I'm waving the flag..

[mrjoe]

so I've been fight GHA for about 8 months now.. i take care of it and it comes back.. I can't get my phos down below 1.. maybe to .5.. Nitrates can bounce a bit to 25 but no higher.. I have zoa's, 3 clowns, diamond goby, melanarus wrasse and some hermits, snails etc.. At this point the only thing I can think of is my rock is holding it in or my substrate.. since I bought the tank used I'm not sure what was done before me.. so I'm thinking of throwing in the towel and taking out all the rock and bleaching it and then putting back in after getting rid of the bleach.. I'll move the zoa's off the rocks obviously first and do 2 rocks at a time or should I just buy new rock?? Thoughts????

 

[littlefishy]

Better than dinos, although gha doesn't look so good.
Let everyone know what your tank is made of and how big so theu can give recommendations.
I'm going to say pick it down as short as possible, get urchins (if you don't have acrylic), lawnmower blenny, etc. Try real algae eaters before re-doing rock.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Restarting with Dead Rock when you are throwing in the towel because of nuisance algae makes absolutely zero sense..

By nuking your existing rock, You are restarting the entire maturation process.

You're committing yourself to at least a year of more and different nuisance Algaes and unstable numbers.

If you want to reset, reset with good ocean live rock. It's not cheap, but will have you up and going very quickly.

What have you actually done in order to draw out the phosphates?

Have you been running GFO?

 

[MoshJosh]

What size tank? from the pictures it looks rather small for that stocking, but picture of tanks are often deceiving. . . so what size.

I would: Get nutrients under control/where you want them (phosguard, refugium/macro algae, skimmer, carbon dosing, bio-pellets. . . whatever), then take out the rocks one at a time and scrub the GHA off with a toothbrush (don't brush your zoas) and rinse rock in saltwater before putting back in the tank, then add more CUC (blue leg hermits, astrae or trocus snails, emerald crab (can snack on corals at times)).

 

[Om84]

I would not restart. How big is the tank? Agree with post above that at least it's not Dinoflagellates. Although you have been battling for 8 months, it really does take over 1 year to stabilize a tank. I don't really see a significant GHA problem based on your pictures. I would go back to the basics. Make sure your water source is 0 TDS and there are no contaminants. Do you use RO/DI? Have you changed out your filters? What do you feed? Pellet/flake food may have more phosphates. How much do you feed? How much water changes do you do? Do you use a skimmer? Is it sized correctly? Do you have macroalgae? GFO? How much lighting do you have on your reef? How many hours? What kind of clean up crew do you use? I really find Astrea and Turbo snails very effective in removing hair algae. I'm not a proponent for additives or needless medications as above measures are usually enough with patience as the tank matures. If you have bryopsis though ultimately fluconazole can be helpful. Good luck.

 

[AKL1950]

Give us a rundown on your parameters. GHA needs light and nutrients to grow. Those are the important parameters to look at. What are your light settings. To much light and/or too high nitrates in a new tank is a perfect environment for algae to thrive. Your fish and softies don’t need all that light, but the algae does.

 

[Reefer Matt Verified Media Partner]

I don't see a huge problem there. I suggest manually removing as much algae as you can, and adding a snail per gallon of tank. Also, pincushion urchins love gha.

 

[mrjoe]

Better than dinos, although gha doesn't look so good.
Let everyone know what your tank is made of and how big so theu can give recommendations.
I'm going to say pick it down as short as possible, get urchins (if you don't have acrylic), lawnmower blenny, etc. Try real algae eaters before re-doing rock.

Duh.. ya I forgot that.. It's an IM 25gal and I do 20% water changes every 10 days with pre made saltwater from my lfs (wwc)... i'm using a AI prime 16hd with the Pennywise 81% 12hr setting..

 

[kevgib67]

Honestly your tank does not look that bad. Above it is mentioned how to get the nutrients down in your tank. For a short period of time I would increase your water changes to weekly but first test the water your getting from your lfs. That might be your problem. Making your own with rodi water you know your water is good. Manually remove or shorten the gha and as mentioned above, introduce an urchin, turbo snails, emerald crabs and any type of algae eating fish that would work in your tank such as a lawnmower blenny. Although I don’t have any experience, I’ve heard that sea hares do amazing things with gha.

 

[merkmerk73]

What size tank?

It looks small. You may just have too much bio load when you account for food.

 

[Budman93]

Buy a pincushion urchin

 

[serwobow]

In addition to the good advice above, an easy and effective thing to do is to shorten your light cycle by a lot. Your corals will survive and probably still grow with a 4-5 hour light cycle, and that will weaken the GHA so that everything will be more likely to eat it and it wont grow back. After the GHA is gone, then slowly ramp the lights back up to what you want for viewing.

 

[Miami Reef]

Your tank looks great! I’ve seen horrendous tanks with very low nutrients (the algae sucks it up before it can register on a test).

Nutrients aren’t the issue! Your tank genuinely looks good to me.

 

[mtraylor]

Honestly it doesn't look that bad. Get an urchin like a Haloween or something and 8 turbo snails while you get parms under raps and it will go away in about 6 days. Reef on

 

[merkmerk73]

Sea hares will wipe out GHA too

 

[mrjoe]

Sea hares will wipe out GHA too

not sure the sea hares will like my param's...

 

[mrjoe]

Restarting with Dead Rock when you are throwing in the towel because of nuisance algae makes absolutely zero sense..

By nuking your existing rock, You are restarting the entire maturation process.

You're committing yourself to at least a year of more and different nuisance Algaes and unstable numbers.

If you want to reset, reset with good ocean live rock. It's not cheap, but will have you up and going very quickly.

What have you actually done in order to draw out the phosphates?

Have you been running GFO?

I've tried seachem and brightwell products for lowering phosphates.. I heard photoplankton will help so I got some of that.. I am now waiting for a delivery of rowaphos.. I also purchased a cleanup crew from john at reef cleaners...

 

[ninjamyst]

Algae is part of the reef ecosystem. You need balance and a good cuc. Manually remove as much as you can, keep parameters STABLE. Not 0 for phos and nitrate....you need stability.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

I've tried seachem and brightwell products for lowering phosphates.. I heard photoplankton will help so I got some of that.. I am now waiting for a delivery of rowaphos.. I also purchased a cleanup crew from john at reef cleaners...

Are you using them in a reactor, or passively in a media bag?

Nitrate and phosphates are a very simple In vs Out.

If you pull out more than you add, the levels come down. Massive amounts of phosphates can be stored in live rock and need to be removed slowly. Your rock will leach them back out, until you're pretty much empty and the numbers will fall like a rock. I've tried rowa a few times, and always was disappointed with the performance. Straight GFO in a reactor is my go to.

 

[mrjoe]

Are you using them in a reactor, or passively in a media bag?

Nitrate and phosphates are a very simple In vs Out.

If you pull out more than you add, the levels come down. Massive amounts of phosphates can be stored in live rock and need to be removed slowly. Your rock will leach them back out, until you're pretty much empty and the numbers will fall like a rock. I've tried rowa a few times, and always was disappointed with the performance. Straight GFO in a reactor is my go to.

passively in a media bag..