How To Beat Green Hair Algae: Saltwater Aquarium
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- Опубліковано 22 сер 2024
- / reefergil
This video will go over how I defeated green hair algae or GHA in my saltwater aquarium. The green hair algae breakout occurred after I accidentally left the auto feeder on for an entire week, dumping massive amounts of food into the saltwater tank during the aquarium cycle process. Once I turned on my Kessil H380 light and Radion G4 LED lights, the algae grew like a weed. Watch how I ultimately defeated the GHA and won the battle.
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haha, loved the comment "how many of your spouses would do that?" she's a keeper ;) and deserves some flowers and chocolate for that for sure :)
Gil, I can't thank you enough for this video, and it came at such a serendipitous time for me. I, too, have been struggling with GHA in my nano reef tank and watching your video made me realize that I inadvertently did the exact same thing in my system. About 6 weeks ago I moved to a new house and moved the tank as well. During the move I threw out my old substrate and replaced with new. At the time I had no visible algae in the tank at all, and with clean new substrate I was afraid my cleanup crew would starve. As a result, I intentionally overfed the tank for two weeks trying to make sure I was providing enough nutrient/detritus for my cleanup crew to eat. As a result, I overloaded the nutrients in my tank, and just like you, I never tested anything more than 0 for nitrates and phosphates. Then, two weeks later...BAM...green hair algae explosion.
Your video gives me confidence that I'm on the right track to fixing it, though. I've boosted my cleanup crew, reduced my feeding, knocked back my lighting schedule a bit, and am using NoPoX to help bind and export nutrients in the water column through wet skimming. Now, after 3 weeks of fighting inch-long patches of green hair algae with a toothbrush, I seem to finally be making progress. Thanks again for your video!
That's totally awesome Noel. If you don't have any corals, I would knock the lights off completely. Once the algae is all gone then turn them on for only a couple hours a day. Keep a close eye on any possible returning GHA. Thanks for your post!
I'm lucky with water changes as I live in western Australia, 10mins from ocean so I just go and fill up 5x 20 ltr containers and all I need to do is add a eater thermostat before I do a change.
Can't believe we missed this video - just now found it. Great overview of this stunning tank and the planning that went into this build is simply amazing. Glad to see that it all paid off. Great job @ReefergGil
Thank you very much. I had to shut it down for a couple of months. Restarted it yesterday.
sorry to hear that - glad you got it back up and running though
it also looks like my comment got posed on the wrong video - meant to post it on your tank overview video. The intro on this one is hilarious :-D
@@vivid.creative.aquatics haha... thanks
That intro killed me😂 Great video.
Haha, I couldn't resist!
Then how did you post this comment? :O ghosts?
great video. Im a rookie and I had a little green hair on the back of my biocube. I thought it would be a good idea to clump it all together and throw it in chamber 2 on the bioballs next to my intank basket....im thinking now this was not a good idea lol.
Mine was water change, bristle tooth tang and algae Blenny, just let them go to work and some trimming here and there was gone in two weeks!
Great documentation for beginner reefers. Great video!
vikinglord13 Thank you very much!
Great video Gil! That rock work looks amazing all clean! Thanks for great content, look forward to it every Sunday!
Ah shucks Logan... thanks man!
I have used every method you can think of with GHA. The only one that worked was a Fluconozole treatment and it works amazingly well. 95% of mine was gone within 3 days with the other 5% whiting out and dieing off within about a week. Each treatment is 14 days. I did two just to make sure it was all eradicated. I had zero loss of coral, inverts, or fish. In that month long period I filtered the water through a 1 micron, not 100 micron, filter sock that is used in water processing plants, once a week with a 25% water change. That sock is small enough in microns to catch all the algae that dies off and floats into the water column as this is important. I disconnected my skimmer during the month long treatment and stopped running carbon and gfo during the treatment.
The tank I did the treatment on is mostly a soft coral tank with some LPS. If I keep the Nitrates at 5 or lower, most of the soft coral will start going south in terms of health. If I run the Phosphates below .08, they will start going south as well. I have to keep the tank at 10 with the Nitrates. And I have to keep the Phosphates over .08. Obviously this is a conundrum because if you keep the values too low in order to stop algae growth, your corals do poorly. If you keep them at higher levels, your corals thrive but you are open to GHA. Many reefers would say my levels are high at 10 Nitrates and .08 Phosphates. I even tried doing as many say with ultra low levels, meaning less than 5 Nitrates and .04 or less Phosphates and my corals did poorly.
I have basically come to the conclusion that you are going to have some algae with a soft coral tank...either that or corals that look like they are dieing. I often find that the people saying to run ultra low values are keeping SPS and giving out that "low nutrient" advice based on that. And even those people have issues still. I now do a Fluconozole treatment every 3 months and never see a trace of it.
Hey Travis, thank you for sharing all of this awesome info. You're correct in that those who strive to have ULN likely have SPS corals. Keeping ULN makes it easier to manage dosing trace elements without causing other issues like GHA. I am actually going to try my hand at keeping a nano with some softies. Like you said, I am NOT going to shoot for ULN in the softy tank. From what I've seen and read, they do best with nutrients in the water, but there is a balance to prevent nuisance algae from growing. We shall see how my adventure goes.
Great video Gil and it goes to show no matter how long your in the hobby you never stop learning. I am dealing with a similar issue and may look into urchins to supplement my cleaner crew. I don't want to add the Seahare though because I am not ready to go there yet.
Honestly, I think the urchins do more work. Sea Hare was more like a lawnmower, leaving short GHA stalks, while the urchins actually pulled it out making the rock clear again.
All that alge in the sump is a good thing.
good video dude. that's one reason i don't use automated anything in my tank. i feed manually. good work on the gha issue. i almost bought a seahare but didn't want them dying when done. hydrogen peroxide worked perfectly in less than a week for me.
I was considering adding Reef Flux, but in the end, the GHA died off with intervention. Glad you got your situation under control too.
Theories and personal experience recommends not to do water change. A potent skimmer and eventual dosing should be adequate. Nerite snails will wreck remaining
Display Tank
Display Refugium
Total Main Display
My friend you have done a work of art there of course everything is A MAIN DISPLAY for everyone to admire.
Thanks Cuban, have you tried that laser?
ReeferGil last night as a matter fact, is good actually, works good in my opinion, the glasses are what I don’t like, but I will sand them a little on the edges to see if it gets better. But overall works good, am actually surprised for the price I paid and it works good , Melevs did a review on this laser and he recommended 100%
Great to know, thanks Cuban!
Great video Gil sorry your having GHA issues but looks like you have it well under control great job buddy as always love your build process
Hey American, really appreciate having you on board!
Geat video bro kep. Them coming very helpful. Can you plz share what size heater you're using as I will be upgrading to a 120gl. And hate use those heaters that show in the back of my display tank thanks in advance be safe
Great video good to see you were victorious.
Thanks Arrick!
Gil this was a great video. I wish it was out before I ghost fed my tank during setup. I tried and experienced almost everything you mentioned and finally had to take out the rock and either dry out or treat with 35% peroxide. I added 4 tangs which are constantly picking at the rocks. Fingers crossed 🤞🏾 .
Yea, never again with automated ghost feeding... never again ghost feeding all together. can't wait to get my tangs, thanks for sharing!
That is a well told story! Wonder how manu appreciate the time and thought put into all the video, and editing, spanning a few months
Hey Laminar, it's hours and hours a week. From work, I go straight to working on a video for about 2 hours a night. On my days off, I spend hours. Thank you very much for noticing!
Nom nom nom nom nom ... That was hilarious 🤣. Glad you got everything all dialed in . I dump it in the sink also ... shhh 🤫
LMAO, she was home when I made the video. The sink is way more convenient.
Well done Gill!! 😀
Thank you Paul!
Great information! Loved your video as usual!
Thanks Kate 👋
Fight the good fight RG! I'm going to have to come up with strategies to inspire my wife to stick her hand in my tank and clean GHA. You definitely have a keeper : )
LMAO, I'll be sure to share this comment with her. Thanks buddy!
Great video! Keep them coming!!!
Will do sir, thank you!
Terrific job Gil. As I mentioned to you earlier on your IG thread, we're dealing with the same problem but so far it's online in our display refugium. It's not been in the diplay tank but I'm constantly watching for signs of algae growing there. I pulled the slim marine pure plates out of the display refugium but left the larger 8x4 block in the sump. I was concerned that taking it out might cause a severe reduction in beneficial bacteria. Did you quarantine any of the cleanup crew? I read that it should take about 45 days to properly QT them which doesn't help my GHA issues.
Hey Tim, I recall that post on IG. Yes, you should QT everything, but the fact is most of us don't have room for a dedicated fish only QT and a invert/coral QT. As you know, once you use copper in your fish QT you can not then use it for inverts and corals, they will die, So you'd need a second tank set up for those. To answer your question, I do not QT inverts and corals. But, we all should if we have the space and money for two QTs. good luck on your GHA, thanks for the post!
LMAO on the sink with the skimmate. My wife gets on me too.
HAHAHA, she was home, otherwise I would have used the sink!
Great video and congratulation battle Won.
Thanks Feroz, fingers crossed.
Vibrant.
Yea, I ended up doing a reboot. I post daily on Instagram if you're interested.
I only feed by hand twice a week on my tank. Great video ! 👌🏽
Good good move, that's the way to do it.
What an amazing tank!
Hey Jason, thank you.
great video Gil. its amazing how people always troll away. nothing better to do i guess. Anyway, great video and i just subbed.
Thank you very much, much appreciated!
Lol! Who knew dumping the skimmer cup in the sink was gross, but rinsing cat food cans in the sink is fine. That's the logic I deal with.
I got a great laugh off of your comment! Thanks for sharing, hahaha.
Very nice vid.
Thank you.
Very helpful, I am a freshwater shrimp guy but string algae is the bain of my life, I cant keep any mosses because they just get filled with string algae.
What a bummer Mark, that's got to be really frustrating. Love those freshwater shrimp, super cool!
Looking getting in to reef tank. I've been doing fresh water aquarium for 3 years and still learning. Didn't know reef tank could have green hair alge as well. Wondering if ultra life blue green slime would work for salt water? It worked like magic for my fresh water aquarium.
Hi great video mate education and very nice clean sump 👍
Sylvester Chwala Thank you sir!
So what do you do after defeating the algae? Do you increase the time the lights are on or do you leave them as low as possible?
Great video again !!
Hey K, hope you're doing great!
ReeferGil yes everything perfect! Thank you. 😉👊
I had that same problem before it was a pain to get it cleared up. Make sure your not giving the tank to much light!!!!! How long are you keeping your lights on for?
RON!!! Hey, so I keep only the left radion on for about 4 hours a day at only 30% intensity and the refugium light on for about 3 hours a night. I'm seeing some diatom on the left side of the tank, but no more green algae for the time being. Now get started on a build!
Nice video Mr reefer, yes sea hares are a winner when it comes to hair algae only thing is they poo like crazy. My last one laid eggs never Hatch due to the hunger of the fish. I had 1 small sea Hare die in the hole of the rock and I couldn't get out, yes Mr reefer he was left and my tank was still good guess I was lucky. Fyi keep up with water change and and clean off what ever you can. Happy reefing 👀👊
Hey Sheem, thank you very much. Not sure if you've tried these urchins, but theyre boss too
Wonderfully descriptive and on point buddy. Great video, shame you didn't make it 3 months ago when i started my GHA battle so i wouldn't have torn half my tank down and bleached half the rocks lol I've almsot got it under control I think (with some help from flucanazole). I will do an update on it soon, its long overdue.
I bought some Reef Flux, but didn't use it. Sorry to hear about your situation, but hopefully you have it under control now.
ReeferGil getting there thanks. I think. 🤔🤔
Great video I'm in the same boat, although I only have hair algae in my refugium. I had already planned to do exactly what you had done. Ps have you considered a tomini tang? They are small and eat algae like crazy.
Ill check out the Tomini, thanks for the tip. Best of luck with your GHA, hopefully it says put in your refugium.
Thanks for sharing ill show this to my husband
Awesome, thank you!
Are you cheato planting in the sump in future again? Looking great
Hey ReefDVMs! Yes sir, I have a ball of new chaeto in there now. Only 3 hours of light at night though.
LOVE the intro...num num num
That's exactly what he sounded like, lol
I really needed that today
Great video, great info for us newbees....but tell me this.....what did you mean when you said that you set your skimmer to run “wet” ? Not familiar with that term. Thanks again.
Good question. A wet skim means adjusting the skimmer so the collection cup fills up with small bubbles, thus filling up the collection cup faster with lighter colored water, vs dry skimming where the skimmer cup fills up with foam and dark brown mucky water. Hope that makes sense.
ReeferGil .....yes it does....thanks for replying
@@rdkingjaxfla1423 I try to reply to all. Thanks!
Also there is such a thing as algal succession in reef tanks
Great Info Bud
You changed your avatar... Thanks for the comment Dave!
good Video ReeferGil excellent info the wife must have told you it was gross to put fish poop in the sink. My wife told me the same thing.....LMAO
HAHAHA, so funny how the same "No No's" carryover into every reefer's households!
It was that refuge light , I think there is only an off or on.? No adjustment of power!
Yea, sort of sucks like that. Dare I say it's too bright...
Haha! Great vid. Hopefully that awful algae is gone FOREVER!!🔥🔥
Finger's crossed!
hey bud.. Do you still have the sea urchin? I have same issue now and was thinking getting a algae blenny but not sure thats going to be enough
I haven't done a video on it, but I had to do a complete teardown. Almost walked away from the hobby all together. Got Marine Velvet, killed my fish including my clownfish. Need to do an update. Restarted and recycled my system. No GHA on second run. Follow me on Instagram for daily updates. ReeferGil
thanks very helpful
Could u not have dosed with fluconazole I had bryopsis outbreak came in on a coral I dosed it killed it all sure it works for gha too
By the time I grabbed some to use, I was dealing with a velvet outbreak. Ended up tearing down the tank and restarting. Restart has no signs of GHA.
Where the tang gang at man ?
Reduce the light intensity, add an algae powered bio-filter and don't freak out about one of the more beautiful algaes you can have in an aquarium if properly managed.
Great advice
Nice work glad u got rid of it
Thank you.
Thanks so much man
It was a nightmare
LMAO, I didn't know pouring tank water in the sink was gross either, my wife educated me on that!! And she never wants her Tupperware back either...weird!
Semisuccessful Reefer Non Reefers just dont make sense!
thankyou !
Have you ever tried a 3 day blackout?
I did a video on that when I had dino 👍
there is no fix science. whatever helps. do it. keep aquarium tidy feed less frequent water change is the only solution
Right on, thanks Sultan.
That woman is a keeper. You had better take her to dinner at least for that.
Haha, you're not kidding. She's definitely a keeper!
what sump is that
Hey... it a custom sump from Zero Edge Aquariums.
Or you could have let it burn itself out and save yourself a lot of work and money. I would have let it grow until it sucked up all available nutrition in tank and then manually removed
No way I could have handled watching that processes, but it's an option. The money and effort are worth it to me, but I know I only speak for myself. Thanks for the post!
Tangs should be the first fish Gil convicts are workhorses
Adam Pape They can be too territorial. I went with shier fish first. Tangs are next though.
Your tech is amazing, you must have spend a shit ton of money on your reef.
Yes sir, and now I'm selling it all, LOL
@@ReeferGil :o why? are you going to stop with the hobby?
@@00Mass00Marine Velvet wiped me out. Hard to find the passion again.
👊👍
Thanks Rico!
Algae scrubber?
No, I hate clutter. Rebooted my system a couple of months ago after I lost all of my fish to Velvet. Version 2 has zero GHA.
جميل
Thank you?
WHy no knew vids?
I took the summer off, lol. Update to come. Thanks!
Too much shit for GHA
Too much rock... also, why do you do all this work for your tank but don’t auqascape something decent instead of a pile of rubbish?
Actually was planning or redoing my aquascape. Can I send you my blueprints for your approval?
This is how you run a reef when money is not a factor. This is not helpful.
Freeyourmind Not sure what you mean. I used coupons to purchase the Mr Clean sponge.