GHA victory sans phosphate reactor?

[SaltyDog89]

Has anyone ever been victorious in beating out GHA without a phosphate reactor?



My newly cycled 65 gallon tank (0ammonia, 0 nitrite/nitrate, 1 shrimp, 6 hermits, 6 snails, 2 powerheads, fluval 306 cannister, coralife super skimmer) is sitting at 0.2 ppm phosphate (according to my very inaccurate visual test kit that jumps from clear=0ppm and light light light green =0.25ppm, i think my test came out slightly lighter than that picture. i did a 50% water change 2 days later(today), just tested phosphate and it seems to be the same result. i did add a couple teaspoons of baking soda in an attempt to raise my ph from 7.8 to the higher end of the range to help make things less hospitable for the GHA (which bumped my alkalinity slightly out of range, ive learned my lesson and am trying to just aerate the tank more now). I would think that such an aggressive water change would have made a dent in my phosphates. I also pulled out lots of the GHA by hand, cut some with scissors then sifted the floating pieces out, also scrubbed clean a couple pieces of live rock that would be easy to put back. The tank looks a lot better but I'm concerned that it will be just as bad in a week. I'm likely going to pick up a Phosban 150 and a "silent" pump but it wont be in the next week or so most likely. Just interested to hear if anyone has managed to beat out GHA with water changes and manual removal or with any other method.

Any advice or suggestions are welcome as well.

[CStrickland]

IMO manual removal is crucial, try to pull it all the way out by winding and twisting with your hands, snipping with scissors is going to be inefficient. It probs will be just as bad next week, sorry to say. It's one of those 'twice as long to fix as it takes to break' situations.

Id get a better test. Your range for phos should be under .03ppm so with the API kit you're not in the right range. Like using an oven thermometer that goes from 200-600 degrees to figure out if it's 20 or 60 degrees outside. There's a big diff between 20 and 60 when your trying to decide what to wear, but an oven thermometer can't see it. You'll need the test going forward to let you know when to replace the media in the reactor too, as it gets used up the phos will creep up. I like my Hanna phosphorus checker (not the phosphate one), they're like $50 but it's worth it, and I'm cheap as hell.

You'll also want to monitor nitrates as you address an algae problem. If you can keep them under 15-20ppm it will be easier to stay ahead of issues. But don't get too neurotic, the 'uglies' are part of a new tank and it won't look pretty for the first 6 months or so. If you keep your numbers in range, it will pass. Good luck!

[Mark9]

You could try some mexican turbo snails, say 5 in a tank your size.

[Dkuhlmann]

I agree with Mark9.

IMO it's a waste of time and money with the Phosban reactor.

There is a natural progression of what we call tank ugglies and you are going through one of the stages now. Eventually your tank will mature enough and will get rid of phosphates on it's own. Just keep your water parameters in check and make your tank as stable as you can for now.

Stop beating your head against the wall on things you really can't control. Also, don't buy too many CUC because if you over do them now they won't have anything to eat after the algae is gone and they will die. I suggest one Mexican Turbo snail per 20 gals of total tank size. If you get much more than that they will die after the GHA is gone. The Mexican Turbo snail can eat 100x it's weight in GHA daily LOL I've seen them just sit in one area with GHA that was 4" long or more and they cleaned it out in two weeks.

So sit back and enjoy Mother Natures way of giving you the big middle finger while you go through the ugglies with your new tank. :D Stop fighting it and embrace it. You will have a much better frame of mind if you do. ;)

[kmbyrnes]

My 125 got almost overrun with GHA earlier this year, due to neglect while I worked on other tanks. Large water changes, combined with frequent rock scrubbing and filter socks, eventually beat it. But it took at least 3 months of weekly attacks. Then, seemingly overnight, it disappeared on its own.
Ever since, that tank has had amazing growth, great PE and is a real joy to sit and watch.
Hang in there and follow a good maintenance program. Consistency will lead you to success.

[SaltyDog89]

Update on my situation: my last attack was a heavy water change with some manual removal as well as giving what wasn't easy to grab, a haircut, and using a net to remove the now floating algae. The next day the algae that remained was much paler and spindly looking. It did grow back a lot of length in the next couple days but it was very pale or white even. The areas that I cut with scissors definitely turned more white then the other areas. Must be that it had a hard time recovering as opposed to leaving a bald spot on the rock to be newly colonized. I just repeated the process with the water change and manual removal/haircut. We'll see how the tank responds. It night and day compared to what it was like before the last water change though. I imagine the fight would be much harder if I had fish in my tank already. As it is, I jut have a shrimp (who likes to jump on me while I clean), 6 snails and 6 crabs.


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[CStrickland]

You can turn off your lights too. idk why I didn't mention that before, doh.

Right now, the algae has everything it needs to thrive: water, nitrogen, phosphate, light, other trace things. The absence of any of them will make growth impossible. So, in the future your phos levels will be so low that you can crank up the lights (for coral to grow) and the algae won't thrive. Until the phos and nitrates are controlled, if you don't have any photosynthetic organisms, taking the light away is an easy fix.

[SaltyDog89]

Makes sense. Didn't know if that would stress the shrimp out at all. Glad to know that I seem to be winning the battle even with the lights on high. Won't have the option of lights off in the future when I get into the corals. Thanks for the help [emoji1360]


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