at war with GHA

[yaserrahim]

well as i was told by someone on here that with new tanks i will get algae blooms within the first 8 months. well here's the 2nd bloom in my tank, it's GHA. i'll test my nitrates and phosphates later on.

i know that frequent water changes help reduce nitrates and phosphate. reduced light period also helps. but i also have a colt coral i was wondering if i leave the lights off for 2 days will it kill my coral as well?

i also read a tip somewhere that said try removing as much of the GHA from the rocks physically as possible and just net it and take it out of the tank. anyone tried this or know if it works?

i know a sea hare would eat that stuff like no tomorrow but i have no idea where i can get one near hamilton.

any other tips would be great, thanks.

[redbelly]

What is your phosphate reading?
What are you using for water?
Lights?
Skimmer?

[yaserrahim]

car was in the shop today so was unable to buy phosphate test.. will have that early tomorrow morning.
for the past 2 weeks i have been using RO water from the Water Depot in hamilton for water changes and top-off.
lights: coralife lunar aqualight, 1x65w 10k daylight, 1x65w royal blue actinic
skimmer: no skimmer.

[tskinner]

I also had a GHA prob.  Got my phosphates down to undectable by less feeding and cut my lights down to 12hr actinic and 10daytime.  I'm running an aqua c for skimmer, an 96w t5 for lights.  The rest I just picked off with my hands.  The astrea's and emerald crab and doing job getting rid of the rest if it.

[yaserrahim]

my breakout is not REALLY big but it is kinda big.
should i just try pickiing all or most of it out with my hands?

[Vallely4]

 ...unless the source of problems dealt with
kinda big can probably get to REALLY big pretty quick

Ask Groan   ....hehe

[yaserrahim]

haha yeah .. i went through his post when he had the RHA breakout.
he used sea hares to solve his problem but i don't know where i can get any around hamilton.

i left my lights of today, and i'm going to do a water change tomorrow and try to pick some/most of it off.

[groan]

I hope someone can tell u where to get a hare! He will do it for you.
In the end you will want to fix the problem. Adtwr the rha went away I got a briopsis outbreak. Manual removal of that is easy but frequent water changes are key.

[yaserrahim]

yes i've been tryin to do frequent water changes but have been too busy with work and everything else.
this week though, i plan on doing 2-5% water changes every two days.

[yaserrahim]

ok well i am now winning this war against the GHA.. well starting to win anyway.. some of it is gone i, scraped some more of it off and did a water change.
however, i found this puprplish layer stuff on my rocks and i can assure you it was not there last night.
anyone have any ideas what it is? good or bad? if bad how do i get rid of it?

[attachment deleted by admin]

[redbelly]

Looks like Cyano in the pic.

Try doing larger water changes than 2-5%.I would say a bare min of 10%.

[yaserrahim]

ya my regular weekly water changes were 10% but since i increased the frequence i thought too many water changes too quick might effect my livestock negatively.
my first guess was cyano too but i had a cyano break out a couple weeks ago and it looks nothing like that.

[yaserrahim]

what chan i do about the GHA on my sand?
i was thinking of getting an algae blenny.
or can i just scoop it out with a net or cup or something?

[greddy]

Try scooping it out, an algae blenny likely wont eat briopsis or H.A. though they will graze on alot of other stuff..I have a pink lip blenny and a lawnmower and sadly they leave my briopsis alone (what great herbivores). Currenlty I am trying multiple emerald crabs to hopefully clean up a few spots, soon we shall see. Also it cant hurt to run some phosguard products. Good luck