How should I handle this bryopsis/GHA?

[Picassoclown]

Hello everyone. Is this bryopsis? I am currently battling this with a 4 month old system. I do not have any of my rock work glued, so any that shows up I remove the rock, put into fresh water and scrub completely clean with a toothbrush. I had pockets on my sand bed that I sucked right out with no issues.

I was thinking of adding a tuxedo urchin, but I hear they are hit or miss. I rather not do a fluconazole treatment (only if absolutely necessary).

Anyone have issues with this in the past?

 

[Spare time]

Looks like hair algae. I'd manurally remove it, scrub the rock, and then add a bunch of turbo snails.

 

[Reefer Brent]

Define freshwater. Fresh saltwater? I would always scrub mine in my dirty waterchange bucket

 

[kevgib67]

My tuxedo urchin has eaten gha to the bare rock but you have to keep it short. I’ve seen amazing before and after pictures of a tank full of gha and after, after adding a sea hare and it was in a pretty short time. No personal experience though.

 

[exnisstech]

Define freshwater. Fresh saltwater? I would always scrub mine in my dirty waterchange bucket

^This.^ Not saltwater kills all the stuff your trying to grow. Turbo snails and pincushion urchins along with manual removal work well for. I agree in not using Flux. I would never add it to a young tank. IME it just creates more problems than it solves. Well I wouldn't add it to an established tank either but that's me after having used it.

 

[BristleWormHater]

If I remember right all fillimentus algaes (turf, hair, and bryopsis) have roots so next time you remove it try treating that area with hydrogen peroxide or going at it with a pick.

 

[BubblesandSqueak]

I have recently found that Fuzzy Chiton eats my GHA. Better than an urchin actually. Your GHA looks pretty black though.

 

[deome]

I've been fighting a GHA plague, looks just like this to my untrained eye, since April or May. And I mean it completely took over my tank, every rock every surface, display + refugium + coral farm, damaged several corals, and basically I would have preferred a big aiptasia outbreak. Display tank and coral farms are now completely algae-free, refugium is still covered in GHA but I'm not worried about it.

What I think fixed it: I added a media reactor to my system, and filled it with GFO (correct amount per BRS calculator). Within a few days phosphates went from about .70 down to .25 (Hanna test kit), and the algae disappeared nearly as quickly. I've heard that without phosphate GHA can't hold on to the rock work.

Now I also scrubbed all my rocks with a stiff bristle OXO brush to pull the GHA off the rocks, installed filter socks to capture all free-floating algae, meticulously scrubbed overflow weirs, physically removed as much GHA as I could via socks and grabbing clumps from the weirs, spent maybe $200 on snails, and adjusted my lights based on a World Wide Corals video ... but none of these things put much of a dent in the algae until I added the GFO, well fluidized, to the reactor.

Right now I've got nitrates as high as ever at 40 ppm, phosphate at .20, and no GHA anywhere I don't want it. I would also recommend that WWC video on lighting; adopting 8 hours of blue light didn't put a dent in the algae at first, but I think it's the reason the algae has not re-established itself in my display/coral tanks, and only grows in the refugium (with a normal refugium light blasting happy-plant spectrum for 18 hours).

 

[Picassoclown]

Wow, thanks for all the feedback everyone. It's greatly appreciated!

 

[Picassoclown]

I have recently found that Fuzzy Chiton eats my GHA. Better than an urchin actually. Your GHA looks pretty black though.

Oh that's interesting, I didn't think about using one of those. Where would you recommend to grab one?

 

[Picassoclown]

If I remember right all fillimentus algaes (turf, hair, and bryopsis) have roots so next time you remove it try treating that area with hydrogen peroxide or going at it with a pick.

Yup, when I clean it off, I use a toothbrush and really brush it off well.

 

[Picassoclown]

Define freshwater. Fresh saltwater? I would always scrub mine in my dirty waterchange bucket

RO/DI water is what I am using

 

[Gumbies R Us]

We got a tuxedo urchin to deal with our gha, and it has been eating through the algae in our tank!

 

[Picassoclown]

I don't have much coral at the moment, so I will try an urchin for now, if that doesn't work, I will than try a sea hare and finally a chiton. Thanks everyone!

 

[exnisstech]

I've heard that without phosphate GHA can't hold on to the rock work.

That hasn't been the case for me but my 0 probably isn't true 0 but test results are all I have to go by. I use Hanna for testing. I have one tank I've been battling gha for over 14 months. PO4 and NO3 are always near or at 0. I dose them up when I get 0 results. This is just one cleaning session. Little background, I rescaped the tank with all dry rock then when I had a gha outbreak I made the mistake of using Flux rx and then instead of gha I ended with cyano. In with the chemiclean and back with the gha. About 9 months or so ago I just stopped treating anything and did a couple of rip cleans along with manual removal durring water changes. I'm seeing progress but it's still growing. I had to dose N and P last sunday as both test results were 0. I have 3 tanks running that I test so it's not a testing error. This is also the only tank with a gha problem (thank goodness) Sorry for the long post. I posted earlier that I would not use flux again and this is a follow to that as well as to in IME it can thrive in low tested levels of PO4

After cleaning last weekend. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel

 

[BristleWormHater]

That hasn't been the case for me but my 0 probably isn't true 0 but test results are all I have to go by. I use Hanna for testing. I have one tank I've been battling gha for over 14 months. PO4 and NO3 are always near or at 0. I dose them up when I get 0 results. This is just one cleaning session. Little background, I rescaped the tank with all dry rock then when I had a gha outbreak I made the mistake of using Flux rx and then instead of gha I ended with cyano. In with the chemiclean and back with the gha. About 9 months or so ago I just stopped treating anything and did a couple of rip cleans along with manual removal durring water changes. I'm seeing progress but it's still growing. I had to dose N and P last sunday as both test results were 0. I have 3 tanks running that I test so it's not a testing error. This is also the only tank with a gha problem (thank goodness) Sorry for the long post. I posted earlier that I would not use flux again and this is a follow to that as well as to in IME it can thrive in low tested levels of PO4

After cleaning last weekend. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel

Looking better! I'm kinda scared after using flux for bryopsis, but I'm on day 11 with no outbreaks of anything else. Also been doing manual removal with this:

 

[BubblesandSqueak]

Oh that's interesting, I didn't think about using one of those. Where would you recommend to grab one?

Got mine from Reef Cleaners.

 

[Picassoclown]

Got mine from Reef Cleaners.

I figured...they are all out from everywhere. Seems like the hobby is being plagued by these GHA. All of my top 3 sites are out.

 

[BristleWormHater]

I figured...they are all out from everywhere. Seems like the hobby is being plagued by these GHA. All of my top 3 sites are out.

Imagine being the first guy that got gha lol

 

[Picassoclown]

Imagine being the first guy that got gha lol

Hahaha. He must have freaked out. It's funny cause I always though dinos or aiptasia were the worst to get, but oh man GHA is no joke, it's really bad.