Overrun with GHA, please help

[Visionist]

My tank is a 20g long with a 10g sump and chaeto. Stocking is 2x occy clowns, a yellow watchman and a blue tuxedo urchin(who doesn't touch the algae...). I have my own RODI unit and the output is 0tds, I check it every time before I mix salt. I am not using a skimmer or phopshate media. Just carbon. My tanke has had no hair algae since it was setup(almost a year ago?) and I do weekly to biweekly 10% water changes and I do not overfeed. My corals are all doing fine for the most part and its within the past month that the algae exploded. Nitrates are low as is ammonia. calcium is 400-450 and alk is around 9/10. I am unsure of phosphate levels but they wouldn't be accurate anyways due to the alage.

Lighting is a Ocean revice t247 fixure on 15% full specturm 15% actinic. Fixture turns on at 10am with just actinic, full spectrum comes on at 11am and turns off at 7pm actinic turns off 8pm.

 

How can I get rid of this algae? It is starting to become irritating.

 

 

[franciscosalazar]

To rid the algae, freshwater soak each rock one at a time until the algae is gone, then reduce your photoperiod to 4 hours.

[Visionist]

To rid the algae, freshwater soak each rock one at a time until the algae is gone, then reduce your photoperiod to 4 hours.

I cant really just pull the rocks, most of my corals are glued on and it would be a huge pain to remove them. As far as I know a freshwater soak would not really do much either.

[cindyp]

that is bad. one of the reasons i upgraded from

my 3g pico to 8g was because i was getting a hair algae

issue as well. i did peroxide dip a frag, about 1 minute

2x, and it got rid of the gha. but it was the thick hair kind,

not like yours. but i think as you said, tough to do dips

in your situation.

 

what about something like chemipure elite to lower

phosphates? and also decrease lighting time.

 

i know some have tried blacking out--but that's extreme

to me too. good luck!

[sfdanksta650]

I'm battling the same issue, it was really terrible almost all the rock was covered with gha. I've been doing 35% water changes every three days along with a reduced photo period to 5 hours a day. I'd say that eliminated 75% of the gha. Hope this helps good luck!

[Neebles]

I tossed a couple of urchins in my tank, I was surprised how quickly they chowed on my hair algae. I'm not saying it's a guaranteed fix but it has been working for me.

 

Edit, sorry, I missed the part about you having a tuxedo already. Not sure what type mine are but they are all white..

[petkingdom619]

Reduce light schedule and maybe more flow on your rocks

[Visionist]

Reduce light schedule and maybe more flow on your rocks

I'll try reducing the light to around 5 hours, the there is already 2x 600gph powerheads in my tank however.

[Nano sapiens]

Reducing the min light period to 5 hours should help at first, but the underlying issue allowing the algae to bloom will still be there.

 

Very important question: When you perform a WC are you basting the LR to dislodge detritus and vacuuming at least a small part of the sand bed?

[Visionist]

Reducing the min light period to 5 hours should help at first, but the underlying issue allowing the algae to bloom will still be there.

 

Very important question: When you perform a WC are you basting the LR to dislodge detritus and vacuuming at least a small part of the sand bed?

No, I have never vaccumed this tank. The sand bed is also less than an inch. Probably 1/2". Just enough to hide a nassarius snail. I was under the impression that you never really did any vaccuming on a sw tank.

[pineo]

GHA grows when there are excessive nutrients and phosphates in the system. The only way to truly kill GHA is to find the source of the nutrients.

 

Start with manual removal - as GHA dies, it releases phosphates and nitrates back into the system. Pull the GHA off the rocks manually, then use a fish net to capture the remains floating in the water column. Right after that, do a water change, syphoning out as much as possible.

 

Absent other filtration, I’d increase water change frequency – 20% a week with a high quality salt mix (I prefer ESV). Do the water changes directly following a manual removal excersize for maximum effect. I’d also get a hang on back filter with a phosphate buffer (Phosguard works well). Lastly, I'd start using Purigen to absorb nitrogenous waste.

 

Increasing flow and reducing photoperiods are not long term solutions…As I said; find the source of the excessive phosphate and nitrate, and reduce the nutrients by manual removal, water changes and better filtration (in this case filter media). I've battled GHA before and this solution works, you just need to be agressive and persistent.

[Nano sapiens]

Unfortunately, the 'don't touch the sand bed' mantra carried over from the large tank/deep sand bed folks into the world of nano tanks.

 

In a nut shell, what you are experiencing is common in a nano tank at around 8 months to 1-1/2 year mark when a tank's substrate is never cleaned (or very rarely cleaned). In a nut shell, the bacteria that we rely on to deal with ammonia, nitrite and nitrate become less and less efficient as the substrate becomes more and more clogged and polluted. Basically, you have a situation where water can't flow properly to the bacterial (physcial) and the breakdown of organics contained in the detritus provides sustenance to algae (chemical).

 

To turn your tank from an increasing eutrophication state, you'll need to start vacuuming a small section of your sand bed at a time and basting your live rock to clean it out. Each WC, vacuum another small section since vacuuming too much at once can release too many noxious compounds.

 

This goes into more detail and is what I use to maintain my 6-1/2 year old 12g nano:

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/327364-maintenance-and-the-nano-reef-tank/?hl=maintenance

[petkingdom619]

My last tank I had a shallow bed. My pistol shrimp and snails moved the sand around pretty well

[acrab78]

Unfortunately, the 'don't touch the sand bed' mantra carried over from the large tank/deep sand bed folks into the world of nano tanks.

 

In a nut shell, what you are experiencing is common in a nano tank at around 8 months to 1-1/2 year mark when a tank's substrate is never cleaned (or very rarely cleaned). In a nut shell, the bacteria that we rely on to deal with ammonia, nitrite and nitrate become less and less efficient as the substrate becomes more and more clogged and polluted. Basically, you have a situation where water can't flow properly to the bacterial (physcial) and the breakdown of organics contained in the detritus provides sustenance to algae (chemical).

 

To turn your tank from an increasing eutrophication state, you'll need to start vacuuming a small section of your sand bed at a time and basting your live rock to clean it out. Each WC, vacuum another small section since vacuuming too much at once can release too many noxious compounds.

 

This goes into more detail and is what I use to maintain my 6-1/2 year old 12g nano:

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/327364-maintenance-and-the-nano-reef-tank/?hl=maintenance

+1

 

Clean up the dirty diapers....

[smiz]

turbo snails eat hair algae at an insane pace. However they are big and "dumb", knock down all my corals. There was also a thread on here that was someone making a peroxide paste, it was almost like aptasia x consistency wise. A little bit a digging and you should find that.

[CronicReefer]

I fixed my GHA problem by running a phosban pouch for 4 days, a good tank cleaning, and a big mexican turbo snail. They can knockdown corals but if yours are glued down I wouldn't worry about it. The turbo snail ate all the hair algae in my 29g in two days.

[happyhour99]

try using hydrogen peroxide. It tends to knock down the GHA without damaging corals. it is NOT a cure, but it can help clean up your tank. start low at around 0.5 ml/gallon of tanks. Wait a few days, then see how things are going. Increase little by little, until gone. THEN do a big water change to get rid of excess nutrients. And take other actions to make sure nutrients stay down. I don't recommend continous dosing over long term, cause it will just mask problems and not cure them

PS. double check the forum for dosing size. I'm going off what i remember using in my tank. I remeber doing smaller doses. It will piss off your corals for a day or 2, but i didn't have any other problems, BUT i don't have any senstive corals in my tank either.

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/268706-peroxide-saves-my-tank-with-pics-to-prove-it/

[Tamberav]

If it were me, I would just drain the tank into a drum/buckets, remove the rock and replace the sand 100% and then add the rock/water back (and do a water change with this).

 

I am all for quick fixes though.

 

Otherwise siphon the sand slowly with each water change and manually remove the GHA or try the peroxide dosing.

[Rememberme]

Try using continuum aquatics bacter clean-m, it's supposed to be quite effective.