Sick of this GHA

Raptor72

Active member
Recently I had been getting the upper hand on a GHA problem. I was getting rid of the excess water that was used to thaw out frozen food. I was doing more frequent WC's, and installed a reactor with biopellets. I was even using some drops to get rid of phosphates (can't remember the name right now). I've changed filter socks regularly and have been using RO/DI water. Unfortunately, its starting to pick back up and taking over. Don't know what else to do. :banghead:
 
What worked for me in the past was algeafix marine and a pincushion urchin, that got my gha down to where other methods kept it under wraps
 
I had a problem that lasted awhile until I cut back the lighting to 8hrs, added a ton of cheato (I only had a softball size at first and it wouldnt grow because the hair algae in DT consumed most nutrient before going through the sump), kept the fuge light on 24hrs ,made sure I was keeping my skimmer clean, and doing what your doing. It takes awhile but you'll start noticing the die off when little bubbles are all over the hair algae
 
I feel your pain. I have found nutrient control to only slow growth. I am trying a sea hair in my smaller tank, if it works i will put it in my big one. I will let you know how it goes. I put it in yesterday and it starting eating some of it right off the get go.
 
I also carbon dose which really doesn't help with gha. It can lower No3 and po4 but is also a food source.

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I had a bad year long outbreak. I could pull a couple gal worth out every week bad. The effort to get rid of it needs to happen a couple ways. Chaeto to compete with it for nutrients, and animal related removal. A sea hare or bristle tooth tang will pull it off the rocks, then the chaeto and water changed will get the nutrients after the fish/ hare digest it. I found my sea hare to be lazy until I added a 2nd hare, it's almost like it decided it had to compete now vs eating at it leisure. The hare tripled its algae per day with the 2nd one in tank. Also you may have to help your animals out a bit. I found the longer the hair was the less desirable the algae was to the things that ate it, by pulling the worst of the long stuff out by hand, and leaving the shorter sections that were anchored to the rocks made it more desirable to be eaten by the hare. The longer section would go untouched. You are on the right track with straining the food. I also alternated carbon and gfo. With carbon run good quality carbon, not phosphoric acid activated carbon, phosphates just help the algae grow back. So by getting good carbon you don't shoot your self in the foot by putting the phosphate back in that your gfo just pulled out.. I hope my experience helps

A side note do not use caulerpa algae, it is tempting to do so due to its fast growth and high nutrient intake. However when the nutrients become low after the outbreak is over it can and will at some point spawn. This is very bad news. It can wipe out the entire tank. In my own experience it did and killed everything down to the snails wiping out 5 years hard painstaking reef husbandry in an hour.
 
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I kept the fuge light on 24hrs ,made sure I was keeping my skimmer clean, and doing what your doing. It takes awhile but you'll start noticing the die off when little bubbles are all over the hair algae

Thinking about leaving it on 24/7. The GHA is even turning a sort of yellow green color where it gets real dense.
 
What worked for me in the past was algeafix marine and a pincushion urchin, that got my gha down to where other methods kept it under wraps

I've also been seriously considering the urchin. It'd be cool to watch it pick up stuff, depending of course.
 
Gha is not an if. Its a when. Randy Farley posted a nice article about it. He is a pro and Google will cone up with results from his stuff.

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Too soon to tell. But it constantly eats and I have a feeling it's a matter of time. I watched it eat sand. That being said the sea hair is really cool. It is alien like. Even if it doesn't ever touch the gha it is well worth it.


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I have my eye on that urchin, but if that hare outperforms, I'm going that way. Unless you don't plan on keeping it long. You could always pimp it out. :)
 
She isn't mine to pimp. I borrowed her. I did see a few at sea though. The hare can get in nooks and crannies that the urchin can't.

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Hmm, that sounds interesting. My daughter's tank has an issue with GHA, maybe we will try an urchin to start with. It's a fairly new tank, so her inhabitants are a Pygmy Carib Angel, an older female Clownfish, and a very small Mantis Shrimp, - no corals but some of her rocks look like the green fields from The Sound of Music...
 
Ive always found manual removal to work the best for me along with turkey basting daily. The algae is feeding off nutrients right? So by removing the algae as it consumes the nutrients your also removing the nutrients. The turkey baster will keep all the food and other stuff suspended so your skimmer can remove it, its all that settled junk that leads to your hair algae in the first place. The more often you blow all the stuff out of the rocks the more your tank will love you for it.
 
Do you carbon dose? I think it is the ticket to low nitrates with high fish load but definitely causes some gha and a little cyano. Idk, I turkey baste, my no3 is less than five and I have gha in high flow areas like my powerbeads. I agree with the manual removal but I am thinking I am going to leave it on my overflow. It natural filtration right!





Ive always found manual removal to work the best for me along with turkey basting daily. The algae is feeding off nutrients right? So by removing the algae as it consumes the nutrients your also removing the nutrients. The turkey baster will keep all the food and other stuff suspended so your skimmer can remove it, its all that settled junk that leads to your hair algae in the first place. The more often you blow all the stuff out of the rocks the more your tank will love you for it.
 
Yeah I carbon dose, it does really great for NO3 but its not quite as efficient at PO4 and I find I have to also run a cup of GFO to keep my PO4 down where I like it.
 
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