I have been battling some GHA as well as Dino for the last month or so (still unable to fin the source of phosphate thought I am suspecting my rock are leaching. My first suggestion is to get a GFO reactor, I have found that changing out my GFO every 3 to 5 days have gotten my phosphate down into acceptable ranges. I am going to push that out to 3 to 4 weeks now. The GHA has stopped growing however hasnt died back, two days ago I put in a Mexican turbo who has cut the algae by 25%. I think it just takes patience.
Urchin or Blenny?
- Thread starter vikinglord13
- Start date
Urchin. A small tuxedo is what I would look for. IUrchins (and parrot fish) chew algae down to the substrate removing the holdfast algae is using to hang on effectively removing it. And they do put the nutrients back into the system for corals to use so I would be adding more corals also (this is the way it works in the wild). You can go the GFO route and strip out most of the PO4 but searching threads on GHA and GFO you'll find a lot of systems that have PO4 at very low levels and still have pale anemic hair algae. At this point any corals are at risk as phosphate is essential for life being the molecule that is used in RNA and DNA to join amino acids together. As far as the oft repeated "If you have algae you have phosphate" it should be "If you have life you have phosphate". As far as rock leaching phosphate back into the water all calcium substrates including sand as they dissolve from either bioeroders or from localized low pH will put phosphate back into the water. The vast majority of your PO4 is from your fish food and it has to be there as it is essential for the fish's proper diet.
