GHA woes, help! Blue lights and algae scrubber to reduce algae?

[LesPoissons]

Hi all,
Ive been battling GHA for MONTHS. It all stared when I drastically overfed fish and corals for a couple weeks, the cycle kicked off and it was out of control before I knew it. Its a 220g tank so once I fixed my feeding, I did the usual- tried to go to super low feeding, limited light schedule, extra water changes, manual removal, increased clean up crew etc. When none of that worked, I also started blowing off the rocks, tried that one capsule medication idea people recommend for gha, blacked out the tank for days, scrubbed rocks that I could remove with peroxide, etc.

At this point my levels are:
ph 8.2
nitrate 0
phos 0
mag 1280
ca 400
kh/Alk 7.3/2.62
ammonia 0

I honestly dont know what to do. I have a hippo tang, yellow tang, powder brown, and magnificent foxface- they dont touch gha. My cuc is 20 or so trochus and turbo snails and 20 or so crabs. The snails are never on the rocks. ever. Ive tried 2 sea hares but both died on me a few weeks after purchase (lfs issue? idk). The 20 or so fish are getting about 2 cubes a day and some nori, Ive stopped feeding coral for now. Ive been taking out like 5 or so rocks, scrubbing, and replacing each week or so. In 1-2 weeks the original amount of algae seems to be back on 1 set of rock. Its crazy. But everyone told me not to do it all at once.

So, thats the background. I just bought a brand new sump and built an alage scrubber. Now I know it can take 1-3 weeks for the algae to grow on the scrubber, so in the meantime I was wondering if i switch to blue lights only, and keep going with as much manual removal as I can, will the blues only slow the growth to give the scrubber the ability to out compete the DT algae? or is it just more algae? Lol

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Fluconazole.
Reeffluxhd.
Don’t change anything, except water after the treatments.
Beef up the cuc. The dying gha is extra tasty.

 

[Jekyl]

Could at least double the cuc. More variety and an urchin

 

[Jekyl]

Running any macroalgae?

 

[LesPoissons]

Thank you, I have tried the fluconazole capsules, 0 change whatsoever. Watched the videos, ordered from the same place, dosed correctly, followed instructions to a T. 2 weeks of treatment, 0 change at all.

 

[LesPoissons]

I have 2 tux urchins and 2 pinchushion urchins, and chaeto and red gracilaria in the fuge. I can add more cuc though. snails crabs or both?

 

[Jekyl]

Variety of both

 

[Jekyl]

Remove what you can by hand. Run the light in the fuge opposite of the display tank and add a mix of what ever snails and crabs are available

 

[Jekyl]

Is the macro growing at a good rate? Sufficient light on them?

 

[Jason mack]

I have 2 tux urchins and 2 pinchushion urchins, and chaeto and red gracilaria in the fuge. I can add more cuc though. snails crabs or both?

Yep ..i agree ...I had also problems ...tuxedo urchin really helped ...and a beautiful addition too a tank ...

 

[Hemmdog]

By crabs you mean hermit crabs? They are good for gha. If you have emerald crabs they don’t touch the stuff.

 

[LesPoissons]

The chaeto grows well, i have to take out handfuls of it to keep it in check, the red grows slower and i toss it to the tangs, the fuge light is on opposite the display. I have a few emerald crabs mostly just for looks but the rest are hermits. Ill add more hermits and snails tomorrow. What about blue light to diminish the growth of gha? Any thoughts if that would work?

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

It will help. Keep scrubbing rocks, and vac all your gravel. Clean your sump also. Do a little every week. Use a filter sock if you can when cleaning. Check you tds on your ro/di.if this doesn’t work get an ati water test. Good luck.

 

[Jekyl]

That's a good point. Are you using rodi water?

 

[LesPoissons]

Hi all,
just an update. I boosted cleanup crew, added another tang and algae blenny, switched to only blue light for the last 2 months. Algae is finally backing way down. A guy I met who runs his own maintainace company mentioned that the off brand bin I was using for my ATO was probably leaching junk into my tank that I didnt even consider, so that got swapped out for a food grade container instead. Finally winning this battle... for now. = )

 

[SharkSlayer]

This is literally my tank. Super frustrating. I was thinking about scrubbing algae off then go lights off for 3 days and fuge on 24/7. Or trying vibrant. I run triton method though. Nutrients are 0 in my tank. What do you think the turning point was?