Who here beat GHA? How’d you do it.

[Rilo]

Here’s an update.

I’ve decided to do a 3 day blackout. Covered my tank and turned off the light.

I’m going to buy an urchin to eat everything up during the black out.

Another thing I’ve looked into is dosing hydrogen peroxide. I’m testing it in my 40B. A lower dosage of 3ml just to see how the coral react to it.

The 40B is also in a 3 day blackout so if I see good results I’ll do another 3 day on my 20L and dose there.

Anyone have thoughts comments or experience with hydrogen peroxide?

Here’s the one I’m using. From Rite Aid

It worries me that’s it’s stabilized hydrogen peroxide... if it works great but I plan on buying a diluted version.

 

[Rilo]

Make sure you have clean rodi filters and I also made a huge diy algae scrubber in my sump for around 20 bucks

I have a feeling this is my issue.

Do you have a link to the diy algae scrubber.

 

[Rilo]

Good luck, Ive been battling mine for months. Make sure your parameters are good is the 1st thing bc each tank is different. (I have no phos and no nitrates for years and I still have GHA). But i digress- lower what you can, decrease white/red light, make sure your cuc is well sized, scrub, remove, feed less etc. After that try a refugium, algae scrubbers, fluconazole, increasing Mag, etc. None worked for me so far, but others say so. (Im at the end of my current week of 1500+ mag using Kent Tech M... 0 change).

Have you tried hydrogen peroxide with a 3 day blackout?

I’ve researched it a bit and pulled the trigger. Testing the hydrogen peroxide on my 40B and doing a black out on both my tanks.

 

[Rilo]

if what you dealing with is GHA indeed, low nutrients have to take care of it. GHA cannot survive in zero PO4/NO3 environments (not that am saying target zero values rather making a point).
double check your test kits
double check your ID and make sure its GHA not something like bryopsis..etc

I have a thread covering what I have. It’s very light and easily pulled off. Not thick and like Bryopsis.

But I digress. Have you ever fought gha and won?

 

[road_runner]

I have a thread covering what I have. It’s very light and easily pulled off. Not thick and like Bryopsis.

But I digress. Have you ever fought gha and won?

We can agree to disagree my friend. Yes I deal with GHA every time I setup a system, I am on my 6th system now.
At the end of the day its algae. Whatever is needed grow algae is needed to grow GHA.

 

[Rilo]

We can agree to disagree my friend. Yes I deal with GHA every time I setup a system, I am on my 6th system now.
At the end of the day its algae. Whatever is needed grow algae is needed to grow GHA.

do you think it’s Bryopsis? So far the consensus has been gha or some form of diatom but I’m open to other opinions.

 

[Tdawg]

My mixed bare bottom 80 gal IM AIO tank is 3 years old. Tuxedo urchin eats the most. Phos 0.04, NO3 0, stopped running gfo, phosban Marine pure, and chemipure. Light bio load, only 4 fish eating mysis or brine shrimp. 10% biweekly water change. Dosing two part daily. "large" piece of coral. Good luck

 

[2Sunny]

Wish I had taken pictures. My entire rock work was covered with bryopsis and GHA and Mexican Turbo's decimated it in a week. Now my rock work is pristine clean.

 

[road_runner]

do you think it’s Bryopsis? So far the consensus has been gha or some form of diatom but I’m open to other opinions.

I did not say that at all.
I do not know what is it. I am missing alot of the context and informations.
Btw which thread and op are you referring to?

 

[Michael Naegeli]

Lots of good posts, I agree w most all of them, I still had some Gha and would creep up quick on me until I added the Biokit Reef. Owner my LFS told me to try it after I was literally about to drain tank, remove all sand, and scrub and acid wash my LR. I put in my 180 and witching a week or two I have not a trace of GHA. I’m stoked on this stuff.

 

[EmptyWallet]

I believe I have now beaten it (3 months and not a spec to be found) after a brutal struggle - over most of an 8 foot tank

Low/zero nutrients isn't a magic cure because in reality unless your tank is fallow your adding nutrients to the water column and the GHA is first to take it up. If your testing zero, a fun experiment is to manually remove all GHA from the tank, then test the next day - you'll be amazed how much it is pulling out of the water - if only we could harness its strength for good and not evil

I found blackouts useless too. I put a rock with GHA in my sump in total 100% blackout for 2 weeks, then took the cover off and it was still there, weakened but returning to full strength within days under low room light (not even tank lights)

How I beat it (you won't like this) was when I moved house. In the weeks leading up to the move I started taking out the sandbed, 20% of total per week. Then on move day I scrubbed every individual rock under bright light and got out 'most of it' - it can be a turd hiding inside live rock crevices

Set all rock up in the new house (different tank no fish yet) filled with 100% fresh saltwater = zero nutrients. Put a blanket over the tank for a whole week = blackout. Trochus Snails in. Another week later added lights and fish. All equipment vinegar bathed.

The GHA hasn't come back. I blame the sandbed as the nutrient source, old water (didn't do water changes on the old tank, ICP showed all was good but I believe it was old/dirty/organic laid water).

Today I have no sandbed, rocks configured in a better way to allow flow from behind, and use an auto feeder during the week which feeds about 1/2 what I used to feed manually = forces tangs to graze. I run chaeto, GFO and carbon reactors.

I struggle to keep detectable nitrate/phosphate above zero (which has it's own challenges) but creates an environment GHA doesn't like. Worth noting my rocks are mostly covered in Coralline but today the Tank grows coralline not GHA.

My lighting is relatively low (Radion G4's running AB+) - 200 PAR at top of rocks, 130 odd where most of the rock lives (which is why I believe the Coralline is thriving in 'low intensity blue light').

In summary - what worked for me to beat GHA;

* Remove or regularly and thoroughly clean your sandbed

* Scrub / manually removal 100% of GHA - not 90% but 100 then be relentless on stopping it from taking hold again - if you scrub in tank, you have to get it out

* If like me it takes hours to remove weekly and you can't win the war, maybe remove some/lots of rock to a manageable amount (you can add it back later slowly)

* Have 'clean water' as opposed to zero nutrient water (if its yellow or stinks you have an issue)

* Ample CUC - only effective before it grows but effective on keeping rocks clean and ready to grow Coralline

* Hungry fish - so they are constantly pecking/grazing the rocks (don't starve your pets - balance)

* Liberal feeding - fish always look hungry

* Go easy on light intensity at the start until you have good Coralline or Coral coverage on the rocks. Dry rock in the first months shouldn't be blasted with high PAR

* GFO and NoPox (if and only if you have high levels of nutrients - phosphate > .1, nitrate > 20)

* + general good system design for flow and detritus removal, nutrient export

 

[drawman]

Here’s an update.

I’ve decided to do a 3 day blackout. Covered my tank and turned off the light.

I’m going to buy an urchin to eat everything up during the black out.

Another thing I’ve looked into is dosing hydrogen peroxide. I’m testing it in my 40B. A lower dosage of 3ml just to see how the coral react to it.

The 40B is also in a 3 day blackout so if I see good results I’ll do another 3 day on my 20L and dose there.

Anyone have thoughts comments or experience with hydrogen peroxide?

Here’s the one I’m using. From Rite Aid

It worries me that’s it’s stabilized hydrogen peroxide... if it works great but I plan on buying a diluted version.

Peroxide will work very well if you can take the rock out, apply it directly, and rinse. Personally I saw it stall with tank dosing but it never took GHA out.

 

[Rilo]

This is what I have so far on how to get rid of GHA for good.

• Have a macro algae that will outcompete the GHA
• remove as much gha from the display as possible. To give the macro an advantage.
• have your rock established and colonized with an algae (coraline in this case)

The rest like removing things that leach phosphate and using things like hydrogen peroxide and blackout periods are band aid solutions.

Thoughts?

 

[happysalt]

Tang Gang!

 

[Rilo]

Tang Gang!

I’m jealous of y’all

 

[Hermie]

I'm in the middle of an algae battle (multiple species) and honestly I had no clean up crew for about 6 months, then I finally got an urchin... Dude, this thing (pincushion urchin) cleans the rock like a hermit crab could only dream of. I did add a couple snails also, but I have to say, I think it's largely my own fault for letting the algae grow like others have said... you have to keep the tank relatively "Clean" with water changes and vacuuming your gravel... I am bad about that... coming from a freshwater background, the substrate is not supposed to be disturbed much... but it's different here because the only thing growing in the substrate is copepods and algae (and a million other things that I'd like to ignore for the example). So really there's not a huge reason to have a deep sandbed... Anyway, I am slowly removing my "lava rock" substrate so that it's a bare minimum depth (1/2" or 1"). I thought I had enough hermit crabs to keep the "sandbed" turnt-over to prevent algae but... no... my hermit crabs have slowly died off and I had no other real CUC for a while...

The key IMO is to find where your nutrients are "stockpiling" and clean that out... whether it's chaeto in your sump or your substrate... use a good CUC and stay on top of water changes... And if you can take rock out... use a toothbrush and hydrogen peroxide... it may kill some bacteria and other life, but once it's back in your tank, it will repopulate quickly

 

[road_runner]

..

 

[Big Daddy Reefer]

There are tons of threads of people in progress fighting gha but who here has beat GHA. How’d you do it.

So far I’m planning on scrubbing the algae off. Then doing a large water change and putting an urchin to help followed by a 72 hour black out period.

How did you beat gha?

I have. It was over six inches long until I desperately tried this...

New Filtration System for Reef Tanks!!!

I would like to introduce a new filtration system to the hobby. It's very inexpensive, easy to make and is very effective at reducing ammonia from the aquarium. Let us start this thread with typical information and methods in our hobby, a conventional biological filter: Fish continuously...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I don't know if you can ever beat GHA, but you can certainly manage it so that it is unnoticeable. I did it by thoroughly cleaning my sand and rock of all detritus. Manually removing as much of the GHA as I could. Adding turbo snails to eat any remaining GHA. Adding pods and phyto to consume any food that the GHA may need to survive as well as consume the algae at a much more microscopic level.

This took several weeks, but it worked.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Using fluconazole did it for me