Grrr, Persistant Green Hair Algae

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Ingy

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May 16, 2012
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Comox, BC, Canada
I have been battling GHA for some time now, and I cannot find the cause!

The tank is a 110 gal XH with a 40 gal sump. I do 20% WC weekly and I was feeding every 3 days, I cube or a few shrimp pellets. The tank is not heavily stocked, with 1 Tomini Tang (about 3"), 6 Cardinals, 1 GSpotted Mandarin, 1 Perc Clown and 2 Cromis. 1 pep shrimp, 1 Skunk Cleaner and a number of hermits, turbos and Nassarius snails. I'm no longer feeding that often and they get food about every 4-5 days. Except for anyone who wants to eat the algae of course (happy tang). Corals include Sunset Monti, Galaxea, Pagoda Cup, mushrooms and Palys all doing very well. Hammer, Favia, Zoas, Horn and Trumpet are slowly dying. My Frogspawn was growing like mad, then after I went thru a major tank reorg, while trying to remove the algae, it rather quickly died.

Lights are a 4xT5HO with brand new Geissmann bulbs, but the whites are off right now. so the Actinic Plus are on 10 hrs a day. The skimmer is a SRO-2000 pulling out the cup of skimmate every 3 days or so. Cheato is growing very well (and pruned back every week during WC) and I have PhosGuard in the reactor. A while ago I changed salt to Fluval Sea Pro, but that has caused a rather significant drop in my Alk which I just noticed. I have it up to 7.0 from 6.5 ten days ago and am dosing Alk buffer every other day to get it back up. I blame the salt for that as I am not heavily stocked on corals, and before the salt change I was running around 9-11dKH. After this bucket is gone, I'll switch back to AquaVitro or something else. Dosing until then, and more frequent checks too.

As for the rest of the numbers, here goes;
Temp - 79-81
Amm, Trites, Trates all 0 with 2 different test kits
pH - 8.3
Alk - 7.0dKH :blink:
Salnity - 1.0252 (digital probe)
Calc - 400 (up very slightly from my normal 360-380)
Phosphates - 0 (Hanna Checker, and liquid test)
Mag - 1500 (I have been raising it lately from 1300-1350 to try to kill algae)
Iodine and Silicates both at 0 as well, but I'm trying to dose Iodine up a bit)

The algae is mainly a GHA, but it is everywhere. Plus some Geledium, or Red Turf Algae.

So, any ideas as to where the nutrients are coming from, because I'm not putting very much into the tank and I'm pulling a fair amount of cheato out.:banghead:

If I cant find the cause I'm afraid I'll have to pull most of my rocks out and put them in covered tubs and leave them for a few months to "cure" the algae out. I'm not looking forward to doing that.:hide:

Help
Ingy

edit: Water is RO/DI checked at 0TDS
 
Old bulbs? Plus the tank will read no phosphates or nitrates because the hair algae will be consuming them so you may still have a source of phosphates or nitrates. Plus the dying corals flesh could be causing a nitrate problem that the algae is absorbing. My last gha outbreak I took the rocks out one by one and scrubbed them with a toothbrush in my water change waste water to preserve as much bacteria as I could. Once cleaned I out it back in and grabbed another. I did this for a few hours until I had cleaned all 300 lbs of rock in my tank. This method kept as much free floating gha out of the tank as possible. I also went to a 100 micron filter sock to catch as much detritus as possible and doubled the flow rate of my power heads for a couple weeks to blow loose any detritus trapped in the tank or rocks. I spiked my magnesium to 1850ppm with kent tech-m over the course of a month without water changes to keep for dropping my mg levels. I have been 6 months now without hair algae in my tank. The corals and fish didn't like the super heavy flow but it did the truck with getting the algae to fade away. Only other option would be to remove the corals into another tank and blackout the tank until the algae goes away and then tackle the underlying problem. I used rock other than calcium carbonate once and found out it was leaching phosphates into the tank so that might also be an avenue to look at.


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Old bulbs? Plus the tank will read no phosphates or nitrates because the hair algae will be consuming them so you may still have a source of phosphates or nitrates. Plus the dying corals flesh could be causing a nitrate problem that the algae is absorbing. My last gha outbreak I took the rocks out one by one and scrubbed them with a toothbrush in my water change waste water to preserve as much bacteria as I could. Once cleaned I out it back in and grabbed another. I did this for a few hours until I had cleaned all 300 lbs of rock in my tank. This method kept as much free floating gha out of the tank as possible. I also went to a 100 micron filter sock to catch as much detritus as possible and doubled the flow rate of my power heads for a couple weeks to blow loose any detritus trapped in the tank or rocks. I spiked my magnesium to 1850ppm with kent tech-m over the course of a month without water changes to keep for dropping my mg levels. I have been 6 months now without hair algae in my tank. The corals and fish didn't like the super heavy flow but it did the truck with getting the algae to fade away. Only other option would be to remove the corals into another tank and blackout the tank until the algae goes away and then tackle the underlying problem. I used rock other than calcium carbonate once and found out it was leaching phosphates into the tank so that might also be an avenue to look at.


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Brand new bulbs. Top quality too. I understand about the nutrients being locked up and agree. Dying corals could be lending to the problems, but I doubt I have enough for that to be the total cause. Not looking forward to trying the rock cleaning thing again. Did that once, but it came back. **** I need to find the cause. I did the isolation technique last Xmas but it came back. That's when I started having coral health issues. This time I'll isolate the rocks in bins and cure with covers. then I'll leave fish and corals in the DT. I'll have to build racks for the corals.
I doubt the rocks are leaching as I bought this system used and he had no algae at all.

Grrr.


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Might want to try phosphate again with a different test, it would be very difficult for GHA to thrive with no phosphate or nitrate. You could add a lettuce nudibranch, he will take care of it


Aquariums are ecosystems we are privileged to own, and should be treated with the full level of care we can supply
 
I agree, alk needs to be higher. Just raise it slowly as a big change can kill corals. The algae needs nutrients to grow. Period. No nutrients, no algae. I agree your tests look good because the algae grows fast enough to bind up whatever is available immediately.
Even then it's pretty hard to get a 0.00ppm of P4 on a Hanna. I work like mad to keep it around 0.05ppm.

Coral deteriorating, or die off in the live rock can certainly spike a algae grow out. I suggest continuing water exchanges, reduce feeding, maybe lower photoperiod a bit. Remove as much algae as you can physically. Every handful represents a significant amount of organics you don't want in the tank. Fish and snails just recycle those organics.

Phosgard or GFO in a efficient reactor should scrub those phosphates down and starve the algae.

What color is the liquid from the skimmer? 1 cup every 3 days on a 120 gallon system may be a little light. If it's chocolate brown you might go for more skim and shoot for a dark yellow.


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Phosphates tests. I have tried less accurate tests, and both read 0 as far as I can tell, but they were both less accurate than the Hanna test. When I first set up the tank in Nov 2012, I had phosphates between 0.06 and 0.1 on the Hanna test for about 4 months. Its been zero ever since (over a year). I'm working on getting my Alk back up since I switched salts. Even with the 20% WC every weekend I'm still adding 25 ml Kent Part B every 4 days and its still only up to 7.8 dKH (3.0 meq/l) in about 2 weeks. I'm gonna add it every 2 days until I get 3.5 meq/l or better. Corals do seem happier tho, since I've been raising it.
Whites are off and I'll reduce the actinics to 6 hours and hope. Fish haven't been fed in 4 days. Well, except for GHA salad.
Skimmate is a green tea color, not too dark, and I meant the collection cup, vice 8 oz.
Reactor is running Phosguard, turning nicely.
 
How old is the system since you set it up? Most tanks go thru a algae stage. I use a ATS and algae is my main filtration.


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Its been up (at my place) for about 18 months. But I bought the system used (1 yr old) and transferred everything, and used a couple 30 gal QTs while I recycled it at home. He had it FOWLR, but he had everything he needed for a reef setup.
 
I agree that algae needs nutrients to grow but it is accelerated with abundant light and water acidity. You do not want to remove all the nutrients at the expense of other beneficial algae and corals. It is a matter of balancing and not to affect much of your stuff. I would do the most simple process of elimination.
 
If you feed the fish, at all, you are adding nutrients the corals can utilize. But as said, it's a balancing act if you want levels low enough to starve algae yet not starve the photosynthetic corals.


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For now the obvious IMO is the acidity and the light duration. If your phosphate reading is accurate and reliable to be negligible or undetectable then you are accelerating the hair algae efficiency to absorb whatever nutrients you have that there is nothing left for your media to absorb.
 
I hear you on the hair algae ingy. I have red in my tank along with a spot of cyano.
Like you, almost no phosphates and 0 off of nitrates. That is because it is being consumed, like Greg mentioned.
So, what to do?
Cut back on your lighting schedule if you can.
Cut back on feeding, I'm currently doing a half cube of mysis 3 times a week currently - down from a full cube. It probably cost my green mandarin it's life...but hindsight is 20/20 at this point sadly.
See if you can adjust your skimming to get more out of your water.
Increase water changes with ro/di water.
Double check TDS on your Ro/di to ensure a reading of 0.
 
I absolutely hate starving my fish. These guys eat continuously and have evolved to have little food storage capability. Especially herbivores. I made the decision long ago to add whatever filtration was necessary so I could feed daily.

I doubled the protein skimming by adding another skimmer. I run a 22 year old ATS, have a refugium and have a big Phosgard reactor. All that and I can have fat fish and SPS.


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I absolutely hate starving my fish. These guys eat continuously and have evolved to have little food storage capability. Especially herbivores. I made the decision long ago to add whatever filtration was necessary so I could feed daily.


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If it was an option on my end, I probably would. Everyone else is in a good space, just keeping up with the constant feeder that a mandarin is wasn't happening...at least that is what I believe.
 
I hear that, not everyone has a fish room to hold all this stuff. But stock according to your systems capabilities, right?


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I hear that, not everyone has a fish room to hold all this stuff. But stock according to your systems capabilities, right?


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Always. But, I'm also probably one of the few using distilled water from Walmart running a reef tank. Took awhile for the algae growth to bother me again. Some growth is ok in a display, but it can become overbearing if not monitored. For the weeks going up to my wedding, as an example, the algae wasn't and even a cyano bloom returned. It killed some of the tissue on my orange plate coral and the hair algae grew over a birds nest frag.

The point here is that algae always needs watched and if it is getting out of hand, utilize the steps listed above to engage in a long battle with it.
 
I hope you agree with this statement taken from the same source I posted earlier.

"More alkalinity is necessary to create a stable water environment with a neutral pH balance, according to the University of Rhode Island. When water contains a higher alkalinity level it means that the water is able to neutralize more acidic compounds, such as algae, in order to maintain a more suitable living environment for aquatic animals and plants. Lower levels of alkalinity, however, cause acid to build up in a water environment, thereby skewing the pH balance towards a more acidic level, which inspires the growth of algae."

Read more : PH Alkalinity for Growing Algae | eHow
 
I have 150 gal and a 28 gal nano and I dose both with the same ratio of baking soda in a ro/di ato to maintain my alkalinity to 9 dKH. As a reference I mix 1/2 tsp of baking soda per gal of ro/di. If one has to raise alk gradually from 7 dKH, a good start would be just increasing the ratio a little bit more gradually while taking daily readings. But before you do that, the mag should be at 1300 or above.
 
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