GHA driving me NUTS!!!

Tank is 3 months old.

Water params are good. Nitrate 0, Phosphates 0 dKH 9, Calcium 440, etc etc

55 gal with 40 gal sump
100 lbs LR.

Lights on 9 hrs / day

Only live stock is 2 damsels and a CUC of hermits and snails and such
Very light feeding.


AND MY TANK IS COVERED WITH Green Hair Algae.

What am I doing wrong?

M

 

ro/di?

 

are you using RO/DI water? It could help to get some algae eating fish, my foxface does a real good job of keeping any algae in check. also a fuge will help, the calupra out competes the GHA for nutrients. Its best to figure out why your getting it though, rather then just getting something to clean it up for you. A lot of times its from using tap water, or sand with silicates, or need to change filters on RO/DI unit.

Dan

 

could be nromal since its a prety new tank, my tank did the same around that age..

 

Sorry, should have said more...

Yes, using RO/DI.
Yes, fuge with chaeto. I just trimmed the chaeto yesterday to encourage it to grow more. Fuge light on opposite cycle of mains.

M

 

since you have no corals, I would cut way back on the lighting in the DT, maybe more lighting in the fuge to encourage the cheato to grow and discourage the gha. now is a good time to take care of it because there is no corals yet. I've had good luck with lettuce nudibrocks also, but they are short lived, and seem to always find their way to a powerhead. not sure what other cuc members eat the stuff. I don't think I will ever let my tank go without a foxface, he even eats the bubble algae.

good luck with it, I know its way discouraging

Dan

 

do you have good surface agitation on the display tank and enough overall flow in the display tank to hinder the growth?

 

I just started my new 110g and only have the lights on for 4/hours a day. That prevents the buildup of the algea.... Just be patient... that's always the best advice.

 

As noted, hair algae has three main components, Light, Phosphates and Nitrates. Often times when testing for these during an outbreak you test a false reading – basically the algae is consuming the excess nutrients at the same rate of production. The simple fact that the algae is present in your system tells us that you have excess nutrients.

First off, get into the tank and yank it out, as much as possible every time it begins to grow yank it out….your refugium should do the rest. Test your RO/DI water, focus on feeding, are you feeding too much? New tank so the light spectrum should be good. You should try and identify the source of the excess nutrients and resolve it. IN the meanwhile, diligently cleaning the DT will lead to the hair algae moving to your refugium.

 

At just three month of age any type of algae is not a issue and you are in store for more outbreaks of different types . What you need to do is get the nutrient levels under control install a PO4 reactor and a NO3 coil and make sure you have these level maintained at the lowest possible readings .

Also at just 3 months the system is not really cycled and I'd spend some time gathering up info on controlling algae , Most people over feed for some reason I find then add far to many fish far top soon in a rush to get the system fully stocked and never allowing for time so the denitrifying bacteria can catch up to reduce the ammonia and NO2 to simple NO3 so the NO3 coil can remove this gas . All 3 of these gases are great algae food sources .

Feeding is also a huge problem fish rush their aquariums when they see the humans walking near and the humans become trained by the fish to think the fish are starving and to get fed and 99% of the time it works I myself go days with out feeding anything for the fish..

I'd worry about as I mentioned getting the NO3 and PO4 under control and make sure the lamp bulbs are of proper spectrum and fresh enough and not shifted on color . Watch the feeding and get the problem under control at its root cause rather then to fight a problem you can not find the cause of.. Or you will be chasing this for ever and again at just 3 months its all in the game for the first 2 yrs .