GHA on rocks

So I have been destroying GHA over the past 6 months with good care and maintenance every week. I recently got a little lazy to see what happens if I don't do maintenance weekly and switched to about bi-weekly.

I notice GHA slowly grows on my rocks when I don't blast them with a baster. Is there a better way to cleaning these rocks? I can totally notice GHA growing where most of the crud enters the water column when I blast it. It's annoying to have to blast weekly...is that normal for you guys?

I guess my next step is GFO...if that would even help on the rocks...

 

For me blasting the rocks too much seemed to make things worse. Every time I blasted the rocks a fine layer of detritus would settle everywhere. Now I try to only blast a little detritus at a time and usually only when I see it collecting somewhere.

 

I have noticed some rocks, and areas tend to build ha, but in reality nutrients in your chemistry just make ideal areas grow. Try to step up your wc's and test and treat your nitrates, phosphates, etc. If you can do 30% wc's 3 weeks back to back and scrub and treat you will likely get a handle on things. I have a nice excerpt from Julian Sprung about HA I have posted on here. You likely cannot dose your way out of a chemistry imbalance.

 

I usually do 20% weekly, that is my schedule and yes I would get GHA, but nothing a little scrub with a toothbrush for 3 minutes around the rocks wouldn't cure. Just weird that waiting an extra week triples the GHA. I have decent flow too so when I blast its like a snowglobe and then super clear in an hour.

Would GFO even help if it's on the rocks?

 

yeah gfo would help a ton..regardless what tests say you have nitrates and phosphates that causing it..make sure your rodi water is reading 0..also you can run a gfo reactor, in a canister filter, hang on filter, or just stick it in your sump where a little flow is..reactors work the best and there not that expensive maybe 50$ shipped i could be off a little..i just use a cheap hang on filter with gfo and have never seen bad algae..i also do water changes every week..also if you just stick it in a filter, your going to need to change it pretty often until it sucks out most of the trates and phates, of course the less nitrates and phosphates in a way it lasts longer..i would say the if you have really clean water you could go longer changing it but people usually change it once a month..

yeah the more i read your post, i would get some gfo in there, and also cut back on your lights an hour or so..depending on your lighting schedule now..i cant remember if GHA is photosynthetic.

 

also you could just be a little overstocked and unless you do a couple water changes a week i dont think they will control the algae without some sort of phosphate/silicate removing media...i have a lawnmower blenny that has a huge bio load and if i didnt run gfo then i would have algae everywhere..he is the only reason i use it now.,,

 

Maybe I will just buy the media and dump it in my sock...I really dont want to have anything else hanging off the back nor can my sump support hang off back.

So would this make sense, run GFO for a couple weeks or until I need to change it, remove it and run it again in a few months unless I see a problem arise again? I test 0 nitrates and >.1 phosphate.

 

haha maybe that's my deal, lawnmower poop! it all started when I added that larda$$ hahaha

 

What i do to remove the cyano is that I use a small tub like the size of my pinky it takes longer to do a water change but I suck it up with that so it does not blast in my tank, it seems like if you blast it it would just seddle somewhere else and grow again, suction it up it works for me

 

yeah just run gfo in a sock, i use clearmax by fluval..its 8$ at petsmart for 3 10oz. socks..i would use one for a couple days, then take it and put a new one in and leave that for a week or so, then change it to the last one and that should last a little while..it just depends on how much trates and phates you have..you can keep scrubbing it off and blasting, as long as you have a skimmer it will stay in the water column and get sucked up..but i promise once you start using gfo it will get ten times better.. and yes my blenny is terrible with that too..ive started now feeding the other fish kinda by hand so not much fish mash gets to him..he gets a little but mainly spends ALL DAY LONG scraping coralline off rocks..but hes a great fish, could never get rid of him even though he is dirty..Its been thought about tho..