It's all we can see!!!!!! GHA

Any updates surfrgirl?

 

Well, we are slowly taking care of this GHA... We got a new skimmer because our other one grounded out, i suppose you could say The plug inn was fully submerged in our refugium which we didnt know, I heard noises coming from the wall of our bedroom which is the same wall that has the tank on it in the living room, so i went in the living room and opened the door to the tank and saw that the cord for the protein skimmer (that was plugged in the extension cord) was under water.. Thank god no fire started.. I never found out what the noise was though I still hear it:.. Anyway, we are doing water changes about every other day and we are waiting for our paycheck so we can start changing out the substrate to sand as well as get a phosphate reactor.. The GHA seams to have slowed down but its still growing like a weed.. This is very frustrating but we have patients and we are trying to do everything everyone has suggested (especially reefsparkys idea).. I cant wait to post about how we beat this battle...;D Sorry I havent updated you guys.. Oh yea, we ended up scraping the refugium because we couldnt get it to equalize with the tank.. We think if we had a bigger tank it would have worked out better..:-/ Hopefully with in the next two weeks we will have the substrate replaced with sand and hopefully things will start turning around some more.. Thank you guys for all your help and support... I hope to post really soon about how we finally beat this ugly stuff... (my husband says it ugly for sure now ;D lol)

 

GHA no fail solution:

Refugium with competing algae. For bad problems mix in one part caulerpa, (not as bad as everyone says, one part chaeto, one part ulva, and one part mangroves. 14 hour alternate photocycle.

Get a clean up crew. Chitons, limpets, turbos and hermits really like to eat this stuff.
Get a clean up crew that will eat the food source of this menace. Usually in little nooks and crannies. Small clean up crew members like dwarf ceriths, stomies, etc... are good for this detail work.

Help them help you - pull out as much as you possible can when you introduce the crew.

Works every time, assuming you get a crew that can handle the job.

 

a end to all you algae problems! go to reefcleaners and 500 cerith snails to your cart and for coupon code type in BOGO, i gaurentee you wont be able to see any more algae(or fish for that matter). that was for the lols

now real suggestions. if you can't get a handle on the GHA no matter what you can always take the rock out and put it in a covered and heated tub of saltwater for a month.

 

Update

Well this is an update on our algae issue.. We finally found the source.. well we think its the source.. It was the RO water we were using.. We used the RO that you get out of a machine.. So this is how we figured out it was the water...
When we first got this issue we new it was because my husband liked the GHA so he was topping off the tank with our tap water.. Thats when it all started.. So, I posted about it because it got out of control!! We took everyones advise and tried the best we could to follow what everyone was suggesting.. We got a new protein skimmer thinking that it would help.. Which it did for a few weeks... Then we added a refugium.. but we never got it to balance with our tank so we held off on that idea.. (we tried to make our own..) we will buy one that hangs off the back in the future.. Anyway, our next step was to cut back on the feeding.. We were and still am feeding a very small amount every other day.. At the same time we cut our lights to a total of 6hrs a day... Our algae was still growing like a weed.. We the upped our water changes from every 3 days to just about everyday.. That was when we were beginning to realize that our water has to be the issue bc the algae was growing really good once we upped our water changes.. So, with the lack of money we had to just deal with the GHA and just trim it every water change... We even scrubbed the rocks about once every other week... We went to visit our in laws that live in the Gigharbor Washington area and decided to look at all the fish stores in the area just for fun.. We found one in Lakewood Washington called "Aquarium Paradise".. and let me tell you.. It was paradise!! It was better going their than going to the zoo and seeing the saltwater fish.. They had over 2,000gal of worth of tanks.. Some were fresh but the majority of it was salt.. I was in heaven.. I wanted everything in that store.. Anyway, as we were talking to the owner we brought up our algae issue and told him what we have done and how long its been going on and that we think its our water source... He then suggested for us to use their water that he sold which was filtered ocean water.. We thought what the heck lets go for it.. It cant do anything worse then what we already have.. Well except kill everything.. The owner reassured us that this water is probably the best you can get.. He said he goes threw 1500-2000 a week.. He used it in his tanks at home and in the store.. So we had to wait tell we had more money to get the water.. About two weeks later we went over to that side of the MT. to visit the inlaws for the holidays again and went to the fish store with 18gal worth of buckets to get water... The owner filled them up and off we went.. When we came home we had to do a water change right away because we were gone for 6 days.. A few days after the water change with the new water the algae is now splitting up and turning color.. It is not bright green anymore.. It has a little yellow brown tint to it.. and our snails are finally eating it.. We will be doing another water change tomorrow with the new water.. Also, we have been topping off the tank with distilled water.. The only down side is that the Ph gets low.. So when we top off the tank we have to add a little buffer... but its worth it to say good bye to this nasty algae... Well that is the story.. I will post some pics in a few days.. Thank you guys for your help!!! I really hope that this is the end of the GHA battle!!

 

Glad that you found the problem, hope everything goes smoothly from now on.

 

Cool, it's always great when we discover the reason for our tank issues. I take it you now may be thinking about not employing the Phos reactor. If so, I suggest you still use it. Look at it as an insurance against any phosphate that may get in to the tank. Not only that, but it will take a lot of water changes (which I suggest you spread out over a couple of months to allow everything to acclimate) to totally displace all of the current (phosphate loaded) water. Your rock will hold some phosphate also and leech it back to the tank so a reactor is one of the best pieces of equipment any tank can utilize.