Looking for a path in the fight against GHA

[jkobel]

My tank is 1.5 years old and corals are doing great. Currently fighting my second Ich outbreak so the fish are not so great.

GHA is taking over the DT, but my Chaeto in the sump is also thriving. I'm also running GFO trying to starve the GHA and willing to sacrifice the Chaeto along the way. Without the GFO running my N+P both read 0 on Hanna.

I understand that this means that the algae is getting to the N+P before i read it.
I understand N+P @ 0 are bad, I'm having trouble raising them but seems getting rid of the GHA is first priority

I need some advise on what to do or try and maybe an order of operations. My concern is if it i just get rid of the GFO and Chaeto, the GHA will suddenly EXPLODE since it will now have 100% of the food.

Also, im stumped as to where the nutrients are coming from, there have been no fish in the tank for almost a month so basically no feeding.

Mixed reef
Current levels are:
Dkh - 10.1
Ca - 430
P - 0
N - 0
Ph - 7.89
Sal - 1.025
Temp -78.3

 

[Quietman]

Do some research on ATS (Algae Turf Scrubbers). I installed one (took out skimmer, never had refugium) and my significant eyesore GHA problems became very minimal maintenance issues.

It's based on the fact that GHA (filamentous algae) will take up nutrients faster than anything (except certain bacteria). So the GHA is actually outcompeting your refugium.

Of course you have a lot invested in your fuge so there's always to improve that - I've never had one so no comments here. Just a suggestion on a solid long term fix I use.

 

[Reeferbadness]

My 180g tank had a recent GHA outbreak after going away for 2 weeks and my fish feeder overfeeding. The problem was already starting but this just accelerated things. I took the long road to fight this - got P down to 0.02 - no need to go to 0.00 and get dino's and added a bunch of Mexican Turbo snails (already had a few but added like 15). I tried sucking some off the rocks during water change but not much came off. It took about 4 - 6 weeks but gradually all GHA was gone, Fuge was still happy and all corals thriving. It takes a while for a GHA outbreak to get back and in my opinion, the best way to get out of it will likely take a while also. Good luck!

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

Turbo Snails, Hermit crabs and sea urchins. They cleaned up an ugly outbreak in my tank in a matter of a week.

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

i'd go with herbivores over chemicals any day of the week for GHA.

 

[All_talk]

As others have said, how's your clean up crew? While not the total answer, they are part of the balance. And you probably need a bigger one than you think.

At the end of last year I started on a path to reclaim my tank from virtually all the know reef tank plagues. My tank is 12 years old but had been on the edge of neglect for many years, just doing the minimum to keep it going. Everything was living, nothing was thriving. Now eight months into my renewed efforts things are looking much better. And I feel one of the key changes was a large cleanup crew.

As to the source of the nutrients, I suspect they could be coming from the past. Things change very slowly in a reef tank (or at least should when its working well), think in terms of months, not weeks. You could easily still be burning N and P leaching out of the rock and such.

A 1 1/2 year old tank is still developing, still working on balance. If I were you I would not try and starve out the GHA, it is likely to just open the door to other problems. I would work on moving the tank to a place where organisms you want win out over the ones you don't. I would slowly ween the GFO, and I would do some level of feeding in the tank, otherwise you risk a big shift in bioload when you reintroduce your fish. If the GHA is causing problems with corals remove it manually, if not, don't get hung up on it, it is a symptom, not a cause.

 

[Lavey29]

I agree with the bigger better cleaner crew option above but if you leave your nitrates and phosphate at 0 you open the door for a whole host of problems and your corals are starving. Cut lights to 6 hours with blue and uv only no white. Raise magnesium to 1500. Make your cleaning crew great again. Lots of manual removal.

 

[Ranjib]

I always get GHA outbreak every now and then , when I neglect thing. But I also find it easiest to deal with it, could be due to my small tank size ( pico , nano and one 80G ).
as others have said, good clean up crew, herbivore etc are all good things than can help . I want to add the overall photo period and spectrum. If you run mostly blue and reduce your photo period it will help. I would also emphasize on mechanical removal and water change that I found very effective to give the clean up crew a head start. other than hitting the right balance for nutrient export, I would recommend just getting rid of all real estate (Rock surface ) for algae in lieu of corals.
I know chemical means are not the best, but if you are frustrated, then reef flux will give an awesome starting point, youll have some afterward effects (cyano bloom and what not) , but it’s still worth it if this is a persistent issue.