GHA- Is there anything else I can do???

[krash7172]

I have learned that there are two situations that are VERY different. 1) there is some algae in your tank 2) the algae in your tank is consuming ammonia faster than your bacteria and that is serious! If you have the latter, then refugiums and algae scrubbers can actually make it worse Gha will dominate. Clean the tank and put as much media in your sump as possible.

 

[JasonK84]

Have you tried Vibrant? I’ve used it on my 120 fish only aquarium since it was started a year ago and any GHA turns white and dies. I dose weekly 12.5ml and it keeps things looking good.

Here is a thread discussion of the product. It talks about dosages for the type of issue you are facing.

Vibrant Liquid Aquarium Cleaner * Discussion Thread

Hello Everyone, We had been asked to come on this forum and answer a few questions about Vibrant for a few users here in different threads. We thought it would be a good idea to start a discussion thread about Vibrant, how it was created, what is it, how it works, etc. Then there will be a...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Sailfinguy21]

Kind of like the foxface rabbitfish I added in hopes of it grazing on the GHA. I had one in the past that did a good job, this one..doesn't touch any kind of algae except whatever is on the clip that I add. I reallyneed to trap him and move him along, he's not doing me any good.

Ya i have teo foxfaces.. one in a 50g tank one in my 135.. the 135 it eats algae.. in the 50g it doesnt touch it.. its also alot more timid too

 

[krash7172]

I haven't used but there a balance between bacteria growth and algae in our aquariums that we don't like to talk about...

 

[KJoFan]

I have tried Vibrant in a previous tank which ended up bottoming out my nutrients and then I ended up with cyano (although, let's be honest I have it currently too) and dinos. That makes me leery to try it again to for fear of opening the door to those issues, as well as harming the coral.

I realize I can dose NO3 and PO4 to combat the issue but that's just another task to keep up on and seems counter intuitive.

Those that have or are using Vibrant, have you experienced a crash in nutrients?

 

[LesPoissons]

Update

Alright after a super fun 7 hours of scrubbing, some knife-on-rock scraping, 3% peroxide spray and scrubbing and rinsing....this is where we are. (See pictures).

I'd say I got at least 90% of the GHA out of the tank. (For now).
Heres what I learned: (just for me personally) scraping live rock with a knife is 100x more difficult than youd think and its insanely time consuming. I did part of 1 rock. Sorry. Dental precision is not happening here. :/

Also, a day and a frozen food feeding later, those low phos and nitrate levels are still barely there, so I dont think gha was locking up any nutrients and making them untestable. I can retest in a week if anyone wants to see if that changes w longer than a day.

So. Now 90% GHA gone, some corals broken, some angry as he**, 1 missing, 1possibly dying, and 4 displaced and need remounted.

To try to limit gha regrowth:
1. Huge cuc- let's see if they can keep it in check
2. Adding Seachem Stability to the tank (bacteria blend) to boost bacteria since a lot of peroxide was used and to try to help mitigate gha return. (No one sells vibrant around here and wanted to start w something).
3. GFO reactor going back on for a while (sorry softies) to see if what little seems to be in there can get removed.

Question: do I need to feed the bacteria w carbon dosing (ex vodka) or will it be fine?

 

[LesPoissons]

Sorry, idk why they posted 2x. Gha is hard to see in pics so it looks like there was a lot less than their actually was. Lol. It was on almost every rock, some were almost totally covered, some just had a handful, but it was everywhere.

 

[jeffchapok]

Boiling RODI water applied with a turkey baster kills it dead dead dead, and your CUC will gobble it up straight away. Even things that normally ignore it, such as my clowns, will pull off chunks of it. It must be delicious -- I'm tempted to try it.

 

[KJoFan]

Sorry, idk why they posted 2x. Gha is hard to see in pics so it looks like there was a lot less than their actually was. Lol. It was on almost every rock, some were almost totally covered, some just had a handful, but it was everywhere.

I just spent time yesterday and today srubbing all my frags in my frag tank and applying peroxide. I have a lot of ticked off corals now, so we'll see. Even that was time consuming let alone scrubbing my rocks (again). Like you, I tried the knife scraping method...it was a no go. Far too much time spent and I didn't feel it did that much more good.

I also gave my snails haircuts that I could find. They all look like chia pets. I didn't get all the GHA pulled off the surfaces in the frag tank yet though. Unfortuantely, this is not the first time I've gone to this effort, only for it to come back.

I have plans to do a waterchange and do some cleaning and siphoning of at least some of the sand bed in the display today yet.

Kudos on putting in the effort, now if we could just find the answer to keeping it at bay permanently!

 

[LesPoissons]

Hey all, so just an update, 1 week since peroxide scrub. Blew off rocks, restarted gfo, added bottled bacteria etc. Gha is growing back but not as fast as it did before on the cleaned rocks, but its def making a comeback. Its now growing well in the fuge in the sump while my chaeto and red gracilaria is disappearing. I may remove my macros from sump and throw in display and do a black out down there and scrub it off and see if that helps. Or just scrap the refugium since clearly macros are not able to out compete the gha, or there just aren't enough viable nutrients for them and they cant survive on the little the gha can. Thoughts?
This is never ending. Thanks all.

 

[ZoWhat]

If you put a long-spined urchin in there today, the GHA will be gone by Tues

Absolutely... if your LRs are flat and square with no crevices or low-lying dips

Just sayin...

 

[LesPoissons]

I have 5 urchins. No long spine, but unfortunately theres no way a long spine is getting in, out and around the caves and crevices of 150+ #s of live rock (about 50+ pieces). Thanks though!

 

[LesPoissons]

Hey guys, so just another update. Despite h202 scrub, consistently blowing off rocks, doubling cuc, and adding bacteria, throwing in more macros, restarting gfo, etc, the gha is continuing to grow back steadily over the last 10 days despite all my efforts. Ordered vibrant to try.

 

[brandon429]

very good job on the disassembly cleaning + skip cycle work, not easy in large tanks.

In hindsight, this thread is the single best testimony on the planet to why the 'uglies phase' of reefing was one of the greatest mis-advices ever made for the hobby.


to allow gha to take over a set of rocks imparts torture to the owner, yet its practically page 1 reading material if you ask any reef sage in person, or read the books the read.


The reason this job was so stinky is because it was massive and all at once. it wasn't day one, first whisker.


What you just did was clear gound, make your rock less retentive, and have tufts of algae stop soaking in detritus for more on site self feeding.

By following the rule of purposeful invasion and then working back, it seems daunting. Rasping isn't about getting lucky one pass, GHA belongs on the reef. its as natural as corals.

obviously, it needs no bad param to take hold, it needs only permission.


if the sandbed isn't cleaned, that's still more gha food but what you did just helped your battle greatly. now, vibrant is being positioned as a growback preventer vs the mass remover, it has a great chance.




we advocate hand guiding, from the start, in full expectation of whats coming not that its bad. if we don't start with this method, but rather use it as follow up, then that's unideal clearly. but not applying it...you'd be much worse off.

your tank looks great

now grazers have a chance etc


The point of the method isn't a one off run, then getting right back to the original allowance mindset. its the total opposite.
we are always expecting it to grow
the price of a large tank is being busy, taking no risk of allowance

even after vibrant....one day, a regrowth.

earlier we had no permission to de farm at all, mini cycles were the risk and total destabilization.

we can see that's not the case, now that you have freedom to garden or not, you can choose how to use that ability.

 

[brandon429]

you did amazing documentation, really its amazing and helpful to any disassembly cleaner I'm linking it to the peroxide thread now.

 

[Lousybreed]

I understand what everyone is saying, but the problem is I dont have a nutrient issue. (Odd to say thats a problem, lol but it would be nice if it was, bc then at least I'd have something to fix!) My nitrates and phos are low and were at 0 levels for the last year. I even got new tests (seachem and salifert) to make sure the readings have been accurate. I do have 5 urchins, 2 pincushion, 2 tuxedo, and a short spine. I have not tried the long spine due to size and rock toppling situations and sting potential- but that could be an option.
As someone mentioned, i am trying to do everything right and cover all the bases (thank you for that!)... except I still have this algae issue. I appreciate all the feedback. From here I suppose I will maybe try other cuc (sea cucumber? Maybe long spine. More snails etc.) And just keep doing what I've been doing for a few more months. If something doesn't change, it may be the end, so I may try flucon again if nothing else to loose.

Add more tangs. Stop feeding your fish. Install a fuge, increase your circulation rate in your DT, replace your RO/DI filters. Run carbon 1 week a month.....keep adding tangs until it reaches the tipping point. That is you see a decrease in GHA. You do have a nutrient problem, hence why you have GHA. Get over that hump (took me a while to realize that when I started) and attack it with Tangs.

 

[Isaac Alves]

Tangs and Turbo Snails. Maybe even add more corals to suck up more nutrients.

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

I had similar issues until I installed a 600W horticulture light in my fuge. I do a reverse cycle with the DT, so the fuge light is on 12 hours per day, as is the DT lighting. My macro is growing like crazy in the fuge. Have to harvest it weekly. No nuisance algae in the DT anymore. Also 5 tangs in the DT.

 

[Hermie]

Removing the GHA is one issue, that takes the most physical effort, but it's not the long term solution. The long term solution is drastically improving your nutrient export system. Whichever way you do it... Such as huge upgrade on fuge light, carbon dosing/bacteria, etc. It seems like the hardest part is the part that you've already nailed (removing the algae), but the true hard part is figuring out how to get the nutrients exported better.

 

[ReefPiracy]

What area do you live in and what is TDS of water, how do you store your RO/ Top off water? What is your lights? Some times white/red will cause algae but I always run 5 hours of decent white light. Only do 3 days of black out lights. I like sailfins tangs and rabbits for algae fish eaters. Snails don't do a thing I wouldn't waste my money, crabs are best but they just tick off the coral. That is really not bad algae. I would just let it grow and rip it out if covers coral. I just run a skimmer(I run it less hours if N/P is too low 10-20N & 0.1P is plenty fine even a little higher. I use to run fuges/skim/gfo and found it just way too much for a system nutrients. I have horrible algae for weeks on a new system(6" long on every rock) and I always just let algae do it things. 3 weeks later it was gone like it was never around. I didnt do anything different. I find trying to dose things in the tank like h202 just kills all the pods/small natural breeding creatures/baby stars and causes issues. I always do bare bottom(wrasse sleep in the rocks), sand beds always caused me issues nutrients, clumped up and I hated cleaning it. I find you have to do a deeper sand bed(4") and never touch it. Or do a shallow which you clean. I just suck out detritus and do a water change with bare bottom. I will use a small pump with 1/2 nipple fitting and just blast the corals/rocks when I get around too it. I turn the powerheads up(ecotech with a mesh filter) and try to get all that to filter sock. No matter how much flow you have your gonna have dead spots. I love how all the coral opens up after you just blast them with a pump and all the dust is gone ;Joyful I mean most corals will go into feeding response when you stir up the detritus I've noticed so I figure its best to get it all stirred up. Kind of like a big storm in the ocean. Sorry I kinda like to rant and rave not sure where I was headed Hope the vibrant works! I like to keep it simple and get the basics down when things go south.