Gha has taken over

[Llorgon]

Ok. So I have a crazy bad gha problem. I had dinos before and to fight them I went with the outcompete them with other algea method. Problem is dinos have been gone for a few months, but the gha has taken over... Badly.

Now, I know the issue is high nutrients. I was dosing them to fight the dinos and it worked great. I have been using rowaphos and water changes to lower phosphates. They are now at 0.040ppm. still hight, but better than it was.

I have been scrubbing rocks, manually removing it, but I'm not getting ahead. Manually removing works some places, but others I can pull out an entire rock from grabbing the algae.

I have tried yellow tang to eat it, urchin and sea hare. Sea hare has been in for 3 weeks and hasn't made any visible dent.

Not sure what else to try or is it just a wait it out? I'm having good coral growth so I guess there's that.

Here is what I am dealing with.

 

[ThatFishGuy]

Try and pick out as much as possible by hand everyday and stay on top of it. There is also a method that I learned to help deal with GHA from this forum and it uses boiling hot RODI water.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cooked-veggies-maybe-the-answer.546612/

 

[DoctaReef]

What else are you running on your system? Skimmer? Refugium?

 

[theMeat]

Do a 72 hour black out. Tape trash bags onto glass to block out all light. When complete do a big water change.
It won’t kill all the Gha but will kick it down nicely

 

[Llorgon]

Try and pick out as much as possible by hand everyday and stay on top of it. There is also a method that I learned to help deal with GHA from this forum and it uses boiling hot RODI water.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cooked-veggies-maybe-the-answer.546612/

Interesting. Never thought to try boiled water. I will have to give that a try.

What else are you running on your system? Skimmer? Refugium?

I have a skimmer and refugium in the sump. Refugium has tons of gha in it as well. I have some chaeto, but the ball seems to be getting smaller and has lots of gha in it.

Do a 72 hour black out. Tape trash bags onto glass to block out all light. When complete do a big water change.
It won’t kill all the Gha but will kick it down nicely

I'm a little warry of blackouts. I did that when I first had dinos and I guess my corals were too stressed and I lost a bunch of them.

 

[Phil D.]

I had a bad outbreak of GHA, Cyano AND Dinos all at once due to my six line dying somewhere in the rocks. Syphoned out as much as I could and started dosing Dr. Tim's Re-fresh every other day and now after 2 weeks its ALL GONE!! My suggestion.

 

[Llorgon]

Update:

Tank still isn't looking great, but maybe a little better. I have been working on pulling out as much gha as I can each night. Still lots of places where it has a very strong hold on the rocks.

I have been using rowaphos to lower the phosphates. Got them down to around 0.02. trying to lower it slowly.

I tried the boiling water and it works... But! It's slow. It does do a good job killing the algae, but only in a small area. It does seem to weaken the algae around it though so it's easier to pull off. I have been doing about a half cup of boiling water a night.

I have been reading up on using peroxide as a way to kill the gha. Anyone have any experience with that? I could remove my rocks a few at a time and dip them in a 10gal with a peroxide and water mixture. But I don't want to kill everything on the rocks.

 

[Ling_Thing]

Api algaefix saved my mixed reef reef, was about to tear it down this was last resort unbelievable results fast.

 

[jeffchapok]

I have been reading up on using peroxide as a way to kill the gha. Anyone have any experience with that? I could remove my rocks a few at a time and dip them in a 10gal with a peroxide and water mixture. But I don't want to kill everything on the rocks.

I've used peroxide successfully a couple of times. But the last time I did it, I had some new nems in the tank. I think one of them, probably the condylactis, reacted badly and released toxins into my tank and killed a number of my corals.

I won't risk using it in the tank again. But I will still remove rocks and use it on them, being careful to rinse them thoroughly before returning them to the tank. I only do one or two at a time to avoid risking a cycle due to killing too much bacteria at one time.

 

[Hemmdog]

Are your lights always that white? That doesn’t help.

 

[Llorgon]

I've used peroxide successfully a couple of times. But the last time I did it, I had some new nems in the tank. I think one of them, probably the condylactis, reacted badly and released toxins into my tank and killed a number of my corals.

I won't risk using it in the tank again. But I will still remove rocks and use it on them, being careful to rinse them thoroughly before returning them to the tank. I only do one or two at a time to avoid risking a cycle due to killing too much bacteria at one time.

Good to know. I don't have any nems. Just a few various frags and a big frogspawn. Good thing to take into consideration though.

Are your lights always that white? That doesn’t help.

No. I turned off the blue lights to take the picture. Comes out better without the blue lights on with my phone camera. I have an reef LEDs set to 20% white and 60% blue.