My battle with GHA, my "parameters" and the future: a diary

I had a problem with hair algae, not to the extent in your pictures, but it wouldn't go away. My tank is also older than yours. I used GFO, did big water changes, carbon dosed, and even tried reef flux. While I was succeeding at keeping the algae in check, it just wouldn't go away... and I was also denying my corals nutrients they needed. I was having some growth & color issues.



As I thought about it, I realized that the nutrients that were feeding the algae were not solely bio-available N&P. The algae was competing for other nitrogen compounds that exists for short periods of time and finding the P it needed leaching from the substrate inside the tank.



As there really isn't a way to reduce these available nutrients, I chose another route. I chose to try a relatively new product... Vibrant. I won't claim to know what is in it, but it somehow employs bacteria to control algae directly. I kept up the GFO and carbon dosing, and did a slightly larger water change with each weekly dose of Vibrant. AND... I added a Sea Hare. The algae in my system was gone in 4 weeks and has not returned. The Sea Hare went to a new home, and while I do have a little GFO in the system, I've quit carbon dosing. The Vibrant didn't hurt anything in my SPS dominate tank.



Can you tell us a little more about the Vibrant? Did you do the double dose a week? Did you dose the full amount? Just curious. I am currently in exact position you are and ordered the Vibrant 3 days ago but am hesitant because of the SPS in my tank

Would like to add that tuxedo/pincushion urchins have pretty much knocked down my algae. They just can't get in the cracks. My Mexican turbo do that but can't keep up. Just looking for that final knock out punch and vibrant sounds like the ticket


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Can you tell us a little more about the Vibrant? Did you do the double dose a week? Did you dose the full amount? Just curious. I am currently in exact position you are and ordered the Vibrant 3 days ago but am hesitant because of the SPS in my tank

Would like to add that tuxedo/pincushion urchins have pretty much knocked down my algae. They just can't get in the cracks. My Mexican turbo do that but can't keep up. Just looking for that final knock out punch and vibrant sounds like the ticket

I have roughly a 100 gallon system. The hair algae issue was much the same as yours... in cracks and crevices where the clean-up crew or my hands couldn't get it. I have a lot of SPS corals, mostly Monti's but a few Acro's. The bioload in high and I feed a lot.

I dosed 10ml of Vibrant weekly, which is the recommended dosage. I did a 20 gallon water change before each dose. To help control the extra free nutrients I thought might result from dying algae, I maintained the 25ml/day dose of vinegar and slightly increased the amount of Rowaphos I used. Lastly, I put a big Sea Hare in the tank to help mow down some of the bigger tufts of algae.

It took 4 or 5 weeks for the algae to disappear. Most of the corals were either unaffected or actually started looking better. I did have an Orange Cap Monti that developed some bleach spots. I'm not sure if it was the Vibrant though. I've returned the Sea Hare to the LFS. I'm now dosing 10ml every two weeks and will continue to do so for a while.
 
I have roughly a 100 gallon system. The hair algae issue was much the same as yours... in cracks and crevices where the clean-up crew or my hands couldn't get it. I have a lot of SPS corals, mostly Monti's but a few Acro's. The bioload in high and I feed a lot.

I dosed 10ml of Vibrant weekly, which is the recommended dosage. I did a 20 gallon water change before each dose. To help control the extra free nutrients I thought might result from dying algae, I maintained the 25ml/day dose of vinegar and slightly increased the amount of Rowaphos I used. Lastly, I put a big Sea Hare in the tank to help mow down some of the bigger tufts of algae.

It took 4 or 5 weeks for the algae to disappear. Most of the corals were either unaffected or actually started looking better. I did have an Orange Cap Monti that developed some bleach spots. I'm not sure if it was the Vibrant though. I've returned the Sea Hare to the LFS. I'm now dosing 10ml every two weeks and will continue to do so for a while.

Did you have any issues with cyano? From all I've read with Vibrant use, its been hit or miss with cyano outbreaks.
 
I did some manual removal while waiting for my ICP tests to come back. I also did the coffee filter test for dinos, as found on a dino thread on R two R. Here is a picture of the filter test. It does appear I have dinos, although I think that's in addition to the algae. From what I've read, dinos are almost always present at some level.

For the coffee filter test, I used a turkey baster to suck up about 100ml of water/algae and squirted it into a coffee filter. Initially the water in the cup looked 100% clear. The algae stayed in the coffee filter. This picture is from the next morning.

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These pictures were taken just now. This is about as long as the algae will get. It does not grow quickly. If I don't touch anything, it might grow another inch total. If I use a scrub brush on the rock, the rock will look 100% algae free, but it will grow back.
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My current plan, once I get back the ICP test results, will be to perform aggressive manual removal via daily scrubbing with daily filter sock changes. During the scrubbing, I will have a siphon next to the scrub brush and be siphoning down to my sump and in to another filter sock.

I will also be performing weekly 10% water changes of ~40-50 gallons.

I will not be running carbon/gfo or dosing anything yet.
 
Did you have any issues with cyano? From all I've read with Vibrant use, its been hit or miss with cyano outbreaks.

I have a little Cyano that popped up after all the hair algae was gone. I don't think it is directly caused by the Vibrant, but by the lack of competition and increased organic load caused by the dying/absence of the hair algae. Cyano is pretty easy to control though... more water changes, lots of GAC, wetter skimming, manual removal, shorter lighting periods. It'll go away soon. If it doesn't, I'll replace one of the doses of Vibrant with Chemiclean. That will take care or it.

I'll do 20%-25% water changes before using Chemiclean if it comes to that. I don't think it will though. The Cyano just isn't that bad.
 
I've been letting my water get "dirty" since I had been running it as an ULN system. The parameters as of today, 12/31/19 are as follows:

dKh - 8.0
PO4 - .015
Ca - 430
Mg - 1290
NO3 - 0 on Salifert or 5 on API


I'm going to try and keep my phosphates detectable and Nitrates between 0 and 5.


Starting a 3 day blackout period, which will be followed by aggressive manual removal. I will update with pics today and then after the blackout, and then again after the manual removal.

Happy New year!
 
Here is my post 3-day blackout update. The pictures I posted above are from pre-blackout. The pictures below are post blackout. I will say the algae/dinos look to have
receded a bit and look more pale. I'm going to do some serious scrubbing and siphoning this afternoon. Will post pics after. I also received my ATI ICP test restults, posted below.
My analysis of those are below the tank pics.


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These results confirm what I've been seeing with my Hanna and Salifert tests. My system was running with undetectable phosphates for a long time and I was still getting
algae/dino growth. The only reason the ICP test showed any phosphate is because I let the tank get VERY dirty the last 4 months or so. no water changes at all.
I am disregarding the zinc reading in the RO water, since it does not appear in the tank water. I'm also not concerned with low idodine, based upon reading posts from Randy
regarding iodine testing and dosing. That said, the most healthy corals I ever maintained were on my first tank. I didn't really test for anything and randomly put drops of
idone in when I felt like it. :O

ICP Results
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RO
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Update after blackout

Update after blackout

here is my update after 3 day blackout.

So I do have dinos, along with the algae. Pics of algae below. Dino pics in following post.

Here are pics of my agressive in-tank scrub with a brush, post 3 day blackout.

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Here is are pics of the algae
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Here are pics of the dinos & video. I have identified the Dinos as coolia monotis.
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Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bQCqvGpe8M8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
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Here is an interesting picture of my ORP graph. There was a plunge within minutes of scrubbing the rocks in tank. Posted more for an interesting observation.
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When do the lights go on? Photosynthesis will affect the ORP level.

Interesting. My lights go on at 6am. Looking at the graphs, the drops all start shortly after lights go on, for some reason this drop was much more.
 
I finally won my battle 2 year battle with GHA. I had used Fluconazole before but this time I used the Blue life brand which is nice because you don’t have to spend 1/2 hr opening pills.

Anyways, saw little for the first week, 2nd week was dramatic. Ending the 3rd week and there are just a few stragglers but they are white and don’t look healthy at all.
 
I finally won my battle 2 year battle with GHA. I had used Fluconazole before but this time I used the Blue life brand which is nice because you don't have to spend 1/2 hr opening pills.

Anyways, saw little for the first week, 2nd week was dramatic. Ending the 3rd week and there are just a few stragglers but they are white and don't look healthy at all.

Did you just use the standard recommended dose? After the 3 weeks, did you begin water changes to remove the fluconazole?
 
Did you just use the standard recommended dose? After the 3 weeks, did you begin water changes to remove the fluconazole?


Yes, standard dosage, three weeks will be on Tuesday. So there's no long-term evaluation for you however I can tell you this it is never been so clean from Algae in the previous two years regardless of how much plucking I did.


In my case, it seems that UV sterilizer and GAC were the magic bullets that took out Dino's
 
In the last two weeks, I've been scrubbed the rocks 2x and been blasting them with baster 3x per day. I dosed 10g of Spectracide stump remover two days ago to bring nitrates up from 0 to 10ppm.

I now believe it was GHA but turf algae with dinos on top that made it appear like GHA. The dinos are coolia and likely coolia tropicalis.

Here current are pictures. The algae and dinos are slowly receeding.

This has been a LONG process, and I haven't added much of a CUC to this tank because I was taking everything slowly and then this happened and my snails were dying. Presumably from the dinos.

In two weeks, I'm going to add a fairly large CUC of turbos and trochus. There is plenty of food for them. :)
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How is your tank doing? Did you win the battle?
I will say your story mirrored mine and thanks to the post that recommended Vibrant...... I won the battle [emoji16] time will tell if i will win the war. I have no idea how it works but after my second week there was a noticeable difference and after week 3 it was gone. I had a small spot of bubble algae between a mushroom colony that took the whole 3 weeks to disappear. I did zero manual removal other than my weekly water changes and filter socks. I basically only clean my glass once a week now. I have a 50/50 mix of SPS and LPS with no change other than everything has colored up like crazy. I really don't know the long term impact but my tank has never looked better.
I will post some before and after pics for you when I get home.


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My battle with GHA, my &quot;parameters&quot; and the future: a diary

My battle with GHA, my &quot;parameters&quot; and the future: a diary

Tank before Vibrant and tank 3 weeks after using vibrant. My tank is 225gal with 100gal sump. I only have 200gal of water after displacement. I used 20mil once a week. The pictures below posted backwards so the first group is AFTER treatment. The last 3 pictures are before is started
Looks at rock between corals

Tank after 3 week

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Tank when I started below

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