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green hair algae killing my hobby :(


easyreefer

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6 hours ago, KnH said:

#easyreefer Would you sum up what you did to turn your tank around,

Sure.
I did treatment with Razor Marine + Microbacter Clean for around two weeks.
Decreased light for 6.5 hours(total with ramps).
Added more CUCs such as snails and hermit crabs.
Did a lot of manual removal in the evenings. Every other day washed filter media like filter sock and sponge, because after manual removal there were a lot of small particles of GHA were in the water.
Stopped dosing of carbo(NoPoX).
Removed Seachem purigen, I'm not sure if I need it.
Syphoned the sand more intensively during water changes.
Just before water changes I made intensive water circulation at rocks with turkey baster to get detritus into the water, so part of it appeared on filter sock and sponge which I washed during the water change.
Stopped feeding corals with ReefRoids. 
Also in the end I've started dosing phosphates to reach 0.1ppm.
Have bought a few more LPS corals, I hope they can compete with algae in terms of nutrients. 

I hope it will be stable. Only time will show this. 
 

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growsomething

"Stopped feeding corals with ReefRoids. 
Also in the end I've started dosing phosphates to reach 0.1ppm."

Was always under the impression  the po4 in RRs was the main nutrient that rose in our tanks.  That's one reason I use it.  Are you thinking it caused other doc's to rise as well, causing too much algae growth, and dosing just po4 helps bring those other doc's down?  I'm  no chemist, just wondering  👍🏼

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jefferythewind
4 hours ago, growsomething said:

"Stopped feeding corals with ReefRoids. 
Also in the end I've started dosing phosphates to reach 0.1ppm."

Was always under the impression  the po4 in RRs was the main nutrient that rose in our tanks.  That's one reason I use it.  Are you thinking it caused other doc's to rise as well, causing too much algae growth, and dosing just po4 helps bring those other doc's down?  I'm  no chemist, just wondering  👍🏼

I dose phosphate and recently cut way back on my coral food, not reef roids but similar. I dont notice any negative affect and perhaps my algae situation is a bit better from it.

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jefferythewind

Also something Ive noticed is those really nice reefs dont have any exposed rock, its all coral. That may he a reason why we don't see any algae on those. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
44 minutes ago, seven237 said:

So would a combo of snails and  blenny be the best move to remove GHA and algae of the glass?

get a flipper nano. they work great.

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The turbo snails are doing a pretty good job but there are areas they wont stay in when I place them there so I think I will purchase a lawnmower blenny.

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17 hours ago, jefferythewind said:

@easyreefer update?


GHA slowly coming back. Not that fast as before. And they don't grow in sandbad anymore. 
But the corals are definitely more happy now. Even one zoa, which was never open for a few month now open. It's lost coloration, but I think it's a good sing.
Also I have returned to normal light schedule with 100% blue at peak hours. Corals more open now.

Nitrates seems stabilized at 2 ppm. Phosphates consumption is about 0.08 ppm pew week, so I dose them one per week to reach 0.1 ppm.

I do feed corals once per week. Fish feeding is every other day, but with smaller amounts.
Also when I do weekly maintenance my filter media much cleaner now, I don't know why, maybe due to better bacterial diversity.

Tomorrow I leave my home for 10 days, and tank will be completely alone. That's little bit scary.
I have setup auto feeder, but it feed only every day. I set small amount of portion and hope it will not fail..
Crossed fingers.
 

  1783945163_2021-03-2800_11_54.thumb.jpg.e484423d8b269bd403c7dbadca80457e.jpg
 

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Micro-Reefs Aquariums

What a difference from 1st page to today!  Was a sea hare ever mentioned to help you?

 

Back in the day we use to rent them from the LFS.  They did awesome work in leveling all the GHA.

 

My tank is only 2 months old and doing super well but I introduced Cheato very early onto my system.

 

Here is the before and after in just 7 days of growth.

 

Top picture is day 1 and last two are 7 days.  Didn't get the chance to take a picture after 3rd week, but you will not believe how huge the Cheato has grown.

 

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20210320_125152_HDR~2.jpg

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Micro-Reefs Aquariums

It appears when you grow good cheato on reverse lighting you out compete others for fuel that then doesn't allow nuisance algae/bacteria to form in the display.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi everybody,

now I'm back after my 10 days vacation.

The tank survived pretty well in full automatic mode.
Corals feels even better while I was away. My acanthastrea got two new heads, rhodactis grizzly splitted into 3 smaller ones, candy cane coral get one new head. 

But GHA amount increased, I hope it's only due to daily automatic feeding.

Nitrates stabilized on level 0.2, phosphates on 0.1 with weekly dosing.  

I'm currently doing 25-30% water changes weekly, and feels like corals like it.

But I need to deal with GHA manual removal again, unfortunately. 

I don't have enough space in sump to place small refugium with Chaeto. Maybe put some Chaeto directly in one of the corners directly in tank to see if it helps ?

Regarding the suggestions to buy/rent a sea hare. In LFS there are pretty big sea hares, like 10-15cm long, I don't think they will fit in my small tanks, they are pretty big. I'm thinking about molly's as plan B. 

 

 

1755521989_2021-04-1001_00_14.thumb.jpg.1f0a48e9a23b13a8c29cfcb0d8bf9d42.jpg

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15 minutes ago, easyreefer said:

Hi everybody,

now I'm back after my 10 days vacation.

The tank survived pretty well in full automatic mode.
Corals feels even better while I was away. My acanthastrea got two new heads, rhodactis grizzly splitted into 3 smaller ones, candy cane coral get one new head. 

But GHA amount increased, I hope it's only due to daily automatic feeding.

Nitrates stabilized on level 0.2, phosphates on 0.1 with weekly dosing.  

I'm currently doing 25-30% water changes weekly, and feels like corals like it.

But I need to deal with GHA manual removal again, unfortunately. 

I don't have enough space in sump to place small refugium with Chaeto. Maybe put some Chaeto directly in one of the corners directly in tank to see if it helps ?

Regarding the suggestions to buy/rent a sea hare. In LFS there are pretty big sea hares, like 10-15cm long, I don't think they will fit in my small tanks, they are pretty big. I'm thinking about molly's as plan B. 

wow tank looks great. i can't say it will help the algae issue but my emerald crab loves to munch on it, so i don't feel too bad - algae is getting put to good use. are you a fan of crabs?

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11 hours ago, rough eye said:

wow tank looks great. i can't say it will help the algae issue but my emerald crab loves to munch on it, so i don't feel too bad - algae is getting put to good use. are you a fan of crabs?

I love crabs! I have one emerald crab probably(haven't see him for a while). But I saw only few times when he ate algae. Maybe will buy 1-2 more if they in stock.

 

 

Here is the crab I found during vacation and what it cost me to catch him 🙂  :

 

802455057_2021-04-1013_20_38.thumb.jpg.68acf0aa5c35f3d4be0bc03c6a5f044f.jpg182437332_2021-04-1013_20_43.thumb.jpg.ccac57db58a08bf8a6785ff560e756af.jpg

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Micro-Reefs Aquariums
2 hours ago, easyreefer said:

I love crabs! I have one emerald crab probably(haven't see him for a while). But I saw only few times when he ate algae. Maybe will buy 1-2 more if they in stock.

 

 

Here is the crab I found during vacation and what it cost me to catch him 🙂  :

 

802455057_2021-04-1013_20_38.thumb.jpg.68acf0aa5c35f3d4be0bc03c6a5f044f.jpg182437332_2021-04-1013_20_43.thumb.jpg.ccac57db58a08bf8a6785ff560e756af.jpg

Wow, that is one ugly looking crab and spells disaster to a reef.  That has all the names/variable of GORILLA PIMP/CRAB! 

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jefferythewind

Colors look much better. Keep an eye on that phosphate level! I think you'll notice now the corals are not damaged by the algae. I would keep manually cleaning the algae. Tank looks good!

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I think you’ve heard this multiple times, but I too wanted to give up when I had a gha outbreak. It took 6 months to clear it up, but it hasn’t been back. In fact I just bought some nori for my herbivores because I don’t have enough algae. My tank even gets a bit of direct sun. Snails and manual removal.  The good thing is algae doesn’t hurt the tank unless it covers the coral, so make sure you keep it off the coral. You’ll never be able to pull it off completely, just keep it at bay, let the snails do their job and let the water chemistry balance without chemicals. Good luck

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  • 4 weeks later...
easyreefer

Small update here.

GHA is still exist unfortunately,  especially on the right rock, I guess it's due to water flow. But last time I've tried to place additional tunze nanostream pump on that side it made too much flow and stressed the corals even on the minimum flow rate.

I'm trying to cover this rock with rhodactis, so they can shade GHA and it partially works, but GHA still grows between  the corals.

Manual removal is difficult, because it's hard to grab short GHA with fingers plus it's difficult to do without damaging corals like Clavularia.

The tank is pretty well-packed with corals right now, it's about 40 corals total and most of them are happy. Have bought an expensive Euphyllia torch(140 euro) few weeks ago, but it didn't survive 😞, I didn't know they so delicate. I have put it in the middle with medium flow and medium light.. 

I'm doing coral target feeding once per week the day before the maintenance. And there is 25% water change weekly.

Nitrates are stable between 2-3ppm. I stopped dosing Phosphates as there is no consumption currently, and they are stable at 0.1ppm.

I have outbreak of other algae on sandbed. Can someone tell me if these dynos or cyano ? Photo attached. I see some bubbles in few places, and they appear normally during day time. Is this dyno ? 

   

 

2021-05-03 10.46.20.jpg

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jefferythewind

overall things are looking pretty good! Sorry to hear about that torch. I have never had any and didnt know they were delicate either. That algae on the substrate just looks like the basic green algae that grows in my tank on the substrate and glass. It can have small bubbles in it sometimes. I have a similar algae situation in my tank. Cant really get it to stop and I just clean it manually every week with the water change.

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Hi,

 

Your tank looks very nice.  The GHA is not too bad yet.  I came home once after being away and it covered every rock and piece of coral I had and I now have none so don't give up yet.  Algae love phosphates, the more phosphates the more algae.  Since you have stopped dosing hopefully you will notice a reduction in the algae growth. How many snails do you have?  You can put lots in your tank.  Get a variety so they will clean different surfaces.  Turbos, margaritas, cerith and nassarius.  Some people don't like emerald crabs but the one I had was a algae eating machine.  If your tank is big enough a strawberry conch eats a lot too, but you may have to supplement it after the algae problem is over.    A drastic measure and you tank doesn't look bad enough for it, is to run a UV sterilizer for a couple of weeks.  The down side is they can kill the good bacteria in your tank.   It will get better.

 

 

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  • 4 months later...

Hello,

 

here is some update.

It seems like GHA finally under control. There are few places where it still exist, but they not that much noticeable.

Nitrates are stable on 2-5ppm, phosphates  0.1-0.2ppm. Still dosing phosphates sometimes. 

What I've learned is low nutrients cause a lot of problems. But trying to keep them under control, so dosing carbo(NoPox) a little bit.

So I'm feeding corals and fishes more often now, 2-3 times per week. No reefroids, mainly frozen food mixed with some aminos.

Also I found that bigger weekly water changes makes my tank more happy. I do change  around 20% of water.

Luckily the tank survived my 1 month absence during the summer in semi-automated mode(friend of my changed 10% of water two times, but no other maintenance). But few of my SPSes died 😞

I have added an extra circ pump, but it takes a few weeks to tweak the flow to make corals happy. Still have a low flow zone in back right corner, probably need to buy one more tiny circ pump.

 

 

 

2021-09-20 11.19.26.jpg

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