Hair algae explosion after lowering nutrients??

[sanzz18]

So I used reef flux to get rid of turf algae months ago, worked perfectly. I let my nutrients get to, at the highest, 0.78 for po4 and 38 no3 after the treatment. It was recommended to me by a few reefers to let my tank do its thing and stop chasing parameters because every sps frag I tried kept dying. That whole situation go out of control.

I started noticing small patches of gha showing up but nothing significant. I knew immediately I had to lower my nutrients due to disaster inbound lol. Over the course of almost 2 months, I very slowly lowered my po4 to 0.12 and no3 to 10-12. In the process I noticed the hair algae exponentially taking off.

Was the acceleration of the gha due to me lowering my nutrients and maybe upsetting the balance or do you think it was pretty much in motion already/not related to lowering nutrients?

Either way, I am keeping my parameters now mostly where they are, maybe a tad bit lower. My reefcleaners order arrived today too because my cuc had dwindled down and bought a ton of blue leg hermits/astrea snails/emeralds.

 

[Miami Reef]

Get an urchin.

 

[Saltyreef]

Likely the reef flux causing the imbalance. Knee jerk reactions always end in a worse situation than you were in before unfortunately.

Best thing you can do now is manual removal.

I had to weed the long pieces of GHA off my rocks daily by hand and i had 4 large mexican turbos mowing down the remainder while i slept. That was the only thing that helped.

 

[Fish Styx]

I think it was in motion already. Additionally, a GHA outbreak can keep your test kit reading artificially low, as they readily uptake nutrients when available. What test kits are you using? The addition of the CUC is a good start. You may want to consider some turbos and a tuxedo urchin to supplement those. What are you doing to export nutrients? Any macro algae to outcompete the GHA? WC schedule? GFO? In addition to the CUC do some manual removal, as has been stated. Use a toothbrush and a siphon when doing a WC.

 

[Wasabiroot]

Manual removal + turbos/urchins as stated above is the best way. CC tends to avoid the long strands but will more readily attack the short tender stuff beneath.

I agree re:uptake, perhaps your nutrients are being consumed by the algae making your numbers look artificially low.

Phosphates were pretty high. I keep a mixed reef with acros and LPS and they grow fine in .2 phosphates and 30-50 nitrates, but they are hardy varieties. So, high phosphates are doable with acro but .78 is pushing it; likely didn't help but not much you can do at this point.

Keep an eye on the emeralds. The quality of ReefCleaners CUC is excellent but occasionally you will get a red mithrax crab. Those get much bigger and in my experience can start picking at stuff. The CUC should help for sure.

Sounds like your parameters are back in line. Any remaining Flux in the system (not sure how or if it chemically breaks down) may cause some irritation, but nothing carbon shouldn't be able to solve.

 

[sanzz18]

Get an urchin.

I have two tuxedo urchins already.

Likely the reef flux causing the imbalance. Knee jerk reactions always end in a worse situation than you were in before unfortunately.

Best thing you can do now is manual removal.

I had to weed the long pieces of GHA off my rocks daily by hand and i had 4 large mexican turbos mowing down the remainder while i slept. That was the only thing that helped.

Yeah, your probably right about the reef flux. I wish I never used it but there way no way to get rid of the thick turf algae, nothing was eating it, and couldn't manually remove most of it.

Did you finally get it under control?

I think it was in motion already. Additionally, a GHA outbreak can keep your test kit reading artificially low, as they readily uptake nutrients when available. What test kits are you using? The addition of the CUC is a good start. You may want to consider some turbos and a tuxedo urchin to supplement those. What are you doing to export nutrients? Any macro algae to outcompete the GHA? WC schedule? GFO? In addition to the CUC do some manual removal, as has been stated. Use a toothbrush and a siphon when doing a WC.

Yeah totally careful with interpreting test results when I have algae like this. So far it hasn’t skewed far from my export method even at this growth stage.

I need to get more turbos but have two tuxedos. I used to use chaeto but now my sump is taken over by cyano and it always ruins the chaeto.

I usually use daily waterchanges with a dose but have been doing large waterchanges the last few weeks to get my nutrients in a better range. I don’t like gfo cause it strips my po4 so fast even with 1/4-1/3 the recommended amount and I believe that ruined my first set of tester acros last year. I use lanthanum chloride dosed via my ATO reservoir (mixed in with the ro water). Its a nice slow trickle and has been working perfectly.

 

[sanzz18]

Manual removal + turbos/urchins as stated above is the best way. CC tends to avoid the long strands but will more readily attack the short tender stuff beneath.

I agree re:uptake, perhaps your nutrients are being consumed by the algae making your numbers look artificially low.

Phosphates were pretty high. I keep a mixed reef with acros and LPS and they grow fine in .2 phosphates and 30-50 nitrates, but they are hardy varieties. So, high phosphates are doable with acro but .78 is pushing it; likely didn't help but not much you can do at this point.

Keep an eye on the emeralds. The quality of ReefCleaners CUC is excellent but occasionally you will get a red mithrax crab. Those get much bigger and in my experience can start picking at stuff. The CUC should help for sure.

Sounds like your parameters are back in line. Any remaining Flux in the system (not sure how or if it chemically breaks down) may cause some irritation, but nothing carbon shouldn't be able to solve.

Yeah I will keep working at it. What is the best approach for managing nutrients that can be artificially low? I don’t want to bottom them out and end up with dinos (fought that almost a couple years ago now).

 

[Wasabiroot]

Yeah I will keep working at it. What is the best approach for managing nutrients that can be artificially low? I don’t want to bottom them out and end up with dinos (fought that almost a couple years ago now).

That is hard to conclusively know. It's my guess but I could also be incorrect. I don't know how much algae is left.

Water changes are the safest bet - they aren't the fastest or best for reducing nutrients but they can't hurt unless the mixed batch is way off in parameters.
I noticed my 50g seemed perkier once I started weekly 5g changes.
Most of the nutrients we test for in tank come from decaying food - so if you are worried about dinos, try small changes first and avoid changing multiple things at a time. You will also need to test frequently enough that you can identify if your maintenance is having its intended impact or if anything needs to be dialed back.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

if your tank is currently growing algae like mad why are you worried about bottoming out P ?
it might not show on your test kit but its there for sure.

once your algae is under control then get back to worrying about not hitting zero N and Zero P

 

[sanzz18]

if your tank is currently growing algae like mad why are you worried about bottoming out P ?
it might not show on your test kit but its there for sure.

once your algae is under control then get back to worrying about not hitting zero N and Zero P

I get what your saying, just worried about dinos making a return. I guess if the gha is the dominant algae right now I shouldn't worry about that?

That is hard to conclusively know. It's my guess but I could also be incorrect. I don't know how much algae is left.

Water changes are the safest bet - they aren't the fastest or best for reducing nutrients but they can't hurt unless the mixed batch is way off in parameters.
I noticed my 50g seemed perkier once I started weekly 5g changes.
Most of the nutrients we test for in tank come from decaying food - so if you are worried about dinos, try small changes first and avoid changing multiple things at a time. You will also need to test frequently enough that you can identify if your maintenance is having its intended impact or if anything needs to be dialed back.

Awesome thanks for the advice. I got a lot of work in front of me lol

 

[Dan_P]

So I used reef flux to get rid of turf algae months ago, worked perfectly. I let my nutrients get to, at the highest, 0.78 for po4 and 38 no3 after the treatment. It was recommended to me by a few reefers to let my tank do its thing and stop chasing parameters because every sps frag I tried kept dying. That whole situation go out of control.

I started noticing small patches of gha showing up but nothing significant. I knew immediately I had to lower my nutrients due to disaster inbound lol. Over the course of almost 2 months, I very slowly lowered my po4 to 0.12 and no3 to 10-12. In the process I noticed the hair algae exponentially taking off.

Was the acceleration of the gha due to me lowering my nutrients and maybe upsetting the balance or do you think it was pretty much in motion already/not related to lowering nutrients?

Either way, I am keeping my parameters now mostly where they are, maybe a tad bit lower. My reefcleaners order arrived today too because my cuc had dwindled down and bought a ton of blue leg hermits/astrea snails/emeralds.

When you say “exponentially taking off” do mean the GHA became more wide spread or what was there grew vey quickly?

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

its always fixable with patience and time.

sometime rocks get so phosphate bound there is noting else to do but "cook" the rocks.
my lagoon started with 300lbs of the most hair infested rocks (bought from a fellow reefer cheap) that spent 2 years in a vat "cooking" (water changes, lanthium chloride, gfo, etc) but now they are clean.

 

[sanzz18]

When you say “exponentially taking off” do mean the GHA became more wide spread or what was there grew vey quickly?

More widespread and growing longer and longer pretty quickly.

its always fixable with patience and time.

sometime rocks get so phosphate bound there is noting else to do but "cook" the rocks.
my lagoon started with 300lbs of the most hair infested rocks (bought from a fellow reefer cheap) that spent 2 years in a vat "cooking" (water changes, lanthium chloride, gfo, etc) but now they are clean.

I just got to keep at it. I just want a break lol

 

[Dan_P]

More widespread and growing longer and longer pretty quickly.



I just got to keep at it. I just want a break lol

OK thanks!

Unless you have an army of snails, GHA is going to spread. The lower nitrate and phosphate levels you achieved are still high enough for luxurious GHA growth. Unlikely that lowering these levels made a difference. Possibly just a correlation not a cause.

 

[gbroadbridge]

More widespread and growing longer and longer pretty quickly.



I just got to keep at it. I just want a break lol

Lets not forget that algae will consume ammonia before it even starts on the road to Nitrate.

You can read low nitrate but there may still be plenty of nutrition for the Algae.

 

[All_talk]

Your problem could be said a different way... You don't have a algae problem, you have a herbivore problem. There are no magic parameter numbers (N and P included) that will allow corals to grow but not also allow algae to grow.

Lots of good info here:

 

[brandon429]

Please post a tank picture showing the algae as it sits in the full tank shot so we can track the ability of hands off methods against hands on ones. We need pics to track progress or watch for new invasions like cyano or dinos

Using grazers is very hands off as well, we want to compare hands off controls to recent hands on ones used to save tanks

hands on= deep manual cleaning that removes all the algae in two hours

 

[sanzz18]

Your problem could be said a different way... You don't have a algae problem, you have a herbivore problem. There are no magic parameter numbers (N and P included) that will allow corals to grow but not also allow algae to grow.

Lots of good info here:

I actually just got 50 astreas and hermits and some emeralds from reefcleaners to up my crew. They started at the algae in minutes of dropping them in the tank.

Please post a tank picture showing the algae as it sits in the full tank shot so we can track the ability of hands off methods against hands on ones. We need pics to track progress or watch for new invasions like cyano or dinos

Using grazers is very hands off as well, we want to compare hands off controls to recent hands on ones used to save tanks

hands on= deep manual cleaning that removes all the algae in two hours

 

[exnisstech]

I actually just got 50 astreas and hermits and some emeralds from reefcleaners to up my crew. They started at the algae in minutes of dropping them in the tank.




View attachment 3015705

I wish my tank looked that clean.

 

[Jared Bryant]

Yeah that's not that bad. Just manually remove what you can and do water changes.