Scrubbing GHA

Can I scrubb my rock with a brush inside the tank?? My rock work is attached to each other and would be a huge mess to remove to scrubb. I have a "getting bigger" GHA issue. My thoughts are if I scrubb it in the tank it make the water bad and spread the GHA. It is going to turn it green. I have lost two Lawnmower Blenny, both died of what looked like stravation, they would'nt eat it. I have Turbos, Cheato, Red Mangroves and new T-5 bulbs. The tank is about 9 months old. What can I do??

 

scrubbing in the tank will spead it. pick out as much as you can, find the source, run GFO

 

It won't really spread, it's already there. Try to catch as much as you can because it will rot if it doesn't get picked up by filtration and release nitrates back into the tank.

If it's just a little bit, I would just scrub and not worry. If it's a lot, I'd scrub and do a WC.

I have a tooth brush I bought just for these purposes.



Past that, it's almost pointless if you don't ID the source of the problem. Was it the lights? You say they are new... like you saw the problem and got new lights?

I had similar and it took another 3 weeks after new bulbs before I started noticing GHA die off.

Lawnmower blenny's not eating it... 2 of them no less... are you positive it's GHA?

Past that, you may simply have an inadequate clean up crew. Folks see the large number and variety of snails I have and say it's overkill... No algae and no CuC die off, IMO, is not overkill.

I've got around 200 snails of around 8 different species in my 55 as a reference point.

 

but in that 200 a good number are dwarf cerths! dont run out and get 50 turbos. I have always felt turbo snails are inefective. The all seem to die in a couple months then find a spot i cant get to and rot so it not making things all that better. Just remember if you brush it all off the nutrients will break down and relsease back into the water collum. This is why I like the pick it out method

 

I have 5 small turbos, yes they are replacements, I think it is GHA, it is green and flowing like hair. I got my CUC from John @ ReefCleaners, and I have 100 or more differant type snails and blue leg crabs, I have a Sally Lightfoot also, at night my glass is covered with snails

 

a good number... yeah over half probably are dwarf ceriths. I have 0 turbos. But a rotting snail is just food for the rest of the CuC.

briopsis maybe? not sure if lawnmower will eat that or not

if you got what John recommended, then I'm confident your CuC is fine. Sounds like it is, I doubt this is your problem.

 

i am not stalking you, but i did read your build thread, actually why i joined this forum, plus that shirt you are wearing today doesn't go with the rest of that ensamble.

What is your feeding routine? How many fish?

 

the nutrients were probably there all along (phosphates and nitrates) and when you added the lights, it gave it fuel to grow and out-compete your other export methods... you'll have to export the nutrients out of the tank, but if you just do WC's, and the nutrients are trapped in the algae, then this won't work... you need to create a very low nutrient system and remove as much algae as you can. I used a sea hare to eat my algae, which worked well, while starving the algae of nutrients at the same time...

OH, and scrubbing will release thousands of spores into the tank that will generate new GHA. I recommend starving it before scraping it, as releasing the spores will cause it to get on EVERYTHING.

 

I had a serious derbesia outbreak in my 20G tank, and have one right now in my 12G. Lawnmowers won't touch the stuff. I just pulled and plucked at the stuff when I did my water changes. I would grab a chunk of the hair and let the tubing suck it up. I did this to prevent it from dying off and fouling the water. I didn't have corals in my 20G so I would pull the rocks out and scrub them in the bucket of old water. It was enough to keep from growing back. My 12G has the same problem now, but it started due to my RO/DI system being old and not giving me clean water. It's been a month since I got a new unit and the hair is dying off. I would suspect either overfeeding or source water contamination that is causing your GHA problems.

 

I used a sonic scrubber (Big Electric Toothbrush, featured here) Worked great, and I just let the filtration catch what came off. Too hard to chase it around the tank. Worked great, and did not cause it to spread.