Ready to tear it all down

[chimbo84]

Need refugium 20% of the tanks size for it to work correctly.

My fuge is pretty big. Maybe not exactly 20% but close enough.

It’s standard to get ugly phase. Your rock is a battlefield of algaes fighting each other until one wins. Unless you got cycled rock to begin with. Refugium is same concept fight algae with a rediculous amount of algae. I like skimmers and over sizing them.

about 25% of my rock came from my previous tank which had been running for two years so a good portion of it was cured and and cycled. The remaining 75% was new Caribsea Liferock. Not sure if that matters but I definitely expected at least a much shorter ugly phase. That has not happened.

 

[chimbo84]

Have you tested your new saltwater?

I haven’t but that was also something I suspected and recently switched from Fritz RPM (blue) to Red Sea Blue. I also upped my daily auto water change volume from 8.5L to 10L per day and my corals definitely seem happier. The STN I was experiencing has stopped and the corals appear to be recovering.

 

[G Santana]

Once that stuff gets to a certain length nothing will touch it.
Regardless of the negative press I used Vibrant twice in a forest of algae that makes your tank look like an algae lint ball and it worked and it did not harm anything in my tank including shrimp, urchin fish and corals.
It took 7 weeks the first time but after a few weeks the GHA started sloughing off in huge chunks.
But whatever the underlying problem is has to be addressed or it will return.
Here's a pic of a small portion of the grass field I had. It's been gone for 8 months or so. Hope this helps!

 

[chimbo84]

Once that stuff gets to a certain length nothing will touch it.
Regardless of the negative press I used Vibrant twice in a forest of algae that makes your tank look like an algae lint ball and it worked and it did not harm anything in my tank including shrimp, urchin fish and corals.
It took 7 weeks the first time but after a few weeks the GHA started sloughing off in huge chunks.
But whatever the underlying problem is has to be addressed or it will return.
Here's a pic of a small portion of the grass field I had. It's been gone for 8 months or so. Hope this helps!

This is going to be my last resort. I am going to give the aggressive manual removal method two weeks and then I’m going to pull all the coral and start trying algaecide. If that doesn’t work then I may have to reboot the tank with new rock and sand.

 

[WVNed]

You are creating an ecosystem. You can make one that will or wont cause algae to explode.
I have several tanks on a common sump. The same water is in all of them.

The difference here is in the lighting and flow.

 

[The_Skrimp]

My tank looked exactly like this right around the one year mark with no signs of improvement. Carbon dosing vodka as advised by a few people on this forum was the silver bullet that finally got rid of it for me. I still get a few patches here or there but it’s much easier to manage with carbon dosing.

 

[Reefer Matt Verified Media Partner]

I’m fed up. My wife is fed up. Even my five year old daughter is telling me the tank looks gross. Can’t say I blame her.

I have been battling this infestation of filamentous algae or whatever for three months now. Starving didn’t work, Chemiclean didn’t work, fluconazole seemed to work but only at a dose and duration that had negative affects on my coral. The second I did a water change to remove the fluconazole, it just came back with a vengeance. Nothing touches the stuff - urchins, Foxface, tangs, snails, and emerald crabs all avoid it.
It has smothered and killed about $1000 in corals.

Is this common GHA? I am really starting to question things because nothing seems to work.

PO4 : 0.06ppm
NO3 : 2.5ppm
Alk : 8.3
Ca : 410
Mg : 1420

How long did you use fluconazole for? It takes about 4-6 weeks to get rid of that with it.

 

[chimbo84]

You are creating an ecosystem. You can make one that will or wont cause algae to explode.
I have several tanks on a common sump. The same water is in all of them.

The difference here is in the lighting and flow.

Care to provide some details? What specifically is different between the tanks? I am already running my lights with no white or red spectrum and I have a lot of flow (probably too much actually) with two MP40s and an MP10 on the back wall. Even with all that I am getting algae and cyano.

 

[chimbo84]

How long did you use fluconazole for? It takes about 4-6 weeks to get rid of that with it.

I did it for four weeks. It did work quite well but the algae just came right back as soon as I resumed water changes. My corals also didn’t seem to appreciate it so I was keen to get it out of there.

 

[Reefer Matt Verified Media Partner]

I did it for four weeks. It did work quite well but the algae just came right back as soon as I resumed water changes.

I suggest using it at the normal dose for at least 6 weeks, or until it is all gone. But understand your phosphates may climb up from all the dead algae, and a large water change may be necessary. Also, after the algae is gone, I suggest getting one snail/hermit for every gallon of tank volume to keep it away.

 

[chimbo84]

My tank looked exactly like this right around the one year mark with no signs of improvement. Carbon dosing vodka as advised by a few people on this forum was the silver bullet that finally got rid of it for me. I still get a few patches here or there but it’s much easier to manage with carbon dosing.

With my nitrate level so low, would carbon dosing drive it even lower? What nutrient levels do you maintain? Did you adjust your skimmer?

 

[Muffin87]

How about a turf algae scrubber?
If you're tank is so good at growing GHA, let it grow GHA on the Algae Scrubber.

 

[TokenReefer]

Every time you manually remove it gives the coral a leg up (maybe momentarily). They just need more legs til they get growing then they'll outcompete

 

[vetteguy53081]

I’m fed up. My wife is fed up. Even my five year old daughter is telling me the tank looks gross. Can’t say I blame her.

I have been battling this infestation of filamentous algae or whatever for three months now. Starving didn’t work, Chemiclean didn’t work, fluconazole seemed to work but only at a dose and duration that had negative affects on my coral. The second I did a water change to remove the fluconazole, it just came back with a vengeance. Nothing touches the stuff - urchins, Foxface, tangs, snails, and emerald crabs all avoid it.
It has smothered and killed about $1000 in corals.

Is this common GHA? I am really starting to question things because nothing seems to work.

PO4 : 0.06ppm
NO3 : 2.5ppm
Alk : 8.3
Ca : 410
Mg : 1420

Everything shown is revolving around light and water. The pink is bacteria known as cyano and Green hair algae is feeding off light and inorganics.
Is this tank at or near a window?
Are you using Rodi water or tap water from the faucet ?

Generally high nitrate and phos plays a role yet your numbers are low - What test kits are you using ?
How much and how often are you feeding ?

For GHA, you want to pull as much as you can by hand. Once done , reduce white light intensity and even number of hours of white lighting BUT before you do this - address the cyano which will require lights out for 3-5 days. Seeing what coral you have, I would run blues at low during this 3-5 day pweriod as Cyano Loves light.
Cyano blooms typically start when water nutrient concentrations of phosphate, nitrate and other organic compounds are too high.
Some of the most common causes include:
- Protein skimmer which fills water with tiny air bubbles. As bubbles form from the reaction chamber, dissolved organic compound molecules stick to them. Foam forms at the surface of the water and is then transferred to a collection cup, where it rests as skimmate. When the protein skimmer does not output the best efficiency or you do not have the suitable protein skimmer to cover the tank, the air bubbles created by the skimmer might be insufficient. And this insufficiency of air bubbles can trigger the cyano to thrive.
- Overstocking / overfeeding, your aquarium with nutrients is often the culprit of a cyano bloom
- Adding live rock that isn’t completely cured which acts like a breeding ground for red slime algae
- If you don’t change your water with enough frequency, you’ll soon have a brightly colored red slime algae bloom. Regular water changes dilute nutrients that feed cyanobacteria and keeps your tank beautifully clear
- Using a water source with nitrates or phosphates is like rolling out the welcome mat for cyano. Tap water is an example
- Inadequate water flow, or movement, is a leading cause of cyano blooms. Slow moving water combined with excess dissolved nutrients is a recipe for pervasive red slime algae development

I recommend to reduce white light intensity or even turn them off for 5-7 days. Add liquid bacteria daily for a week during the day at 1.5ml per 10 gallons. Add Hydrogen peroxide at night at 1ml per 10 gallons. Add a pouch of chemipure Blue which will balance phos and nitrate and keep them in check.

After the week, add a few snails such as cerith, Turbo grazer,margarita, astrea and nassarius plus 6-8 blue leg hermits to take control. For algae, a pencil urchin will help with any future appearances.

 

[The_Skrimp]

With my nitrate level so low, would carbon dosing drive it even lower? What nutrient levels do you maintain? Did you adjust your skimmer?

I didn’t have to adjust my skimmer but I did get a lot more out of it. I’m having to empty my skimmer cup every other day now. When I started carbon dosing I just followed the instructions online bringing my nitrates and phosphates down to zero then halving the dose to maintain it there till the algae started to die off. Now I dose nitrates back in through my auto top off to keep them between 2.5ppm and 5ppm and adjust how much vodka i dose to keep it steady. Phosphates are a little harder to control through carbon dosing so I also use phosguard in a mesh bag, but they stay around 0.03 to 0.05ppm

 

[Hermie]

The manual removal is really hard but you need to remember that your tank has the perfect conditions for that algae to grow before it started growing.

If you only manually remove it and do not change your tanks nutrients, the tank will still have that "perfect recipe" to grow it back. That's why I recommend carbon dosing.

 

[Hermie]

My tank looked exactly like this right around the one year mark with no signs of improvement. Carbon dosing vodka as advised by a few people on this forum was the silver bullet that finally got rid of it for me. I still get a few patches here or there but it’s much easier to manage with carbon dosing.

With my nitrate level so low, would carbon dosing drive it even lower? What nutrient levels do you maintain? Did you adjust your skimmer?

See right here you are chasing numbers. I never tested my nutrients throughout my whole ordeal it was pointless.

Driving the nutrients down is a good thing in this case. But what you are really doing with carbon dosing is you are increasing bacterial population which will outcompete the cyano/hair algae. I'm not sure the biologic/chemistry interaction here such as the bacteria may then be exported in your skimmer, but it works. Carbon dosing got rid of that stuff and the nutrients were fine for my corals.

You have to remember that the ocean has very low levels of nitrates and phosphates. It's not going to kill your corals to carbon dose conservatively. And on the whole, reducing the "hair algae" is more important to saving the Corals than worrying about too low of nutrients. It's not really "starving the tank," It's starving the hair algae. So when you said you starved the tank before, what did you mean?

 

[WVNed]

Care to provide some details? What specifically is different between the tanks? I am already running my lights with no white or red spectrum and I have a lot of flow (probably too much actually) with two MP40s and an MP10 on the back wall. Even with all that I am getting algae and cyano.

The tank with the algae has very low flow. 2 have LED lighting and the 240 has MH/T5. Personally I dont think what color lights are on matters at all. It is the intensity that matters. I think most people run their lights turned up so much that turning off certain colors just lowers the intensity that much. I run my tanks white. It just hasn't come on yet this morning.
Algae should always be in your tank. It is essential to the food chain. So you keep water paramaters in line and balance the light intensity with how fast your animals eat the algae.

Sorry about the shaky video. Welcome to a movement disorder. That's what my doctor tells me. Bah.

This tank is the 75 I replaced with the 180 on the right in the video.

I put it up in the fish room and let it run with just the return for flow. It is kind of an experiment to see what lives without fish eating everything.

They all are one sump system in the fish room with the same filtration.

 

[Aquadude1]

I would stop doing treatments to remove nutrients and cut back somewhat on waterchanges. I would focus on Manuel removal and actually raise nutrients. A good general level to shoot for would be phosphates of 0.1 and nitrates of 10. I will probably take 3 weeks to a month to completely clear out but you should notice some change within 2 weeks.

 

[xCry0x]

With my nitrate level so low, would carbon dosing drive it even lower? What nutrient levels do you maintain? Did you adjust your skimmer?

Please don't carbon dose with low nutrients.

You will just cause more problems.