Having Major GHA problems and tried everything

[JohnnyScholtz]

Ok so I'm new to this hobby (about 4 months) got a 90 gal with 20 gal wet/dry sump, 100 lbs 10 year cured LR and got LS, when started to notice GHA I was testing and all levels were reading (0.0-0.5) well becides PH (8.2-8.4) I was doing water changes and using tap water that I treated, I got a uncle and cousin who are seasoned reefers and some advice they gave me were a few things 1. get an RO/DI 2. UV unit. 3. get rid of the wet/dry and switch to a fuge. and last My lights were some knock off brand of LEDs with a 6000k spectrum well I got rid of thos for 25000k. ok so I did all thos upgrades at once, cost me well over 1,000$ and alot of headache and time, heres the problem now, In my fuge GHA is growing crazy fast, like everyday I can just watch it grow, but the cheato is not growing at all?? weird right? and now im starting to see GHA grow back on my LR. Now before I got all thos upgrades I was having to pull out my rocks and scrub them down every 2-3 weeks, I was about ready to give up this hobby all together and sell everything on craigslist, Ive only had these changes I mentioned for less then a week and the fact that im seeing GHA come back so fast is really upsetting me, If I have to go back to pulling LR out and scrubing it down once again, you will see me selling everything and giving up this hobby. Ive read tons of threads on here and other sites dealing with GHA and I believe ive tried everthing, I just cant seem to solve this Problem. Does anyone out there have and advice for me? Thanks in advance

 

[Lokii_37]

How deep is your sand bed? I too had a huge problem with GHA in my tank for awhile. I had a 2" sand bed that was sand i got from a local club member when he took down his tank. it was full of all sorts of crap. when i went from my 75 to my 90 i took out all the sand and only ketp enough to cover the bottom of the tank so it was not bare. I have not had any issues with GHA sionce i did this. with your tank being only 4 months old it is still a pretty new set up. but what it comes down to in the end is nutrients in the water. I can say with a high level of confidence that your GHA is getting nutrients from somewhere. Find the source and you can get rid of the problem.

How deep is your sand?
how long are your lights on for?
What is your tanks stocked with and what do you feed it?
Do you run GFO?

 

[JohnnyScholtz]

Ok so I have prob a 1 1/2 sand bed, I added crushed coral to bring up my PH, so I would say I have a 2 inch sand bed now, I'm running phosban in a reactor. And I usually run my lights for 10 hours maybe more?

 

[JohnnyScholtz]

Oh and I only have 4 very small fish, I used to have a pretty big bio load when I had the more aggressive fish, but sold them to switch over to reef tank and now understand the importance of a low bio load

 

[pickupman66]

OK. So, Specifically what are your Phosphates and Nitrates reading? I ask this because I HAVE BEEN THERE. you need to know this. The HA is fueled by Phosphates and nitrates. it is geting it from somewhere. Ill bet it was the TAP water as it usually is. so you were adding this in along with the food and fish waste. Good news is that you solved that. Now how to we knock that yuck back.

1, Lights out - do a few days of darkness
2. Manual removal - Pull as much out as possible by hand
3. Chemical removal - you need to remove both the algae and its fuel. I used some algaefix marine to kill mine. it worked SUPER well in my reef. GO get some.

Now that you are removing the Hair Algae, you need to keep it gone. you need to remove that phosphate. GFO will do this. Macro Algaes will do this. but GFO will do this Super fast. The thing is your Rock will Leech it back into the water for a few months so you will need to monitor it closely. Dont bring it down too fast.

 

[pickupman66]

by crushed coral, you mean the chunky kind? larger than araganite sand? if so, then if you ahve alot of it, it will trap detritus and cause issues.

with regards to your PH. Dont chase it to keep it at a perfect place. thats a surefire way to hurt your tank. you just want it steady. whether that is at 7.8 or 8.2. it is the swinging of it rapidly that hurts. having your alkalinity at proper levels will hold your PH steady.

 

[Junkie]

Large frequent water changes using RO/DI, with manual removal, three day lights out should help a lot. Also pick up a sea hair or foxface rabbit fish to help knock it back while you're not manually removing it. Sand can also collect lots of detritus that can give HA fuel to grow, siphoning small areas at a time can help too. All that said, patience is key. It is typically a few month battle at the least to rid your tank of it. It took me a good 5 months of persistence on all fronts to get my problem under control a while ago. Best of luck and keep at it.

 

[JohnnyScholtz]

ok well the answer to my Nitrate and Phosphate is hard to tell, I use the API master text kit and then bought the Phosphate API test kit, ever since adding the GFO reactor ive had my Phosphate levels very low either 0.0 or 0.5, never seen them go higher then that, now the Nitrate has always seemed to be at 0.0 (its just matching the color up) either im color blind or the test is giving me a false negtive, but always looks to not read any nitrates even when I was cycling, Ive even tested my tap water then my RO/DI water then my salt water. all the same color. its a very bright yellow.


ok now with my PH issues and why I got the crushed coral substrate, Before I upgraded to the RO and UV and fuge and all that stuff I mentioned earlier, I noticed I was getting over taken by redslim, now me being new too the hobby I thought it was corline algae and dident stop it and then when doing my testing noticed my PH was so low it was off the chart, I would say 7.0 or even in the 6s, when to my fish store and was told to buy crushed coral as a substrate and that would raise my PH, now I never herd of this and was weary to try this method but I went for it, lucky to say my PH is back where it should be (8.2-8.4) and Im happy to see thos results,



And on another note, I got a HK test kit, tested just once so far and it took 11-12 drops to get my water to change fromt he blue to yellow, Ive been looking online for where I want my water to be ie.... how many drops, honestly Im too confused about any of this and dont even know if I should be worrying about that test yet anyway, Only reason I brought it up is I beileve it has something to do with PH but I dont really know

 

[Intricateart]

If you lived in florida I would loan you my sea hare. You should look around online and see if there is a hare club near you, as they are difficult to keep stocked in algae (they are voracious). I know there is a dwarf sea hare, maybe you could keep up with his appetite.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Can you post up some pics of your setup? What type of lighting are you using on your fuge? What lighting are you using on your tank? How much and what are you feeding? Do you have any corals in the tank?

BTW, welcome to R2R!! I see you are pretty local to me. I would recommend you check out NJ Reefers as well.

 

[JohnnyScholtz]

 

[JohnnyScholtz]

Feeding brine shrimp, 1 cube a day.

 

[JohnnyScholtz]

As u can see not much GHA at the moment but it's on it's way back

 

[3dees]

gha is pretty normal in a new set up. I had it in my 120 gal. once my one spot foxface was out of qt he got rid of the algae within a few days. the fish is a swimming lawn mower.

 

[JohnnyScholtz]

yea Ill have to try a foxface, I got a lawn mower blennie and he dident go near the GHA not once

 

[slapshot]

+3 on the foxface

 

[JohnnyScholtz]

And also.... I feel kinda dumb but I had a small CUC (30 hermit crabs 8 snails) but since I had a trigger and puffer I'm down to (3 hermit crabs and 1 snail) I guess now I got all the predator fish out of my tank it would be smart to load up on a REAL CUC, I went to reef cleaners.org and got a custom line up made. I think I'll place the order Monday

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

And also.... I feel kinda dumb but I had a small CUC (30 hermit crabs 8 snails) but since I had a trigger and puffer I'm down to (3 hermit crabs and 1 snail) I guess now I got all the predator fish out of my tank it would be smart to load up on a REAL CUC, I went to reef cleaners.org and got a custom line up made. I think I'll place the order Monday

Great idea!!

 

[Flameback Pair]

If you can't reach in your tank, take out the LR one at a time and brush them a little every so often they maybe you should find another hobby. Should only take a half an hour and all it takes from you is a little elbow grease. The GHA is temporary. "This too shall pass." Then after about a year you'll be battling cyanobacteria. It just comes with the territory. There is a whole multitude of things to use against these pestilences. Just be diligent, get up off your butt and clean your darn tank.

 

[787will]

I would recommend getting some good test kits, API for reef tanks just don't cut it, especially the phosphate one, the color chart has just far too much range. Look into getting a Hanna checker for phosphates and salifert or Red Sea for nitrates, you'll have a much better idea of what your levels are and what you need to correct!