GHA Outbreak!!

Reaper603 · Mar 13, 2020

Hello everyone hopefully I can get some insight. I have been battling a GHA bloom for a while and I'm at wits end with it. I have been currently dosing 6MLS of nopox per day manually into my sump to bring down nitrates and phosphates to starve it out but appears to be getting worse. I have adjusted my lighting to having a 7 hour photo period at 100% blues and 18% whites with 1.5 hour ramp up and down and 6 hours at blues for 5% no red or greens at all. My parameters are as follows:
Salinity: 1.025
Temperature: 78 degrees Fahrenheit
Nitrates: 20 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Ammonia: 0
Calcium: 550 ppm
Phospates: .50 ppm
Kh: 161 ppm
The tank has been running over a year it's a red sea reefer 250. I dont know if dosing more nopox will help but again that's why I'm here any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cwentz758 · Mar 13, 2020

Black out the tank for 4-5 days. Then manually pick off as much as you can.
I don’t like to dose but I’ve heard vibrant works well over time.

PSU4ME · Mar 13, 2020

What kind of rock is in the tank?

Johniejumbo · Mar 13, 2020

I’ve no easy advice but I do have advice. I have gotten quite good at removing rocks and scrubbing hair algae off during a water change. Get a plastic bristle scrubber and every week change a little water then remove 2-3 rocks and scrub the hair algae off. Repeat every week. It’s not really very hard but you should be careful of your livestock make sure rocks remain stabile. I did that. Plus I added an urchin and started using a bacteria additive to try to compete with the algae. Not sure if the bac is necessary but I though it made sense. I have had great success with this.

Reaper603 · Mar 13, 2020

The rock is aquamaxx Fiji aquascape rock.

Hemmdog · Mar 13, 2020

Vibrant works well. Gfo works well to bring down phosphate. Are you running a skimmer, fuge, ATS, anything like that?

Reaper603 · Mar 13, 2020

I have a skimmer it's a bubble magus curve 5 I had a fuge before with chaeto but it started to die off when my tank was new so I tossed it I was running seachem phosguard to keep phosphates down and I was running chemi pure blue normally but tossed them to start nopox treatment.

chris k. · Mar 13, 2020

Do you have a cuc?

Miamidchi · Mar 13, 2020

I'd seriously checkout BRS youtube on getting rid of it. They have a solid approach that will handle nearly all situations, and help you prevent as well.

Reaper603 · Mar 13, 2020

Had 2 emerald crabs one died this week I have a aiptasia eating filefish that nips at it and a yellow tang that grazes on it every now and again I didnt know if I should go with more livestock to bring it down like a lawn mower blenny or some turbo snails I figured carbon dosing would work but it's been 2 weeks and it appears to just continue to grow I'm looking into replacing my lighting in a couple of months too because I dont think I'm getting enough par.

Cwentz758 · Mar 13, 2020

What lights are you using? 100% is very bright for most fixtures most people run less than 50% I feel like.
I still say blackout for a few days then manually pick off what you can, it’s the quickest way to get most of it then the rest will come with figuring out what the initial cause is. Here’s my tank now and last year when this happened I blacked it and just did normal water changes and it’s now this.

Cwentz758 · Mar 13, 2020

Why are videos such a pain on here

chris k. · Mar 13, 2020

Crabs and manual removal, all you need. Just run your water change hose to your filter sock and start brushing the gha. When you are done change out the filter sock. Might have to do this a couple times a week until your cuc can keep up with the growth.

Reaper603 · Mar 13, 2020

I am using the current usa marine pro ic infrared it's the dual light bar and they are the 36"-48" set and I have them on the tank rim not in brackets but I read on currents website at 18" down it only hits 75-100 par at full spectrum which I am using only 100% blues and 18% whites and nothing else I figured I would have less par because I'm not using all the color spectrums to 100% i did the blackout on the tank before when i had a gha bloom before for a month and it came back my hammer coral has receded all the way because of it and I have a reverse bleeding apple scoly now that is losing color probably from the nopox but I dont want to go lights out to have it get worse.

Reaper603 · Mar 13, 2020

Should I try to use gfo and keep using nopox dosing to slow it down until I can get more emerald crabs and snails?

artieg1 · Mar 14, 2020

In my experience, GHA at your stage (1 year) is not a sign of a problem. It happens. I found that increasing flow and manually removing (1 or 2x per week) did a lot. Also, you can use fluconazole; had to use twice, but that (with manual removal) took care of it for me. I advise against Nopox; I used that and things went wacky. It is a varsity level reef intervention. Vibrant was useless to me.

Reaper603 · Mar 14, 2020

Right on I'm going to start backing off the nopox now over the course of a month or more I got some GFO today from the LFS so i'm going to bag some and throw it in the sump I also got a lawnmower blenny and a blue tuxedo urchin so we will give that a shot and see if it help with the algae I just want it gone tired of looking at it in my tank that's costed thousands also doing a 15% water change tomorrow so I will try to manually remove what I can I tried to use a toothbrush last week at the last water change but the stuff didn't budge hoping the cuc I got today will help only time can tell.