleaning crew, fed much less since I had to go fallow (ich), skimmed my tank a little more aggressively, and manually brushed out patches of algae that I could reach. Pretty much all algae has cleared up in a month or two since these changes. There are still a few patches but I think my clean up crew appreciates having a little something to snack on.

I'm not against jumping to a chemical treatment, but I like to make sure it is necessary before doing it. I even went as far as to order the Reef Flux in case I wasn't able to make progress. The only chemical intervention I made was to do a couple peroxide dips on a few frags that were being irritated by the algae.

 

[hllb]

6 months is still pretty young for a tank. What is your source water? And what do you have for a clean up crew. Any chance your are running a refugium? Are you skimming dry or wet?

My tank at about 5 months had a bout of hair algae, bryopsis, and some type of macro that I didn't identify. I switched to RO/DI, bumped up my cleaning crew, fed much less since I had to go fallow (ich), skimmed my tank a little more aggressively, and manually brushed out patches of algae that I could reach. Pretty much all algae has cleared up in a month or two since these changes. There are still a few patches but I think my clean up crew appreciates having a little something to snack on.

I'm not against jumping to a chemical treatment, but I like to make sure it is necessary before doing it. I even went as far as to order the Reef Flux in case I wasn't able to make progress. The only chemical intervention I made was to do a couple peroxide dips on a few frags that were being irritated by the algae.

I use RODI water at 0 TDS and always have. I have a decent clean up crew but they don't touch the GHA (urchin, emerald crab, lots of hermits, lots of snails, mainly nerites and dward ceriths as turbos and trochus didn't last in my tank). I got a new skimmer right before dosing with reef flux so it wasn't completely broken in. Its pretty wet skimmate, though I may be able to improve that. I have the stuff to start a refugium, but can't until I remove the reef flux from the system.

 

[hllb]

Here are recent pictures:

 

[Sticker shock]

I use RODI water at 0 TDS and always have. I have a decent clean up crew but they don't touch the GHA (urchin, emerald crab, lots of hermits, lots of snails, mainly nerites and dward ceriths as turbos and trochus didn't last in my tank). I got a new skimmer right before dosing with reef flux so it wasn't completely broken in. Its pretty wet skimmate, though I may be able to improve that. I have the stuff to start a refugium, but can't until I remove the reef flux from the system.

I think your skimmer, refugium and some manual brushing will resolve the issue in short order. I'm pretty sure reef flux will not prevent the hair algae from coming back, but it should allow you to get ahead of it. Then your CUC will be able to take care of any new growth.

 

[hllb]

I think your skimmer, refugium and some manual brushing will resolve the issue in short order. I'm pretty sure reef flux will not prevent the hair algae from coming back, but it should allow you to get ahead of it. Then your CUC will be able to take care of any new growth.

skimming and manually removing has done nothing so far, and the reef flux hasn't made any difference at all. The stuff is starting to choke out some of my corals so I need to do something now, and then work on ongoing maintenance later. The CUC didn't touch it, even when it was smaller. Apparently they're picky....

 

[Sticker shock]

A tooth brush will take it right out. Turn off your pumps and get a hose to clean out any that algae left floating around after brushing (most will stick right to the brush so have a seperate cup to clean the brush in). Then add back in fresh water. It's a pain, but it will work.

I don't have any first hand experience with reef flux, so I can't say much as to how long it should take to work. Good luck with whatever method you go with.

Just curious...what lights are you running?

 

[jisc]

I have a 32 biocube w Steve’s LEDs. Fighting some GHA myself. Vibrant is working (week 4). Lowered white lights. Stopping water changes and only dosing what needed helps imo. Pretty sure my outbreak was due to playing with lights and increasing percentage plus dosing aminos too often. Need to add some more clean up crew as well.

 

[hllb]

A tooth brush will take it right out. Turn off your pumps and get a hose to clean out any that algae left floating around after brushing (most will stick right to the brush so have a seperate cup to clean the brush in). Then add back in fresh water. It's a pain, but it will work.

I don't have any first hand experience with reef flux, so I can't say much as to how long it should take to work. Good luck with whatever method you go with.

I've scrubbed the rocks with a toothbrush. I don't take them out because my fish live in the rocks (nearly killed two of them when I pulled rocks out to catch a rogue crab....). It removes some of it, but not enough to make a distinguishable difference.

 

[jeffchapok]

Turn off all circulation and hit it with some boiling RODI water from a turkey baster. It will turn bright green and begin to die off. Pull out as much as you can by hand. And your CUC will absolutely destroy whatever remains. My clowns even get in on the act.

Over time I've beaten mine back to the point where my CUC can keep it under control, and I even supplement them with nori now. But it took me about 6 months to get to this point (tank is just over 1 year old), so be patient.

 

[hllb]

Went to my LFS on Saturday and talked with my guy about this. He confirmed that I've done everything "right" and sometimes there's no reason for it that you'll ever find. I've ordered the peroxide, but before I use that, I picked up a sea hare they had. That's the one clean up crew I hadn't tried yet. If that doesn't work, I'll probably do some peroxide treatments and maybe vibrant.

 

[SDK]

Scrubbing with a toothbrush will be much more effective with the peroxide you ordered. Will turn GHA into green soup in literally seconds.

In case you or others following this are not aware, 35% H202 can be extremely dangerous to work with if you are not careful.

It can burn exposed skin quickly, and an errant splash can permanently blind you. Have good skin and eye protection, and keep it far out of reach of children or pets...

 

[hllb]

Scrubbing with a toothbrush will be much more effective with the peroxide you ordered. Will turn GHA into green soup in literally seconds.

In case you or others following this are not aware, 35% H202 can be extremely dangerous to work with if you are not careful.

It can burn exposed skin quickly, and an errant splash can permanently blind you. Have good skin and eye protection, and keep it far out of reach of children or pets...

I do have a toothbrush I use to scrub the stuff off. Never used the peroxide, so appreciate the safety tips. I had planned on wearing gloves and eye gear. I'll have to banish the little kid. I'm still hoping it won't be necessary for most of it. I do expect one rock will need the help, as I don't know the sea hare could get it clean. It's a coral skeleton and super hard to get clean.

 

[Knightwolf1.025]

We have a 40 gal and at 6 months our tank was just as overgrown with GHA. We started to use a good skimmer and GFO along with scrubbing the rocks and it has seemed to solve our issue with it. We continue to dose vibrant at half the recommended amount as a preventive every 2 weeks. It is a tough battle to get rid of GHA in a young tank, just keep at it and it will go away.

 

[hllb]

We have a 40 gal and at 6 months our tank was just as overgrown with GHA. We started to use a good skimmer and GFO along with scrubbing the rocks and it has seemed to solve our issue with it. We continue to dose vibrant at half the recommended amount as a preventive every 2 weeks. It is a tough battle to get rid of GHA in a young tank, just keep at it and it will go away.

Yes, I've tried the conservative route, and normally I'd be OK with that, but it's choking out a couple of my corals now - or at least really bothering them. So I need to do something quicker to get some of it knocked back. I do have a decent skimmer (it's hard to get one that'll work in my tank) and run phosguard, carbon, and purigen. I might start adding some GFO with my carbon, but this problem developed when my nitrates were never above 2 and phosphate never above .05.

 

[sde1500]

Manual removal with a toothbrush, or just reaching in and pulling out as much as you can will help. No CUC will eat long GHA, its just too much for them. You have to remove it yourself. I've used Flucanazole a few times, never the marked up branded stuff, and it takes a couple rounds of doses to fight off GHA, not just one. Best course of action on a new tank is continual removal by hand, IMO. Dosing is just a temporary fix, and if what caused it isn't corrected, it will come back.

 

[jeffchapok]

Be careful using peroxide if you have any anemones in your tank. I used it once and a condylactis went nuclear and killed a bunch of stuff in my tank. What didn't die took weeks to recover.

 

[hllb]

Be careful using peroxide if you have any anemones in your tank. I used it once and a condylactis went nuclear and killed a bunch of stuff in my tank. What didn't die took weeks to recover.

No nems in the tank. I do currently have a sea hare, but wouldn't use it until that guy goes back to the LFS. Other than that, just hearty corals, fish, crabs, snails, and a feather duster.