Barnabie Mejia
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- Jun 10, 2019
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I went through the same battle with GHA in my 29 gal, though mine wasn't as bad as yours. but in the end its the way you approach it. I know mine stemmed from being new to the hobby. I was gifted an established tank (10 years running) and I was new to the hobby. when they gave me the tank, they gave me 2 jugs of "distilled clean water" my brother in law told me not to use it cause we didn't know if it was RODI or not, so it just sat there next to the tank for a couple weeks. I added a light and one day the water was low and the salinity went up and in my eyes I had no other choice than to pour some of that water in the tank. then BAM! GHA all over the rocks. never again am I pouring water in my tank that is not RODI, thus I bought a 5 stage so I don't have to depend on someone else making water for me cause I cant trust them 100% if it really is 0 TDS or not.
It took some work and you have to be willing to do it. I did 5 gallon water changes every 3 days because I didn't have test equipment. got a CUC of 4 snails, 4 nassarius snails, 4 blue leg hermits, 2 emeralds, a lawnmower blenny. during the changes I vacuumed the sand bed, and picked off algae off the rocks. it felt like I wasn't making any head way but I kept trucking along. used chemipure elite and purigen and placed them in the HOB filters, didn't help it seemed. got test kits and got my parameters in check mostly NO3 and PO4 added a GFO and Carbon reactor and then kept picking off the rocks. one day I noticed it was a lot easier to pull the algae off the rocks, like it wasn't rooted on there as deep/ strong.
After noticing that it wasn't "rooted" on the rock as well I did the following: After a water change, I pulled one rock and set it on the countertop and took a steak knife and picked the algae off, put ONE drop of hydrogen peroxide (let it sit there for 1-2 min) to burn off the algae, and then rinsed in salt water from water change (you can also rinse in RODI). and did that for the entire rock until it was clean. when I placed the rock back in the tank, I noticed some of the CUC went right to the rock and started going to work on it (blenny, snails and bluelegs). That showed me that the GHA was too long for them to work on.
Then on the next water change I did it to another rock, I only did one at a time cause I didn't want to throw the tank out of balance, if there was a chance of it. And so on until I had no more GHA. leave the CUC in place to manage it after that. CUC are great to maintain, but are not going to solve the problem when its out of control, I don't care what anyone says.
After I had done this, the rocks stayed clean and I have even noticed the glass staying cleaner longer, I was cleaning the glass every night, now I'm cleaning it once a week maybe. your glass is a good indicator in the future in terms of algae and nutrient issues, if you are cleaning it more often, you have something out of balance. for me if I notice that my glass is getting dirty a little sooner, that means I am getting close to needing to change my GFO and Carbon out.
Bottom line: Get parameters in check. do the work. CUC to maintain. keep parameters in check. a solid feeding schedule (I only feed what my fish will eat in 1 minute).
I know thats a lot to read, but I hope it helps!
Barnabie
It took some work and you have to be willing to do it. I did 5 gallon water changes every 3 days because I didn't have test equipment. got a CUC of 4 snails, 4 nassarius snails, 4 blue leg hermits, 2 emeralds, a lawnmower blenny. during the changes I vacuumed the sand bed, and picked off algae off the rocks. it felt like I wasn't making any head way but I kept trucking along. used chemipure elite and purigen and placed them in the HOB filters, didn't help it seemed. got test kits and got my parameters in check mostly NO3 and PO4 added a GFO and Carbon reactor and then kept picking off the rocks. one day I noticed it was a lot easier to pull the algae off the rocks, like it wasn't rooted on there as deep/ strong.
After noticing that it wasn't "rooted" on the rock as well I did the following: After a water change, I pulled one rock and set it on the countertop and took a steak knife and picked the algae off, put ONE drop of hydrogen peroxide (let it sit there for 1-2 min) to burn off the algae, and then rinsed in salt water from water change (you can also rinse in RODI). and did that for the entire rock until it was clean. when I placed the rock back in the tank, I noticed some of the CUC went right to the rock and started going to work on it (blenny, snails and bluelegs). That showed me that the GHA was too long for them to work on.
Then on the next water change I did it to another rock, I only did one at a time cause I didn't want to throw the tank out of balance, if there was a chance of it. And so on until I had no more GHA. leave the CUC in place to manage it after that. CUC are great to maintain, but are not going to solve the problem when its out of control, I don't care what anyone says.
After I had done this, the rocks stayed clean and I have even noticed the glass staying cleaner longer, I was cleaning the glass every night, now I'm cleaning it once a week maybe. your glass is a good indicator in the future in terms of algae and nutrient issues, if you are cleaning it more often, you have something out of balance. for me if I notice that my glass is getting dirty a little sooner, that means I am getting close to needing to change my GFO and Carbon out.
Bottom line: Get parameters in check. do the work. CUC to maintain. keep parameters in check. a solid feeding schedule (I only feed what my fish will eat in 1 minute).
I know thats a lot to read, but I hope it helps!
Barnabie
