How To Beat Green Hair Algae: Saltwater Aquarium 

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haha, loved the comment "how many of your spouses would do that?" she's a keeper ;) and deserves some flowers and chocolate for that for sure :)

Gil, I can't thank you enough for this video, and it came at such a serendipitous time for me. I, too, have been struggling with GHA in my nano reef tank and watching your video made me realize that I inadvertently did the exact same thing in my system. About 6 weeks ago I moved to a new house and moved the tank as well. During the move I threw out my old substrate and replaced with new. At the time I had no visible algae in the tank at all, and with clean new substrate I was afraid my cleanup crew would starve. As a result, I intentionally overfed the tank for two weeks trying to make sure I was providing enough nutrient/detritus for my cleanup crew to eat. As a result, I overloaded the nutrients in my tank, and just like you, I never tested anything more than 0 for nitrates and phosphates. Then, two weeks later...BAM...green hair algae explosion. Your video gives me confidence that I'm on the right track to fixing it, though. I've boosted my cleanup crew, reduced my feeding, knocked back my lighting schedule a bit, and am using NoPoX to help bind and export nutrients in the water column through wet skimming. Now, after 3 weeks of fighting inch-long patches of green hair algae with a toothbrush, I seem to finally be making progress. Thanks again for your video!

Great video Gil! That rock work looks amazing all clean! Thanks for great content, look forward to it every Sunday!

Can't believe we missed this video - just now found it. Great overview of this stunning tank and the planning that went into this build is simply amazing. Glad to see that it all paid off. Great job @ReefergGil

Great information! Loved your video as usual!

Great documentation for beginner reefers. Great video!

Great video good to see you were victorious.

Great video Gil and it goes to show no matter how long your in the hobby you never stop learning. I am dealing with a similar issue and may look into urchins to supplement my cleaner crew. I don't want to add the Seahare though because I am not ready to go there yet.

Great video Gil sorry your having GHA issues but looks like you have it well under control great job buddy as always love your build process

Well done Gill!! 😀

Great video! Keep them coming!!!

Gil this was a great video. I wish it was out before I ghost fed my tank during setup. I tried and experienced almost everything you mentioned and finally had to take out the rock and either dry out or treat with 35% peroxide. I added 4 tangs which are constantly picking at the rocks. Fingers crossed 🤞🏾 .

Great video and congratulation battle Won.

I only feed by hand twice a week on my tank. Great video ! 👌🏽

Nom nom nom nom nom ... That was hilarious 🤣. Glad you got everything all dialed in . I dump it in the sink also ... shhh 🤫

Great video again !!

Fight the good fight RG! I'm going to have to come up with strategies to inspire my wife to stick her hand in my tank and clean GHA. You definitely have a keeper : )

good video dude. that's one reason i don't use automated anything in my tank. i feed manually. good work on the gha issue. i almost bought a seahare but didn't want them dying when done. hydrogen peroxide worked perfectly in less than a week for me.

That is a well told story! Wonder how manu appreciate the time and thought put into all the video, and editing, spanning a few months

great video Gil. its amazing how people always troll away. nothing better to do i guess. Anyway, great video and i just subbed.

Great Info Bud

What an amazing tank!

Thanks for sharing ill show this to my husband

I'm lucky with water changes as I live in western Australia, 10mins from ocean so I just go and fill up 5x 20 ltr containers and all I need to do is add a eater thermostat before I do a change.

That intro killed me😂 Great video.

Hi great video mate education and very nice clean sump 👍

Very nice vid.

Display Tank Display Refugium Total Main Display My friend you have done a work of art there of course everything is A MAIN DISPLAY for everyone to admire.

Wonderfully descriptive and on point buddy. Great video, shame you didn't make it 3 months ago when i started my GHA battle so i wouldn't have torn half my tank down and bleached half the rocks lol I've almsot got it under control I think (with some help from flucanazole). I will do an update on it soon, its long overdue.

Mine was water change, bristle tooth tang and algae Blenny, just let them go to work and some trimming here and there was gone in two weeks!

great video. Im a rookie and I had a little green hair on the back of my biocube. I thought it would be a good idea to clump it all together and throw it in chamber 2 on the bioballs next to my intank basket....im thinking now this was not a good idea lol.

All that alge in the sump is a good thing.

Haha! Great vid. Hopefully that awful algae is gone FOREVER!!🔥🔥

thanks very helpful

Geat video bro kep. Them coming very helpful. Can you plz share what size heater you're using as I will be upgrading to a 120gl. And hate use those heaters that show in the back of my display tank thanks in advance be safe

Looking getting in to reef tank. I've been doing fresh water aquarium for 3 years and still learning. Didn't know reef tank could have green hair alge as well. Wondering if ultra life blue green slime would work for salt water? It worked like magic for my fresh water aquarium.

Nice video Mr reefer, yes sea hares are a winner when it comes to hair algae only thing is they poo like crazy. My last one laid eggs never Hatch due to the hunger of the fish. I had 1 small sea Hare die in the hole of the rock and I couldn't get out, yes Mr reefer he was left and my tank was still good guess I was lucky. Fyi keep up with water change and and clean off what ever you can. Happy reefing 👀👊

LOVE the intro...num num num

Terrific job Gil. As I mentioned to you earlier on your IG thread, we're dealing with the same problem but so far it's online in our display refugium. It's not been in the diplay tank but I'm constantly watching for signs of algae growing there. I pulled the slim marine pure plates out of the display refugium but left the larger 8x4 block in the sump. I was concerned that taking it out might cause a severe reduction in beneficial bacteria. Did you quarantine any of the cleanup crew? I read that it should take about 45 days to properly QT them which doesn't help my GHA issues.

Vibrant.

Thanks so much man

Are you cheato planting in the sump in future again? Looking great

thankyou !

I have used every method you can think of with GHA. The only one that worked was a Fluconozole treatment and it works amazingly well. 95% of mine was gone within 3 days with the other 5% whiting out and dieing off within about a week. Each treatment is 14 days. I did two just to make sure it was all eradicated. I had zero loss of coral, inverts, or fish. In that month long period I filtered the water through a 1 micron, not 100 micron, filter sock that is used in water processing plants, once a week with a 25% water change. That sock is small enough in microns to catch all the algae that dies off and floats into the water column as this is important. I disconnected my skimmer during the month long treatment and stopped running carbon and gfo during the treatment. The tank I did the treatment on is mostly a soft coral tank with some LPS. If I keep the Nitrates at 5 or lower, most of the soft coral will start going south in terms of health. If I run the Phosphates below .08, they will start going south as well. I have to keep the tank at 10 with the Nitrates. And I have to keep the Phosphates over .08. Obviously this is a conundrum because if you keep the values too low in order to stop algae growth, your corals do poorly. If you keep them at higher levels, your corals thrive but you are open to GHA. Many reefers would say my levels are high at 10 Nitrates and .08 Phosphates. I even tried doing as many say with ultra low levels, meaning less than 5 Nitrates and .04 or less Phosphates and my corals did poorly. I have basically come to the conclusion that you are going to have some algae with a soft coral tank...either that or corals that look like they are dieing. I often find that the people saying to run ultra low values are keeping SPS and giving out that "low nutrient" advice based on that. And even those people have issues still. I now do a Fluconozole treatment every 3 months and never see a trace of it.

Great video I'm in the same boat, although I only have hair algae in my refugium. I had already planned to do exactly what you had done. Ps have you considered a tomini tang? They are small and eat algae like crazy.

Very helpful, I am a freshwater shrimp guy but string algae is the bain of my life, I cant keep any mosses because they just get filled with string algae.

So what do you do after defeating the algae? Do you increase the time the lights are on or do you leave them as low as possible?

hey bud.. Do you still have the sea urchin? I have same issue now and was thinking getting a algae blenny but not sure thats going to be enough

I had that same problem before it was a pain to get it cleared up. Make sure your not giving the tank to much light!!!!! How long are you keeping your lights on for?

Nice work glad u got rid of it

Theories and personal experience recommends not to do water change. A potent skimmer and eventual dosing should be adequate. Nerite snails will wreck remaining

Great video, great info for us newbees....but tell me this.....what did you mean when you said that you set your skimmer to run “wet” ? Not familiar with that term. Thanks again.

Also there is such a thing as algal succession in reef tanks

Lol! Who knew dumping the skimmer cup in the sink was gross, but rinsing cat food cans in the sink is fine. That's the logic I deal with.

good Video ReeferGil excellent info the wife must have told you it was gross to put fish poop in the sink. My wife told me the same thing.....LMAO

Could u not have dosed with fluconazole I had bryopsis outbreak came in on a coral I dosed it killed it all sure it works for gha too

LMAO on the sink with the skimmate. My wife gets on me too.

It was that refuge light , I think there is only an off or on.? No adjustment of power!

Where the tang gang at man ?

Reduce the light intensity, add an algae powered bio-filter and don't freak out about one of the more beautiful algaes you can have in an aquarium if properly managed.

what sump is that

👊👍

Have you ever tried a 3 day blackout?

جميل

LMAO, I didn't know pouring tank water in the sink was gross either, my wife educated me on that!! And she never wants her Tupperware back either...weird!

That woman is a keeper. You had better take her to dinner at least for that.

Your tech is amazing, you must have spend a shit ton of money on your reef.

Tangs should be the first fish Gil convicts are workhorses

there is no fix science. whatever helps. do it. keep aquarium tidy feed less frequent water change is the only solution

Algae scrubber?

Or you could have let it burn itself out and save yourself a lot of work and money. I would have let it grow until it sucked up all available nutrition in tank and then manually removed

WHy no knew vids?

Too much shit for GHA

Too much rock... also, why do you do all this work for your tank but don’t auqascape something decent instead of a pile of rubbish?

This is how you run a reef when money is not a factor. This is not helpful.