Resilient GHA, trying to understand the problem

[cdw79]

I've been experiencing some GHA growth in the past few months, as well as some bryopsis, so last month I added flucanozole to treat the latter. The GHA was essentially unaffected after the 14 days, so per @vetteguy53081 's great advice I took the GHA down with peroxide to give the CUC a chance to catch up before leaving on vacation late last week. It was much improved, and the hope was the CUC would be able to keep it down from there.

I came back from vacation last night and there's definitely been some growth back, but definitely not to the extent it was previously at (and luckily the worst spot is still pretty clean, which is a plus). I still see tufts of GHA popping back up in similar places as before, as well as one patch of cyano roughly 1" x 3" in the same spot as it was previously was on a rock. This morning my Nitrates were roughly around 5 or so ppm based on a Salifert test, and phosphates were at .07 per a Hanna checker. Granted this is all with no Chaeto in the sump, since I threw mine out ahead of the fluc treatment and need to get a replacement batch.

I'm kinda at a loss as far as what to do. My parameters don't seem too out of wack to my understanding, yet this GHA keeps coming back. The small turbos I have (hate the big ones) don't seem to take an interest to even the tamer patches I have now, nor do the other CUC. I feel like more CUC would be a bandaid solution, but I can't wrap my head around the actual root problem. Any ideas for where to go from here?

 

[vetteguy53081]

I've been experiencing some GHA growth in the past few months, as well as some bryopsis, so last month I added flucanozole to treat the latter. The GHA was essentially unaffected after the 14 days, so per @vetteguy53081 's great advice I took the GHA down with peroxide to give the CUC a chance to catch up before leaving on vacation late last week. It was much improved, and the hope was the CUC would be able to keep it down from there.

I came back from vacation last night and there's definitely been some growth back, but definitely not to the extent it was previously at (and luckily the worst spot is still pretty clean, which is a plus). I still see tufts of GHA popping back up in similar places as before, as well as one patch of cyano roughly 1" x 3" in the same spot as it was previously was on a rock. This morning my Nitrates were roughly around 5 or so ppm based on a Salifert test, and phosphates were at .07 per a Hanna checker. Granted this is all with no Chaeto in the sump, since I threw mine out ahead of the fluc treatment and need to get a replacement batch.

I'm kinda at a loss as far as what to do. My parameters don't seem too out of wack to my understanding, yet this GHA keeps coming back. The small turbos I have (hate the big ones) don't seem to take an interest to even the tamer patches I have now, nor do the other CUC. I feel like more CUC would be a bandaid solution, but I can't wrap my head around the actual root problem. Any ideas for where to go from here?

Continue where you left off and keep whites low intensity
By any chance is this tank at or near a window??

 

[Lavey29]

How old is your tank?

 

[cdw79]

Continue where you left off and keep whites low intensity
By any chance is this tank at or near a window??

Tank is indeed near a window, maybe 6 feet away. But ironically most of the algae grows on the other side, with the odd exception. My whites only are going up to 20% max at the moment, is that too much? Otherwise it's all blue light.

How old is your tank?

Tank is 11 months or so old

 

[vetteguy53081]

Tank is indeed near a window, maybe 6 feet away. But ironically most of the algae grows on the other side, with the odd exception. My whites only are going up to 20% max at the moment, is that too much? Otherwise it's all blue light.



Tank is 11 months or so old

Take whites down to 12% and this time of year, UV very strong and will penetrate blinds/curtains and shades
Just dawned on me when you said some came back - windows
If the side of tank faces window, try a sheet of black construction paper from Walmart- it’s a difference maker

 

[cdw79]

The right side is the one that directly faces the window but the front gets a decent amount of exposure too. Is the black construction paper the permanent fix? Happy to deal with it on the right side for awhile if needed but hoping I can avoid it generally to make the tank look more presentable. And is decreasing the white's a permanent change or something that's needed more in the short term?