jambon Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 So I have been dealing with this green hair algae lately in my IM fusion 20. Mechanical filtration, ghost skimmer, reactor with bio pellets as well as 15% water changes weekly. My sps, lps are doing well. I have a 2 inch black ice clown, six line wrasse, watchman goby, elongated dottyback and 2 black ray gobies as well as till lately 2 snails and 3 or 4 hermits. My gha got a little out of hand in the past 6 months... bit of a high bio load I guess. Got tired of toothbrushing things so 2 weeks ago purchased an emerald crab and 5 additional snails... well they are going to town and having a feast on this stuff! I believe this will sort things out. I have a birds nest that was almost covered in gha it's now clean fortunately the live tips can breath now. I just wanted to share this with you all Link to comment
flatlandreefer Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 If that doesn't fix the problem I had great luck with a pincushion urchin Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 It must feel good to get the upper hand on green hair algae! How's the circulation in your system? Do you ever use a pipette to blow detritus off your rocks? What are your phosphate tests like these days? Link to comment
jambon Posted February 23, 2017 Author Share Posted February 23, 2017 I have a powrhead in one cornr and circulating pump on othr corner. Moving about 600 gph. Kinda slacking on my testing and I use a turkey baster occasionally to clear the detritus up. Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 That sounds like pretty good circulation! How about your feeding schedule? Sometimes over feeding fish and coral can fuel GHA. Test those phosphates, get them to zero and your GHA can truly be beat Link to comment
dandelion Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 27 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said: That sounds like pretty good circulation! How about your feeding schedule? Sometimes over feeding fish and coral can fuel GHA. Test those phosphates, get them to zero and your GHA can truly be beat My pico was fishless and I still couldn't stop GHA from proliferating. Every test shows nitrate at zero and phosphate at like 0.02 to 0.04. I've just dosed fluconazole and see if it works. Link to comment
jambon Posted February 23, 2017 Author Share Posted February 23, 2017 I am trying to keep my feeding light every second day maybe 3/8 inch square cube of mysis. Weekly about 1/4 tsp reef roids for coral. The point of this thread is that what I have done with the snails and emerald crab "IS" working! I am pleased with results. So far. I am considering adding a better crew to my 14 BC whick houses my frogfish and an assortment of mushrooms and soft corals and a healthy lawn of GHA lol. Link to comment
dandelion Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 What snails did you get? Mine never touch GHA Link to comment
jambon Posted February 25, 2017 Author Share Posted February 25, 2017 I'm not sure what they are called... this photo may help. Link to comment
dandelion Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 Looks like astrea. I have those and they didn't do nothing. Link to comment
jambon Posted February 25, 2017 Author Share Posted February 25, 2017 So @dandelion are you having some gha problems? I did put 5 of them in along with the emerald crab at pretty much the same time. They did not eliminate the problem but sure are making a difference. I had a colony of purple dragon type acro that I grew from a tiny frag. It acted as a comb and was smothred and succumbed to the gha. Link to comment
dandelion Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 1 hour ago, jambon said: So @dandelion are you having some gha problems? I did put 5 of them in along with the emerald crab at pretty much the same time. They did not eliminate the problem but sure are making a difference. I had a colony of purple dragon type acro that I grew from a tiny frag. It acted as a comb and was smothred and succumbed to the gha. Well at one point I had 4 astrea snails keeping my tank clean, until a hitchhiker hermit decided to murder them. I started to have fuss growing on my rocks, so I bought 4 more snails to replace them and moved the hermit to my QT. One refused to live so now I have three. They cleaned up the fuss rather well, but their poop in turn fed GHA which they simply won't touch. I think I am still early with the problem so I'm trying to be proactive. I am however losing the war if my methods don't work. Link to comment
jambon Posted February 26, 2017 Author Share Posted February 26, 2017 Hmmm how about emerald crab? BTW what size Pico? And if it is without fish you may not need any food or very little if its just corals. I'm running a reactor and skimmer so it helps remove the waste. Link to comment
dandelion Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 It's just 5 gallon water volume. It was fishless for over a year until like last week when I had to regime my clownfish there. But the algae problem was starting even before the fish. I didn't even feed the tank and GHA would still grow. Tried taking out the chaeto thinking maybe it is dying feeding the nuisance algae but didn't seem to have an effect. Today is day 3 of fluconazole. Haven't noticed any effect so far. i sometimes wonder if chaeto doesn't thrive in low nutrient environment. Maybe if my water is dirtier it will thrive and outcompete nuisance algae better. Link to comment
spectra Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 Love that Frogfish! I had the same colored one but did not last........sweet little fish! Link to comment
jambon Posted February 26, 2017 Author Share Posted February 26, 2017 9 hours ago, dandelion said: It's just 5 gallon water volume. It was fishless for over a year until like last week when I had to regime my clownfish there. But the algae problem was starting even before the fish. I didn't even feed the tank and GHA would still grow. Tried taking out the chaeto thinking maybe it is dying feeding the nuisance algae but didn't seem to have an effect. Today is day 3 of fluconazole. Haven't noticed any effect so far. i sometimes wonder if chaeto doesn't thrive in low nutrient environment. Maybe if my water is dirtier it will thrive and outcompete nuisance algae better. Do you have a pic of the tank? A clown in a 5 gallon is quite a load. Link to comment
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