Cheato Dies, GHA grows...

[MHG]

so I built my system after about 8 years at successful SPS reefing. This go around, by dry rock went through the traditional HA bloom came and went in the traditional brownish color. a few weeks later dark green GHA has been taking over. the snails were keeping up as far as the rock work goes but in areas they avoid, it has taken over. Meanwhile, the cheato dies in my fuge.

Figuring the GHA outcompeted the huge I did a thorough manual cleaning on the entire DT followed by a sock change and water change. it looked great. now a week later it is twice as bad.

I run high cap GFO and my nitrates and phosphates measure zero. conveniently people have blamed that for both my cheato death and GHA growth..LOL.

I have the laziest Kole tang who never grazes and all my snails have wigs... very frustrating ...

 

[ryeguyy84]

What are you using to measure phosphate?

And for the chaeto what kind of lighting are you using?

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[Frogmanx82]

Fluconazole, I will never have to worry about green hair algae again. Also a Kole Tang is useless on hair algae. A foxface would be much more likely to control algae.

 

[dkevink]

Try trace element dosing. I have read macro needs some iron if it is not growing.

 

[ryeguyy84]

Try trace element dosing. I have read macro needs some iron if it is not growing.

But the gha likes iron too so careful with that


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[MHG]

Hanna and salifert kits all have zero.

My my last kole tang was the energizer bunny of grazing. this one hardly pics. but at 60 gallons my tang options are limited.

 

[MHG]

but my snails look Fabulous

 

[Grayhead]

High capacity grow light for starters. Mars hydro has some cheap ones for hydroponics of amazon. If you have no corals, then do a few days lights out and leave the fuge going. I know if my chaeto stalls, it's usually a sign my mag is low. Also, manually remove all that you can, with water changes. If the fuge kicks off, you will have no algae issues.

I pull close to 5 gallons of chaeto stuffed every 4-6weeks from my fuge.

How old is the tank?

 

[AboutToBeReefin]

sounds like the chaeto either got out competed by the GHA for nutrients or you melted it with the lighting. If it turned completely white and started breaking apart it was likely over lit. try the chaeto again after doing another tank cleaning of the GHA. start with a big clump. whenever i would overtrim my chaeto down to a golfball/baseball size, the tanks algae would start to win the nutrients war again and the chaeto wouldnt die but would take FOREVER to regrow as opposed to growing like a weed like it did previously.

 

[MHG]

High capacity grow light for starters. Mars hydro has some cheap ones for hydroponics of amazon. If you have no corals, then do a few days lights out and leave the fuge going. I know if my chaeto stalls, it's usually a sign my mag is low. Also, manually remove all that you can, with water changes. If the fuge kicks off, you will have no algae issues.

I pull close to 5 gallons of chaeto stuffed every 4-6weeks from my fuge.

How old is the tank?

Sorry I forgot to mention my lighting. I have a daylight LED bulb and a grow light LED bulb both from my old system that grew cheato crazy fast.

 

[MHG]

sounds like the chaeto either got out competed by the GHA for nutrients or you melted it with the lighting. If it turned completely white and started breaking apart it was likely over lit. try the chaeto again after doing another tank cleaning of the GHA. start with a big clump. whenever i would overtrim my chaeto down to a golfball/baseball size, the tanks algae would start to win the nutrients war again and the chaeto wouldnt die but would take FOREVER to regrow as opposed to growing like a weed like it did previously.

I agree with the out compete. Its not white and melting juts melting. I have been scrubbing it weekly and adding cheato to the fuge. Its been an uphill battle.

I have other macro algae that is growing well. Only the cheato is dying.

 

[AboutToBeReefin]

The GHA is getting superior lighting being in the display so its always hard in a newer tank to get your intended macros to win the war and beat it down. not all grow bulbs are created equal and not sure what the specs are on that grow bulb but you might already be set there. I feel for you.. in a new tank it seems like if a fish ****es you get an algae bloom, lol. eventually your coralline algae will start establishing on the rock and making it that much easier. My lawn mower blenny helped at first and can be good depending on that type of GHA but now he just sticks to film algae and mysis. Microfauna can help, munid isopods would hang out in it and munch it and explode in population but they didnt do big dents it seemed(but any dent was appreciated). People normally run reverse light cycles in their fuge to help regulate PH but I always run a 24 hour cycle on mine because I want all the algaes i can growing in my fuge even if nusciance algae shows up there(at least its there instead of the display and you can always put algae eating CUC there). algae scrubbers grow some serious GHA on purpose but with you already running a fuge and GFO that could wind up killing some of your other desirable macros perhaps. I did have some red bubble algae growing in a little so I popped it on purpose to release the spores because it was prettyier than the GHA lol. You could try removing the other macros depending on what they are after a fresh scrub and see if the chaeto gets a foothold but that carries obvious risks of the GHA getting even crazier and your other macros having the same problem as the chaeto when you try to reintroduce them.

 

[MHG]

Thanks. I dumped another batch of cheato in the fuge and I have a urchin cleaning house. When he is done Ill toll him in the other system...

 

[Fourstars]

I know it’s so frustrating at this stage, I think I would use other means for now and leave the cheato out of the fuge, at this stage it just feeding the GHA. Drop the photo period in the main tank, keep removing it by hand and get more helpers, GFO till you turn the corner, also reduce any feeding.