What to do with Green Hair Algae?

[screamingibis]

Run GFO and change out once every 5 to 7 days. Use Algae-fix. It works. Change your filter socks every day and turkey blast your rocks every day or twice a day. Skim wet. Once you're done with a cycle of Algae-fix, change about 5 gallons of water every other day for a while until you don't see any new growth and then you can back off on water changes.

 

[PhaneSoul]

Run GFO and change out once every 5 to 7 days. Use Algae-fix. It works. Change your filter socks every day and turkey blast your rocks every day or twice a day. Skim wet. Once you're done with a cycle of Algae-fix, change about 5 gallons of water every other day for a while until you don't see any new growth and then you can back off on water changes.

Yeah that will kill algae, but what about the phosphates? Or the extra nutrients? Build up too much phosphate and any coral with a calcium skeleton won't be able to build a skeleton. What happens when your gfo can't keep up, or worse, your spending more on gfo in a year then I would on a small house?

Why mask the problem when you can attack it at the root of the problem, remove detritus before it has a chance to break down into nutrients. On one hand to remove detritus all I need is a siphon. If I let it break down into nutrients then I need reactors, gfo, a refugium, nutrient sponges and all the other 'nutrient exporters'. I'll choose to spend a one time few of 20$ rather then spend hundreds and complicate everything.

 

[mpderksen]

Saltwater. This process is basically starting a new tank with no substrate or critters besides the bacteria. Doesn't matter if the rock is live rock or fresh dry rock from brs. Heater and ph yes

Cool, and just do a full water change once in a while until the PO4 stops rising?

But back to the OP, how's the progress?

 

[PhaneSoul]

Cool, and just do a full water change once in a while until the PO4 stops rising?

But back to the OP, how's the progress?

Negative, you do waterchanges once in a while until detritus stops majorly accumulating.

I just went thru this in my 10g tank. I'll explain what I saw. This process is doable with livestock, lights and the whole shebang, but it will take a lil longer.

In my case the tank was setup in July, I always had one fish, brittle star OR shrimp (only one at a time, I never had 2 critters at once, the exception is my turbo snail, he has always been in there). so I was feeding the tank on a daily basis. Tank is also has no substrate. With just a 150gph nano powerhead. 5-3w cool white and 10-3w royal blue led's and around 7# of liverock.

In the beginning weeks it will be very light, you will see just some slight dust on the glass, fish poop is very noticeable, just like human poop only smaller.

As the weeks go on you will notice more and more fluff in between water changes. It really resembles cigarette ashes.

After a few months the stuff will really start piling up. It was amazing how much was there, and keep in mind I'm doing 50% waterchanges every week and a 100% waterchange once a month.

The last few weeks the fluff built up it equaled 2 full ash trays worth of fluff that I was removing during water changes.

Then one week I did my waterchange and just like magic it was back to producing very very little fluff each week. This is the point when the bacteria have cleaned the rock of most nutrients and the rock is very healthy.

The process took from July until December. So 5 months for about 7# of rock with a light bioload. If I didn't have anything in the tank then it would have been a shorter time because I would not have been putting food and nutrients into the tank.

It may take shorter or longer, it really depends on how much nutrients are trapped within the liverock.

Your not looking for a rise or drop of phosphates in the water column because the phos will be bound within the 'fluff', which is actually dead bacteria, bacteria poop and some other stuff. Leave this stuff in the tank too long and it will rot and break down releasing the phos and nutrients back into the water column to be bound up within the live rock again.

 

[mpderksen]

So it's your opinion that phosphate itself doesn't accumulate in the rocks, but in trapped organic matter? If that's the case for my rock, as well as those removed by the OP, won't the first step be a muriatic bath, then reseed and do as you outline above?

 

[PhaneSoul]

Negative, phos binds with calcium carbonate, bacteria unbind it which then it's trapped in organic matter (or excess food would be the same situation), once the organic matter is broken down into inorganic phos that is when it caco3 will bid with it. The object is to remove the organic matter before it has a chance to be broken down wiether it be bacteria flock or excess food

 

[PhaneSoul]

An acid bath would remove some organic stuff, dead worms and whatever is dead on the surface, it will dissolve some rock also removing some bound up phos but there will probably be more inside the rest of the rock.

 

[CStrickland]

Another benefit of "cooking" the rocks is you keep your bacteria, and most of the little critters in the rock too. If they don't like the dark they'll come wriggling out and you can return them to the DT.

Acid baths are more of a nuclear option - kill em all and let God sort it out. Tempting as that might be when your tank is going through an outbreak, it's common to have a mini cycle from any worms dead inside, and the biofilter is totally disrupted.

 

[SantaMonica]

until you get to the lowest one on the food chain, no ones going to eat their poop so whose going to clean up after them?

The last on the chain is bacteria, which re-mineralize the organics into inorganic N and P, which is then consumed by algae.

lagoons and nutrient rich waters

Interstingly, lagoons sometimes have lower N and P than reefs, because the extra algae in the lagoons consumes the N and P faster. Lots of sps are found in lagoons, too. It's just less clear.

do you have good informational links on this subject?

"Introduction To Marine Biology" by Turner-Small, is probably the best place to start because they keep it simple since it's a classroom book. But more in-depth studies are at:
http://reefbase.org/resource_center/publication/main.aspx

...you can start by searching for "periphyton" or "phosphates"

So is the point of all this that if I wait 2 months to 1 year (and I assume keep my tank nutrients low), then all of the phosphate will leach out of the rocks and then there will be no more and the algae will die away?

Yes the P in the rocks will equalize with the water, and will then stop flowing out of the rocks, which will stop feeding the algae on the rocks. The stronger your export, the quicker it happens.

Last year I had a protracted GHA battle from rocks that the previous owner that used tap water for years

Yes that is certainly going to be loaded.

what is done to prevent having PO4 absorbing over time? Just consistently keep the levels at or below 0.03ppm the whole time?

Yes.

if the OP has a GHA outbreak, then ALL the rocks have absorbed PO4 levels, (I can't imagine only the algae-covered ones absorbed it)

Actually rocks absorb a lot like sponges: Thinner ones, and ones which stick out into the flow, absorb faster than thicker ones, and ones without flow.

What should he/she do at this point to "open a window" and let things get back to appropriate levels?

Lots of continuous P export.

Further, assuming my #60 lbs of rock in the garage are full of phosphate, how do you go about resetting them?

Since everything in them is dead, just cook them with acid.

phosphate itself doesn't accumulate in the rocks, but in trapped organic matter?

Phosphate does. The "organics" inside are live and are thus not really building up.

 

[mpderksen]

Great information all the way around.
Still on the fence between taking time/cost/effort to sterilize the old rock. But at least I have both a game plan if I do, and better understanding how to avoid future problem in my current tanks.
Thanks so much for the wisdom.

 

[Patrick Cox]

Wow, lots of great information in this thread. Thanks! I need to read over the whole thread again several times to digest it all.

I have continued to do frequent water changes and I just changed my GFO today. I am also on my 3rd does of Prodibio. The GHA is about the same as it has been but I don't think it is getting worse. Some of the algae does look weak so I am hoping I am on my way to starving it out. I do like my rock work better after removing a few rocks and I may end up replacing a few more. I have one rock on the right side that has a lot of algae on it but it has my nicest acro encrusted on it and I do not want to disturb that piece so for now I am going to leave it alone. And then the large patch of algae in the back left is on a very large piece that I simply can't remove. So for now just more of the same.

Here is a recent picture. I will keep this thread updated through my GHA journey!

Thanks again!

 

[Patrick Cox]

Hi All,
I have a follow up question on this. Would syphoning out my sand bed help reduce nutrients or are the nutrients coming from inside the rock? I am not seeing any improvement. I understand it can be a slow process but I want to do everything I can. Thanks.

 

[mpderksen]

I would vacuum the top half of the sandbed, maybe half one day, then the second half a few days later.
It could be time to vacuum your sump area as well. Are you running GFO at this point? You may need to be changing it more often than you think at this point.

 

[PeteC]

Pat, something that works a treat for me if I get a bit of GFA is simply turn the rock over, if possible. The algae dies in a month or two without light. Normal biological processes break it all down and release the very small amounts of nutrients (in the amount of algae you have in your piccies) back to the water where, as long as your system is working right, they do not cause a problem.

IMO your original tactic of ULN is best and you should return to it, ultra low inorganic nutrient that is. The great barrier reef, for instance, has about 10 ppb nitrate and 3 ppb phosphate in inorganic forms (parts per billion, not ppm). Organic forms of nitrate and phosphate are less available to algae but corals can still get their fix from them. Dosing vodka / vinegar (or whatever high priced brand name version of that that you prefer) will tend to keep nutrients in the organic form rather than the inorganic (bacteria convert inorganic nutrients to organic versions). Amino acids are organic nitrogen sources.

I agree with the others that GFA often appears where detritus settles, and thats natural if you think about it. Even if your nutes are low its hard to stop a pile of fish poop that has settled into a depressoin in your rock harbouring extra nutrients and feeding a tuft of GFA. But I find thats a very local effect. If the rock is turned the nutrients easily leach back out of the rock after a month or two in a carbon fed tank. Darkness kills the roots eventually which really sets GFA back. If you cant turn the rock it will take longer but try to prevent the detritus settling with pump direction. Turning instantly gives you a nice clean rock, hides the GFA instantly, and overall works great if you can do it.

Edit: forgot to say I run BB which is great for keeping nutes in check. Its miles easier to control algae IMO.

 

[Patrick Cox]

I would vacuum the top half of the sandbed, maybe half one day, then the second half a few days later.
It could be time to vacuum your sump area as well. Are you running GFO at this point? You may need to be changing it more often than you think at this point.

Thanks, I do vacuum the sand bed when I do a water change but I feel like I am not pulling out enough detritus from the sand bed so I think I will gradually start removing sand and then once it is out I will likely replace with new.

Also I am still running GFO and I just changed it this past weekend. I think I probably waited longer than I should though as it ran for about 5 weeks. One other thing I discovered is that my RODI water was testing out at PO4 level of .07. So I changed my RODI filters and resin and now it is 0.0 so that will likely help as well.

Pat, something that works a treat for me if I get a bit of GFA is simply turn the rock over, if possible. The algae dies in a month or two without light. Normal biological processes break it all down and release the very small amounts of nutrients (in the amount of algae you have in your piccies) back to the water where, as long as your system is working right, they do not cause a problem.

IMO your original tactic of ULN is best and you should return to it, ultra low inorganic nutrient that is. The great barrier reef, for instance, has about 10 ppb nitrate and 3 ppb phosphate in inorganic forms (parts per billion, not ppm). Organic forms of nitrate and phosphate are less available to algae but corals can still get their fix from them. Dosing vodka / vinegar (or whatever high priced brand name version of that that you prefer) will tend to keep nutrients in the organic form rather than the inorganic (bacteria convert inorganic nutrients to organic versions). Amino acids are organic nitrogen sources.

I agree with the others that GFA often appears where detritus settles, and thats natural if you think about it. Even if your nutes are low its hard to stop a pile of fish poop that has settled into a depressoin in your rock harbouring extra nutrients and feeding a tuft of GFA. But I find thats a very local effect. If the rock is turned the nutrients easily leach back out of the rock after a month or two in a carbon fed tank. Darkness kills the roots eventually which really sets GFA back. If you cant turn the rock it will take longer but try to prevent the detritus settling with pump direction. Turning instantly gives you a nice clean rock, hides the GFA instantly, and overall works great if you can do it.

Edit: forgot to say I run BB which is great for keeping nutes in check. Its miles easier to control algae IMO.

All good suggestions! Thanks!

 

[SantaMonica]

The RODI at .07 could by itself be the whole problem.

 

[Patrick Cox]

The RODI at .07 could by itself be the whole problem.

Yes, that is a tough lesson to learn. You know, I have never tested my RODI water. I just assumed since I was running it through a 5 stage filter that I was getting clean water. And then I read about someone who had bad RODI water so I thought I would test mine just to see and voila, .07! I guess I have just been feeding the algae with my top offs and water changes! :facepalm:

I do use the color changing DI resin and it was at the end of color change so I was going to change it anyway but I guess I need to start testing my water about halfway through the color change.

Do you know which part of the RODI process removes the phosphate? Is it the DI resin or one of the mechanical filters?

Thanks and hopefully this solves my problem! I have emptied all of my containers and started making fresh water and will do a large water change today/tomorrow. :thumbsup:

 

[mpderksen]

Getting an inline TDS meter is cheaper than buckets of AlgaeFix Marine. Good luck!

 

[Patrick Cox]

Getting an inline TDS meter is cheaper than buckets of AlgaeFix Marine. Good luck!

Does a TDS meter show readings when Phosphate elevates out of the RODI unit? I do have a TDS meter on my RODI system but I feel like it was 0 but not sure. I don't really use it much because it seems like it always shows zero.

Right now after changing all of my filters and DI Resin, the TDS meter shows 4 after the felt filter, chloramine filter and carbon block and before the DI resin. Then 0 after the DI resin. And when I test the final water for phosphates now I get 0. So what reading on the TDS meter would tell me that I need to change my filters or that I have elevated phosphates?

Thanks.

 

[mpderksen]

I'm stepping into an area that I only recently understand, so others may correct me.
When I first turn on the unit, with the meter on, and the system on by-pass, initially I see a reading of 30+ on the pre-DI side (water at this point isn't flowing through the resin so the Out is irrelevant). It will rise for a minute or so, then back down. After as much as 5-10 min., when I read <20, I flip the by-pass and start making water and the Out reading should be zero. In by-pass mode, everything goes to drain.
If I even see a 0.01 in the out, I change the whole filter set and resin. In fact, I have an extra set on the shelf, just in case. When I use it, I order a replacement. Seems I always used to have a massive change at a critical time and no fresh resin...
TDS isn't really a reading of phosphate, it's Total Dissolved Solids. A reading of 0.07 doesn't mean your phosphate is 0.07. The system takes out all kinds of nasties.