UPDATE: it's been a little over 6 months sense I ran my first fluco treatment, I never had bryopsis I only had a horrific GHA issue. I was about to put a lot of work into my system and needed it gone then. Here are some before pictures.
As you can see I had it pretty bad, it seemed no matter what I did, no matter how many water changes, rock scrubbing, or things I added to the tank did anything to fight it back. I dosed my 125 gallon with a 30 gallon sump with 20 capsules from Payless pet product. 200mg each I believe. After 21 days my tank looked like this.
Now the pictures make it look amazing but the gha was still present. The fluco had taken out a solid 85% but there was still some in the lower light areas. I had done a pretty large upgrade to my sump right before these pictures were taken and was hoping that plus carbon dosing would handle the rest. I was wrong.
My Gha stayed minimal for the first couple weeks but about 3 weeks in it all started creeping in again. I decided to try fluco again before it started getting too out of control and ran another 20 capsules through the system. This time i got the same out come. About 85% gha destroyed but still that lingering bit in the low light areas which I had even made sure to adjust lights through the treatment to hit those areas harder. But just like the last time a couple of weeks went by and it started creeping up again. Now I know what you're thinking by now this guys nutrients must be out of control for this to keep happening but through almost this whole time my nitrates never went about 5ppm and phosphate at .16. I started carbon dosing after the first treatment with vodka and had been keeping up on that through the whole process. It seemed to be working for nutrients but all the gha needed was the light. I had finally had it with the GHA and was thinking about tearing my tank down hitting the rocks with acid and re curing them in darkness but I figured I would give the fluco one last shot.
This time I wasn't messing around I increased carbon dosing until nitrate was at near 0, increased my light times and intensity, I left my skimmer cup off for the full two weeks, did a 60% water change and increased the dose to 30 capsules. I'm happy to say this was the death blow to the gha. After 18 days I was 100% gha free. I did another 60% water change started running lots of carbon, Gfo, and continued carbon dosing. It's been a couple of months now and this is my tank today:
Still 100% gha free.
Things iv learned through this process:
-Sea hares do not do well with fluco I lost two going through treatments that were other wise fine before.
- Light definitely plays a large roll in how the treatment works.
- Mushrooms also do not like fluco, didn't lose any but they suffered.
- you need to drop your nutrients as low as possible before the treatment to account for the massive die off that will take place in your tank.
- water change after needs to be much larger again to account for the mass die off happening in the tank. You need to get your water back to absolute perfect as quickly as possible after treatment or you are leaving the tank with perfect conditions to bring the gha back.
- skimmer should not be ran at all for the first couple days and then only with out cup after day 3.
I think a lot of people are hoping it's just a cure all and it is but if you don't solve the root cause of the issue before treatment and then remove the new root cause (i.e. The die off that happened in your tank during treatment) it will just keep returning. Just my two cents though! Happy reefing!
