LFS advice on algea

Spyd · #1 10-10-2013, 02:35 PM

The problem is you are comparing plants to corals... I have not heard of corals extracting ammonia in a clean system unless they are dying off.

Why not test for ammonia and see if you have anything there. It is possible your medicating killed off a lot of your bacteria and will just take time to re-colonize.

I run a ULNS and have not seen any signs of GHA. Cyano is definitely an issue with carbon dosing. Stirring up your sandbed will help that. Also, blowing off your rocks once a week is good housekeeping to prevent any food, etc from decaying and producing the PO4 needed for the GHA. I use MB7 along with my bio-pellets to keep cyano in check. Does it work? I think so... But, when add more pellets to the system to replaced the ones used up, I find I have to be very careful. Too many pellets and I will see signs of cyano. Carbon dosing can be tricky to not over dose it.

Reef Pilot · #2 10-10-2013, 02:57 PM

I believe GHA is related more to P04 than N03. I recently (summer) combined 2 tanks into one sump. One of the tanks had high P04 (over 1.0) and now my other "clean" tank has started to show some GHA. I run both biopellets (for several years) and GFO, but my while my N03 stayed at zero, my P04 is still around 0.10 (although dropping now) with the combined tanks.

I have beat GHA before by running GFO, and it took a while at zero P04 before it finally let go. So it seems that it does not take a lot of P04 to get GHA happening.

Good news with my tank, is that GHA is now starting to subside again, which seems to be coinciding with my P04 dropping. I just need to keep doing my weekly toothbrush routine on the rocks, to be sure detritus doesn't get trapped and feed the GHA.

The ironic thing, though, is that my other previously high P04 tank has no GHA problem, despite having less internal flow and live rock that was saturated with P04 (presumably). So I can't say that I totally understand what causes or mostly fuels GHA. It could also be because of the foxface and kole tang I have in there. However, I do have a yellow tang in the tank where I do the problem, and he does spend all day picking at algae (lots of green poop, too,...LOL).

saltyair · #3 10-10-2013, 04:03 PM

Totally agree that GHA does feed off it's self by trapping waste - I will start blowing off rock effected (just one big one and one small one) It's not over taking the tank just looks bad in spots.

some great observations and thoughts.

Reading from aquarium corals - by Borneman
Average coral reefs tested NO3 - .25ppm
Average PO4 - .13ppm

Page 396
Algae growth in relation to nutrients and grazing
Low nutrients = coral growth (high grazing) filamentous algae growth
High nutrients = coralline algae / macroalgae

Madreefer · #4 10-10-2013, 06:19 PM

There is alot of mixed reviews on Melafix. Alot of postings saying that it killed things from corals to snails. Others swear by it. I'm thinking it killed something in your rocks which are still leaching out the PO4 which is being consumed by your hair algae. A freind and myself watched his tank crash before our eyes for some strange reason one day. He had a massive hair algae outbreak that lasted for 2 years. He tried everything possible to help beat it, which Dearth mentioned. Nothing at all worked and it would just get worse. Only thing that seemed to work is putting the rocks in a seperate container and letting sit for months while changing the water in the container weekly. That tank has since been shut down but another member on here has the rocks and it looks as though the hair algae is now gone. Good luck, sorry to say but it's goin to be a battle. And it will never disappear overnight as mentioned.

saltyair · #5 10-11-2013, 01:03 PM

Oh I did get a GHA outbreak in the first year the 180 was set up. It took 6 weeks before it was all gone. This is the first time it has shown again (after the melflex) I agree it has something to do with the medication. I have noticed over the last few days that it is starting to turn white and die.
still carbon dosing and using gfo/carbon.

The LFS did make me think - it's not super crazy once I read aquarium corals by:Borneman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Madreefer

There is alot of mixed reviews on Melafix. Alot of postings saying that it killed things from corals to snails. Others swear by it. I'm thinking it killed something in your rocks which are still leaching out the PO4 which is being consumed by your hair algae. A freind and myself watched his tank crash before our eyes for some strange reason one day. He had a massive hair algae outbreak that lasted for 2 years. He tried everything possible to help beat it, which Dearth mentioned. Nothing at all worked and it would just get worse. Only thing that seemed to work is putting the rocks in a seperate container and letting sit for months while changing the water in the container weekly. That tank has since been shut down but another member on here has the rocks and it looks as though the hair algae is now gone. Good luck, sorry to say but it's goin to be a battle. And it will never disappear overnight as mentioned.