GHA Why me?

[zerocool5878]

having a GHA outbreak and its driving me crazy. Im going to try to answer all the whats your and did you questions now.

 

Here are my Test results as of 7pm on my BC29

 

PH 8.0 I think im gonna get a new test cuz my LFS always tells me 8.3 and I always get 8.0

KH- 8DH

Phos-0

Mag-1420PPM

Nitrate-5 or less

Salitity-1.0265

Amon-0

Calicum-470

Iodine-? I ran out of distilled water which i need a little to do the test. Im gonna pick some up later to make sure my shrimp is happy.

 

I use a tunze skimmer. No bioballs, I use chemipure, live rubble. I do WC everyweek 20-25% I only use RO water. I use instant oceans salt ummmm I feed flakes everyday to my 2 fish and feed corals twice a week. and when i feed corals the fish don't get flakes. Lights are on 8hrs a day.

 

Stocking list

2 small false clowns

Sandsifting star

2 blue leg hermits

2 scarlet hermits

2 caribean red leg hermits

3 other hermits

1 CBS

10 small snails

1 emerald crab

30pds live rock

and a bunch of coral.

 

 

Anyway WTF is up with this GHA. Everything is doing great in the tank but 2 rocks have quite a bit GHA and a few empty hemit shells and even around some corals. I picked a bunch off with my fingers. I was thinking about useing a tooth brush and have someone siphon while I am brushing but my thing is, what caused it. I don't mind getting rid of it but I certainly don't want this to keep happening.

 

about a month ago I had a red slime outbreak and I placed an extra powerhead in there but i didn't turn it on. I adjusted the locline and it went away. should i plug it in? I don't think i have evr heard of GHA coming from lack of flow but any ideas would be great.

[chrisdamage]

yo dude... speak my language... wtf is GHA... everytime you said that I kept thinking of the words "Gastral HAvin Ass"... I dunno haha

[Uhuru]

do you have any macroalgae in your tank? is it dying?

 

I'm having the same problem as you. I also use a tunze skimmer, weekly wc's, etc... Everything in my tank is flourishing, except the macroalgae. The only reason I can think where macroalgae would die and hair algae would grow is that the nutrient level is too low (from the skimmer), and as the macroalgae dies it feeds the hair algae. So if you have macroalgae you might want to try cutting it back to 25% of it's size and see what happens. That is my plan.

[robbie]

tell your clean up crew to turn it up a notch. my little brother had a rock in his tank wouldnt nobody clean, jus that one rock though. his soliution was taking the rock out ...

[Uhuru]

I don't have a clean up crew in my display but you could try that as a band aid. Personally I think adding more inhabitants to solve a water problem is a bad idea, though I've been pretty tempted to do it just because this stuff is so distracting from everything else in the tank. But solve the water problem and you don't have to rely on a clean up crew.

[zerocool5878]

yo dude... speak my language... wtf is GHA... everytime you said that I kept thinking of the words "Gastral HAvin Ass"... I dunno haha

Green Hair Algae

do you have any macroalgae in your tank? is it dying?

 

I'm having the same problem as you. I also use a tunze skimmer, weekly wc's, etc... Everything in my tank is flourishing, except the macroalgae. The only reason I can think where macroalgae would die and hair algae would grow is that the nutrient level is too low (from the skimmer), and as the macroalgae dies it feeds the hair algae. So if you have macroalgae you might want to try cutting it back to 25% of it's size and see what happens. That is my plan.

Hummm good point. I think im gonna ditch the macro for now. I will see if it helps.

 

 

tell your clean up crew to turn it up a notch. my little brother had a rock in his tank wouldnt nobody clean, jus that one rock though. his soliution was taking the rock out ...

I even pick them up and place them on it and they quickly move back to where they were before i rudly disturbed them.

 

I don't have a clean up crew in my display but you could try that as a band aid. Personally I think adding more inhabitants to solve a water problem is a bad idea, though I've been pretty tempted to do it just because this stuff is so distracting from everything else in the tank. But solve the water problem and you don't have to rely on a clean up crew.

 

My clean up crew is pretty good about keeping things clean. They just don't like GHA i guess.

[DudE31]

what is your lighting period length?

[Snazzy]

your phosphates are reading a false negative because your GHA is sucking all of it out of the water. your phosphates are more then likely caused from flake and over feeding. i would cut back 50% or even switch to frozen mysid (mysis) which is way healthier and not as messy as long as you pre-soak it and defrost it before you feed.

 

everything else looks great

 

~snazzy

[zerocool5878]

what is your lighting period length?

8hrs

 

your phosphates are reading a false negative because your GHA is sucking all of it out of the water. your phosphates are more then likely caused from flake and over feeding. i would cut back 50% or even switch to frozen mysid (mysis) which is way healthier and not as messy as long as you pre-soak it and defrost it before you feed.

 

everything else looks great

 

~snazzy

I don't belive its from over feeding and defitly not from flakes. I only feed 4-6 flakes everyday except coral feeding days. They are gone instantly. I turn the filter off for the 10 second that they eat. The eat mysis, cyclopeez, rotifers and babybrine shrimp twice a week whatever the corals let go of the 10ml that i mix for them. After I turn the filter back on I change the filter floss within a few hrs on coral feeding day.

[Blacktone]

Yeah hook it up with the phosban or phosphate pads. I cut the phosphate pads and put them in my HOB

 

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod...p;N=2004+113810

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod...p;N=2004+113810

 

phosphate pads work wonders for me. I have no trace of GHA anymore. It used to be all over the rocks nearing 3 inches in length.

[Beretta]

You don't need to feed everyday. Every other day will be fine. Heck, my clown gets fed maybe twice a week, and he's doing just fine. When you're feeding everyday, you're creating more waste (basically fish poop) for your system to deal with. Cut it in half, and your system MIGHT be able to slowly catch up. Flakes are notoriously high in phosphate, and their are better foods (mysis, for example) for your clowns.

 

Cut your lights back to 6 hours. After the gha goes away, you can SLOWLY increase your lighting period (15 minutes/week) back to 8 hours.

 

Increasing the flow won't do anything to the GHA. In fact, the only place I have GHA in my tank is on the powerhead fan.

 

Believe us or not, but you are over-feeding your tank, both fish and corals.

[Alexraptor]

Actually, your a bit wrong there, GHA does not like high flow areas, i had problem with GHA growing on my candy cane, i just couldnt get rid of it, until i moved it into a high flow area with sweeping currents, that was the last i saw of it there.

[zerocool5878]

You don't need to feed everyday. Every other day will be fine. Heck, my clown gets fed maybe twice a week, and he's doing just fine. When you're feeding everyday, you're creating more waste (basically fish poop) for your system to deal with. Cut it in half, and your system MIGHT be able to slowly catch up. Flakes are notoriously high in phosphate, and their are better foods (mysis, for example) for your clowns.

I disagree. most people feed there fish something like "whatever they will eat in 60 seconds." Or something like that. I feed 4-6 flakes for both of my clown. so thats 2 or 3 flakes a day each. That is 10-15 flakes a week total. Then they get whatever bits the corals let go. Even feeding twice a week for 60 seconds, each clown would consume about 10 or more flakes in one shot. Therefore feeding more than I do already. I am a beliver in if you feed smaller amounts more frequletly then the system will have time process the waste before the next bio load hits. Instead of hitting your system less times a week with larger bioloads.

 

Cut your lights back to 6 hours. After the gha goes away, you can SLOWLY increase your lighting period (15 minutes/week) back to 8 hours.

 

 

I have and I think this will help.

 

Increasing the flow won't do anything to the GHA. In fact, the only place I have GHA in my tank is on the powerhead fan.

I don't know about that. I pluged in the extra power head and i see an improvement already.

 

Believe us or not, but you are over-feeding your tank, both fish and corals.

Ummmm US?

[strangelove]

I disagree. most people feed there fish something like "whatever they will eat in 60 seconds." Or something like that. I feed 4-6 flakes for both of my clown. so thats 2 or 3 flakes a day each. That is 10-15 flakes a week total. Then they get whatever bits the corals let go. Even feeding twice a week for 60 seconds, each clown would consume about 10 or more flakes in one shot. Therefore feeding more than I do already. I am a beliver in if you feed smaller amounts more frequletly then the system will have time process the waste before the next bio load hits. Instead of hitting your system less times a week with larger bioloads.

I have and I think this will help.

I don't know about that. I pluged in the extra power head and i see an improvement already.

Ummmm US?

 

Well if you know the answer to your question why did you ask... People are giving you advice and you are brushing it off. IMO you should stop feeding flake food, since you have cyclopeze feed your fish that. I noticed a change in my water when I switched from pellet food to dried cyclopeze. My clowns just love that stuff too, I call in fish crack. If you have macros in your tank you don't want to remove them all together. prune them back to remove excess nutrients, the macroalgae will begin growing back faster and competing more for nutrients than the GHA. Scrub the rocks outside of your tank and rinse them with your water change water. Important that you not let it float around, because it will spread that way. So water change, scrub your rocks, siphon as much GHA as you can and do this until it goes away. Sounds like hard work and it is, and it will be the only way your going to be able to get rid of it.

[thecowkid]

You shouldn't be usind distilled water. ro-di. I had a huge problem with that type of water. The GHA is giving you a false reading. You should try to not feed the tank for 7-10 days. I know that sounds drastic, but all critters are opportunistic eaters. if you don't feed the tank for a little while, then the bad juju will quit growing. Trust me.

[zerocool5878]

You shouldn't be usind distilled water. ro-di. I had a huge problem with that type of water. The GHA is giving you a false reading. You should try to not feed the tank for 7-10 days. I know that sounds drastic, but all critters are opportunistic eaters. if you don't feed the tank for a little while, then the bad juju will quit growing. Trust me.

 

No I do not use distilled water in my tank only RO/DI. The disilled water is what I use to make up the regent for my iodine test kit.

 

As for the macro algae I already removed it and added it to my fuge on my 75 that and the increased flow seems to be doing the trick.

 

Im going to stick with that for now b/c I want to be able to narrow it down.

 

I think that Uhuru hit the nail on the head, I do think it was for the macroalgae that was growing down behind the rocks and dieing off from lack of light. But we will see.

 

 

Thanks

Mike

[S.I.C.]

You could always do a lights out for three straight days. Some have had better luck with it than myself. IME it was definately weakened state (easier to remove) and gives your tank a chance to relax a little. Crystal clear water when lights are back on.

 

You might have some buildup of material under some of the rocks feeding the GHA. Is the GHA in/around certain areas. If so, this might be the case.

 

You could also shorten your light cycle. How old are your lights? I might have overlooked that in the post.

 

Its a hassle but worth it when its over, good luck.

[Uhuru]

No I do not use distilled water in my tank only RO/DI. The disilled water is what I use to make up the regent for my iodine test kit.

 

As for the macro algae I already removed it and added it to my fuge on my 75 that and the increased flow seems to be doing the trick.

 

Im going to stick with that for now b/c I want to be able to narrow it down.

 

I think that Uhuru hit the nail on the head, I do think it was for the macroalgae that was growing down behind the rocks and dieing off from lack of light. But we will see.

Thanks

Mike

 

keep us updated, I'm about to pull a bunch of chaeto from my fuge as well, I'm just worried that once it's there it won't go away without more aggressive measures.