GHA? What is this stuff...

[cityreefer]

I've been battling this algae for months now. My water parameters are all with in normal range. dKA is a bit lower than I would like at 8 but otherwise nothing notable. Can anyone help me ID this algae I have and the best way to get rid of it? I added some hermits and an emerald crab yesterday. Emerald crab is already RIP though. If I manually remove it from the rocks and coral it's 50% back to what it was in 24 hours...

[hypostatic]

Algae can't grow without nutrients, so even if you're not detecting them, they definitely are there. The fact that the crab died is also suspect.

 

General Rx for algae:

1. Frequent water changes with RO/DI water
2. Running GFO
3. Adding bacteria / carbon dosing

[xthunt]

Good luck! I've been battling something similar for a while, just not as bad and mine is a bit 'softer' and furrier. Dont even have a big bioload. Astraea or trochus snails don't care for it.

 

I've tried: algae scrubber for a month or two, chaeto for a month or two, protein skimmer, phosguard brought po4 to 0.00 on Hanna for 2 months (and still using it, still no dinos), biopellets for 2 months, going barebottom, API Algaefix. 

 

Took out rocks and scrubbed in old water change water. It took a while to grow back, and isn't as bad as it was, but it is slowly coming back. 

 

I recently started looking at possible sources of something leaching. I had eggcrate in my media baskets and removed them. I also had a piece of hose on my return pump that I got from hardware store that I replaced with some OEM hose. 

 

If that doesn't work, it's gotta be this sh***y mined Florida dry rock I'm using and been leaching for a year. 

[cityreefer]

Picked up a Mexican turbo and tuxedo urchin yesterday. So far the turbo is going to town but somewhat slowly and the hermits seem to be doing a little something too - when they aren't fighting one another. The turbo along with the PhosGuard I grabbed might be my solutions.

 

Just for the 3am hell of it, I just cleaned the impeller for the return pump and powerhead too. 

 

Fingers crossed!!!

[xthunt]

Thats one thing I was going to do next. Just wish I could find the triiger for it. The tinier the hermits the better. I even think they clean better and faster than some snails. Downside is once they get bigger they seem to ignore algae.

[cityreefer]

Funny you say that because the smallest hermit was most interested in algae on the rocks at first. Then I feel like the bigger ones stopped trying to fight and got hungry for algae too.

 

Not too long into this process and I already see spots on the rocks where there's no longer algae. Hoping it continues like this!

 

 

[mcarroll]

Growing algae is natural and healthy.  Letting it take over is not.   (Speaking from experience! :-D) 

 

More elbow grease and more CUC are the usual recipes for getting it under control.

 

Be consistent with the application of elbow grease and be incremental in your application of additional cleanup crew.

[cityreefer]

I'm sure it was multiple factors that contributed but I'm looking a hell of a lot better over here.

 

[ninjamyst]

woah, that's a dramatic turnaround!  great job!  

[Tamberav]

Looks awesome! I would suggest taking out the aiptasia next

[cityreefer]

Thank you! I have some stuff for that but it honestly never seems to bother me too much. On the other hand I have some pulsing xenia that are starting to creep back into existence that I'll have to resolve today.

[mcarroll]

If you don't wanna nuke the Aiptasia then I'd suggest moving the rock he's on to a new tank.

 

They can make an interesting specimen.