Extended blackout to combat GHA

[theMeat]

Have you checked magnesium levels?

 

[LucasRe]

Have you checked magnesium levels?

Historically on the lower side (1250ish) now more like 1350.

 

[theMeat]

1350 should be fine. Would try it again. Will add that upwards of 1400 would/can help with your gha too

 

[LucasRe]

I just remembered that I added a piece of rock from my display tank into the sump of a little nano tank project I started. Just pulled it out to have a look and no GHA! So it does seem that whatever strain of GHA I have is photosynthetic and will die off without any light.

That piece has sat in the sump for 2 weeks as of today.

 

[Waters]

That’s very concerning. Did you ever get on top of it?

I ended up dumping those rocks (I was using them strictly for bacteria purposes to keep my fish alive while they lived in the brutes). I actually made a post on how resilient GHA is, using that as an example. The algae grew with no lights and little to no nutrients.

 

[bnord]

congratulations on the battle that matters - getting rid of the algae is the Coraline on the cake....

do you have access to Donabella slugs?

 

[w8lifts]

I can’t get my Donabella to touch my hair algae, like he will straight up go around it…LFS said he would take care of it in days.

 

[XLReefer525]

Congrats on your health battle - that is #1. For the GHA all I can offer is "good luck". I had a nano tank with weak lighting and lots of coralline, and while I never tried a black-out for that long, I tried everything else possible to fight bad GHA outbreaks. Manual removal (which is impossible to get even close to all of it, and I think also spreads it faster), lights out for a few weeks, low blue light only for weeks, starving the tank, snails, hermits, emerald crabs, urchins, etc., etc., etc. I did a rip clean taking the rock out and scrubbing with peroxide and cleaning the sand and tank. THREE times. I tried everything you will read about, other than adding chemical treatments. Nothing ever stopped it from coming back with a vengeance. Nothing eats it. It grows in light or darkness. It grows with or without nutrients. I finally gave up. I threw away the rocks and sand, sanitized the tank and equipment, and started over. It was a nano tank and easy to do. I live in fear of it coming to my large tank, as I honestly don't know how it can be defeated. I wish you luck in your battle. I got my butt kicked...

 

[Jared Bryant]

Tooth brush and a hose ran into a filter sock. Start a syphon into the sock, put on some good music and start scrubbing.

 

[LucasRe]

Alright, here’s the escalation plan;

As each step fails I move to the next, more aggressive step

1. Fix the nutrient import/export imbalance - DONE
2. Reasonable manual removal - DONE
3. Blackout period - IN PROGRESS
4. Extreme manual removal (Pull a few rocks a night and manually remove as much algae as possible while watching TV) - IN PROGRESS
5. Hydrogen peroxide spray (Pull a few rocks a night and spray with hydrogen peroxide, rinse and place back into tank).
6. Chemical warfare (Fluconazole or Vibrant, will need to get the algae 100% identified prior to ensure I'm choosing a solution that might actually work.)
7. Nuclear option (Kill the rock with high levels of radiation, will anything living in/on the rock - full reset. Will need to plan on dealing with the aftermath of the bacterial die off, rock will no longer be cycled afterwards.)

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

Lucas glad to hear you are in good health. Keep removing the rocks and scrubbing them with a stiff bristle brush in a bucket of water. You will win. Also do an ATI water test. It will test your RO water also. This will give you a definite answer. Good luck.

 

[LucasRe]

Well the blackout looked to be doing very little so I continued onto a more extreme manual removal - almost all the rocks came out (some I got lazy and just flipped over ) for a good scrub. The tank is looking much better now, a few more pieces to take care of and a good sand bed vacuuming is in order but here we are;