GHA in the refugium... leave it or try to get rid of it?

[BrettDS]

So I have been struggling with GHA in my display tank for close to a year now. Starting in my old 75G tank and then continuing into my new 220G tank when I upgraded in march.

The good news is that I think I may have finally won the war... after starting to run GFO several months ago and trying a number of different things, ironically the thing that got rid of the last of it was hurrricane matthew. I lost power for three days after the hurricane and while I had a generator to keep the pumps going I left the lights off during that time. When the lights came back on after the 3 day blackout the last of the GHA was gone.

I had been close to eradicating it before and it always came back, so I wasn't too excited initially, but now it's been nearly 3 weeks since the lights came back on and I still have no signs of GHA in the display tank. I'll continue running GFO, but I'm starting to think that it may finally be gone for good.

However oddly enough my refugium is filled with GHA. I had some cheato in there, but it has been slowly shrinking and now isn't any bigger than a golfball, but the GHA seems to be doing quite well in the refugium.

Part of me seems to think that if it isn't broken I shouldn't worry about it. It's been staying in the fuge and the DT has remained GHA free for three weeks, but part of me is nervous about leaving this much of it in my system at all and wonders if I should hit the rock rubble in the fuge with peroxide to kill the GHA off. I just don't want to do that and then see it start to take off in the DT again.

Any thoughts?

 

[ca1ore]

I have no GHA or bubble algae in my display, but do have it in my connected frag tank. Generally I do try to mechanically remove as much as I can just to,prevent the possibility of it spreading.

 

[D-Nak]

I wouldn't be too concerned. If some does make it into the DT, I think your multiple tangs will take care of it. I'm actually willing to bet that they are the reason that you don't see any GHA in your DT in the first place.

You could add more chaeto or other macroalgae into your fuge and it will compete with the GHA for nutrients. Your goal would be to starve the GHA. My fuge it full of chaeto and red macros. I do have some GHA but I just leave it alone. It never grows enough to harvest it.

 

[Flaring Afro]

I only have GHA in the refuge. I followed good guides on where to put chaeto and lighting for it but the GHA still out competed it. I just pluck some out before water changes so it keeps growing. It seems to be a weird case because most people have the chaeto win that fight.

 

[JeffyT]

I only have GHA in the refuge. I followed good guides on where to put chaeto and lighting for it but the GHA still out competed it. I just pluck some out before water changes so it keeps growing. It seems to be a weird case because most people have the chaeto win that fight.

what you can try is isolate the CHEATO inside your sump. from my research a lot of people tumble their cheato with a very slow flow to help the growth promotion.

from the first pic of your GHA refugium, seems like you have a substantial amount of light. GHA can only grow if you are feeding it nutrients and light.

again i suggest:

1) small section of your refugium near some flow dedicated to the cheato. (i would also choose a way to contain the cheato without pieces flying off so that it doesnt root to other places.. cheato can grow pretty fast and spread like wildfire)

2) if you dont have anything else in the refugium you are trying to grow, i would dedicate the light source to be focused on the cheato.

3) if you do steps 1 and 2, i highly suggest you do a light cycle that is opposite from your normal daytime schedule. (theres a thread somewhere on reefcentral that will explain why this is beneficial)

cheers.

 

[Flaring Afro]

what you can try is isolate the CHEATO inside your sump. from my research a lot of people tumble their cheato with a very slow flow to help the growth promotion.

from the first pic of your GHA refugium, seems like you have a substantial amount of light. GHA can only grow if you are feeding it nutrients and light.

again i suggest:

1) small section of your refugium near some flow dedicated to the cheato. (i would also choose a way to contain the cheato without pieces flying off so that it doesnt root to other places.. cheato can grow pretty fast and spread like wildfire)

2) if you dont have anything else in the refugium you are trying to grow, i would dedicate the light source to be focused on the cheato.

3) if you do steps 1 and 2, i highly suggest you do a light cycle that is opposite from your normal daytime schedule. (theres a thread somewhere on reefcentral that will explain why this is beneficial)

cheers.

It was isolated and tumbling. I kept the lights on in the refuge to help grow algae and make a good home for pods, and because I assumed the chaeto would be ok until it was too late. I do have about 35 pounds of rock for a refuge which is more than many people have, which might be what allowed enough GHA to grow to out compete the chaeto. In the end, it doesn't matter. My system is very stable and plucking the GHA out isn't that hard - it's not like I'm trying to get rid of it all to the base, I just pull off the long strands for a couple of minutes before draining the water.

 

[slief]

My display refugium has a lot of GHA in it yet my main display has none what soever. I've had GHA in my display refugium for well over a year. I also run a 2nd refugium with chaeto in it. My thinking is that if you provide an environment for the nuisance algae to out compete the main display for the nutrients, then the main display should remain nuisance algae free. This is the same concept behind an algae scrubber and it seems to work quite well. I do pluck some of the GHA out of the display fuge regularly but I never go nuts trying to eliminate it. I've actually programmed the light over that tank to encourage growth by having the light much whiter than my main display and frag tanks lighting.

 

[Jah2707]

I agree with what was stated above. I had a 75 for a few years that had plenty of GHA in the sump but the only GHA i ever had was on the return nozzles.

My thought was it was because of the amount of flow I had in the tank compared to the display also my tangs would have eaten it. Eventually I would pick pieces of GHA and feed it to the tangs. I think you should be fine.

 

[Sk8r]

It doesn't grow without excess phosphate. If it's connected to a clean tank with GFO involved, it should die out.