GHA

[Venzzla]

Hi all , I have some green hair algae on my dry rock. (None in sand ). pH is 8.2. Nitrates are about 15 ppm. Phosphate 0. My question is should I take out the Marco rock and clean it with bleach? Or should I be more concerned with just lowering the nitrates? I do have phospguard and activated carbon now in my aquaclear 110. This hair algae started about one week ago. I checked my nitrates and it was 20 ppm. Dumb question but if the gha does off will this in itself create a nitrate spike ?

 

[Venzzla]

 

[Deiblerj]

Your problem might be that’s your phosphates are 0 because the GHA is consuming it before you can test for it. Just throw some extra hermits in the tank to help take care of it

 

[Deiblerj]

Ok that’s a lot lol. How old is your tank? Looks very clean. (Sand, rock, glass).

 

[Ebslinger]

It's a new tank... it's to be expected.

Just keep up your water changes and let things progress.

Worst case, you might need a tang in your future. Or best case.. Yay, new fish!

 

[Venzzla]

It's a new tank... it's to be expected.

Just keep up your water changes and let things progress.

Worst case, you might need a tang in your future. Or best case.. Yay, new fish!

40 gallon breeder so tang probably wouldn’t work

 

[Venzzla]

Ok that’s a lot lol. How old is your tank? Looks very clean. (Sand, rock, glass).

Glass is clean for most part. Sand is too. Tank is about six weeks old.

 

[Deiblerj]

Yeah 6 weeks is still very new lol. That’s exciting though! Since you have fish in there I’m guessing you have cycled. Welcome to the ugly stage! You’re going to be battling uglies for a while. Could be a couple weeks to a couple months. Get a good clean up crew in there. Snails, hermits, shrimp, emerald crab, conch, they have tons of options out there. They will help control the algae. Your tank will stablize and control itself after a while. My tank is almost a year old and I still get occasional uglies.

What do you have for filtration and water movement? I also have a 40 breeder. Looks like you’re running the fluval 70 for filter? I have the same one. I ran the sponge, carbon, and media for a while then switched to 2 sponges and media bag. No carbon. Seems to be working great for me.

Get yourself a skimmer (we’ve been discussing the skimz HoB in your other post). You’re heater looks a little small, are you measuring temp?

 

[Venzzla]

Yeah 6 weeks is still very new lol. That’s exciting though! Since you have fish in there I’m guessing you have cycled. Welcome to the ugly stage! You’re going to be battling uglies for a while. Could be a couple weeks to a couple months. Get a good clean up crew in there. Snails, hermits, shrimp, emerald crab, conch, they have tons of options out there. They will help control the algae. Your tank will stablize and control itself after a while. My tank is almost a year old and I still get occasional uglies.

What do you have for filtration and water movement? I also have a 40 breeder. Looks like you’re running the fluval 70 for filter? I have the same one. I ran the sponge, carbon, and media for a while then switched to 2 sponges and media bag. No carbon. Seems to be working great for me.

Get yourself a skimmer (we’ve been discussing the skimz HoB in your other post). You’re heater looks a little small, are you measuring temp?

I have an aquaclear 110. Also two Jeabo Powerheads. RW 8 and a 4. Tank is fully cycled. Used turbostart 900 to cycle. I only have about 6 hermits and 8 snails in there. Yes thanks for all the replies ! Lol. No slimmer as of yet but thinking about getting the one we talked about. I have been watching nitrates like a hawk. Anytime which has been often , I am changing the water. RO/DI only. Yes temperature is 78. What you probably didn’t see is I have two heaters in tank. One on the other side.

 

[Venzzla]

So basically get a ton more snails and hermits ?

 

[Venzzla]

I’m also wondering if I am running lights too long. Or over feeding ? Typically I feed half cube of frozen a day. Lights are two kessils A160 Tuna blue. Run them on quick start for about 13 hours.

 

[Deiblerj]

Ok well sounds like you got the right stuff. My bad on the assumption of the heater. Good to know you got two going in there.

I run 2 kessil 360s pretty high intensity with ramp up and down starting at 645am. Lights go off at 940pm.

I would get at least 6 more hermits and snails (nassarious are good for sandbed).

Put it this way, prettt much every other time I got to the fish store i get about 5 new hermits or snails. They die, get stuck, go missing. Good to just keep a bunch in there for clean up

What’s your livestock? The half cube might be just fine depending how many mouths your feeding. You could probably cut back to every other day. Or mix in some flakes/pebbles for variety.

Bottom line is your in the ugly stage. No getting around it. Bound to happen to the best of us. Part of the hobby haha!

 

[Deiblerj]

Also, pretty funny the aquaclear and fluval look identical lol. Didn’t realize that. Wonder if they are the same company

 

[Venzzla]

Yeah they do look similar. Interestingly enough I checked my RO/DI water that recently just made and the TDS was 14 (was 0). I guess this could be whats helping my algae as well. The filter might need changing? I probably only filtered about 150 gallons of water thru this. That doesn't seem look a long life for the filter. I also checked my water coming out of the tap TDS 45. I am using the aquatic life 4 stage filter system

 

[Gareth elliott]

What are you testing phosphate with?(sorry if answered already
If had to pick one hanna checker the ul po4 would be it.

But what i would probably do in your case would be.
-1 find a friend or club member that will let you have some scrapings of coralline algae from their tank, keep wet and add to your tank

-keep your lights, alk salinity and ca steady no tweaking

-up the water change schedule a touch at first. Using no3 (nyos test is the easiest to read for these and not that expensive) as your guide.

-scrape the easy stuff manually
-add pods
-give the tank time

If after a few months there is no change or if it gets worse there are products like vibrant or reef flux but i would not jump there first.

 

[lapin]

New tank; looks normal
New tank: dont do anything
New tank; looks like film algae.
New tank: never seen hair grow on dry cured rock in 6 weeks.

 

[Venzzla]

What are you testing phosphate with?(sorry if answered already
If had to pick one hanna checker the ul po4 would be it.

But what i would probably do in your case would be.
-1 find a friend or club member that will let you have some scrapings of coralline algae from their tank, keep wet and add to your tank

-keep your lights, alk salinity and ca steady no tweaking

-up the water change schedule a touch at first. Using no3 (nyos test is the easiest to read for these and not that expensive) as your guide.

-scrape the easy stuff manually
-add pods
-give the tank time

If after a few months there is no change or if it gets worse there are products like vibrant or reef flux but i would not jump there first.

Phosphate is 0, but probably a false reading due to algae consumption . API testing kit is what I am using. I "seeded" the tank just 2 days ago with 2 bottles of ARC coralline algae. Ok on lights and the now tweaking but should I tweak if cal is below 400? Im at 379

 

[Venzzla]

New tank; looks normal
New tank: dont do anything
New tank; looks like film algae.
New tank: never seen hair grow on dry cured rock in 6 weeks.

film algae same, try to do water changes and keep nitrates down?

 

[Gareth elliott]

Phosphate is 0, but probably a false reading due to algae consumption . API testing kit is what I am using. I "seeded" the tank just 2 days ago with 2 bottles of ARC coralline algae. Ok on lights and the now tweaking but should I tweak if cal is below 400? Im at 379

I am cautiously hoping the bottle works i have not read that much on that particular product. I know purple up tends to just skew tank alkalinity.

Bring up calcium to your target, then hold its there. Most likely with new tank this will be with water changes. Coraline likes stability and is the best defense against other rock algae taking a foothold

 

[Venzzla]

So I have another interesting question. So I tested some distilled water I bought from the local grocery store. The TDS is 0, and I also tested copper and that was 0 as well. Is there a problem using distilled water until I get a new RO/DI water filter? And also in a pinch is it ok to use as top off for evaporation?