Sport507
~Just a Farm Boy~
I had that same thing in a 20L frag tank, I thought it was bryopsis. What ever it was I run my Mag. level to 1500+ with Tech-M.
Mine went away in about a week and hasn't come back. That was about 3 months ago.
bryopsis algae or hair algae that is the question
- Thread starter blasto_master
- Start date
I had that same thing in a 20L frag tank, I thought it was bryopsis. What ever it was I run my Mag. level to 1500+ with Tech-M.
Mine went away in about a week and hasn't come back. That was about 3 months ago.
brandon429
Well-known member
Look how Simon SKL worked his bryopsis gsp frag its nearly identical to the problem rock above. one dip, no more problem thread.
Ive been bragging on SSKL for posting such huge pictures of peroxide work.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2082359&page=4
Ive been bragging on SSKL for posting such huge pictures of peroxide work.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2082359&page=4
blasto_master
New member
Update, I slowed down the growth greatly by using kent tech m and a reactor. I still have the algae but if seems that I am gaining ground. I change 25 gallons of water every two weeks and also purchased a sea hare. Hopefully by manually plucking out the remainder I will have slayed the green hairy beast!
I've tried two minutes out of the water with dribbled on H2O2 for several frag plugs with sps and zoanthus with that wiry stuff on it . It works without harm to the coral and the algae is gone in a couple of days after treatment.That algae for whatever reason seems to get a foothold on plugs even in low nutrient water. I also dipped a few in a 50/50 mix of H2O2 and salt water for 4 minutes . That also worked but a couple of magician palys bleached a bit. Perhaps it's picking up leaching PO4 from the plug or can grab off some organic phosphate.
Thankyou for the tip Brandon.
Thankyou for the tip Brandon.
blasto_master
New member
The H2O2 drip on the infected area seems pretty extreme. I would do that if I knew that my corals wouldn't kick the bucket after the treatment. It has only been three weeks since I started using my reactor. From what you are saying, you cannot starve this algae to death?
Yeah, seemed extreme to me too. Checked with a few friends who had success with it after reading the post about it ; so, I gave it a shot to be fair and I am happy with the results. I couldn't strave it out . I'd pluckit and dremmel it off and it would come back just on the frag plugs, even ceramic plugs. Couldn't make sense of it.. I run my system with low PO4 and NO3 with vodka and vinegar dosing and gfo. I never went for 0 PO4 though ,more like .04ppm which takes care of any other algae and cyano but not the wiry stuff. Less than .03ppm PO4 may limit it as it does other green algae but this stuff might be grabbing some organic P. Let me know if you manage to starve it.
blasto_master
New member
Update: No more hair algae at all, and the problem has been solved. I took out all of the rock and scrubbed it in salt water. Actually when doing a water change, I used all of the old water to do the scrubbing of the rock and put the rock back in the tank with the make-up water. Next I stopped adding frozen mysis shrimp directly to the tank. Then I added a couple of snails, emerald crabs, and a sea hare to my reef. I know the hair algae problem came from the frozen mysis shrimp, it is like rocket fuel for any algae to grow. Thank you everyone for your help.
Big E
Premium Member
Manually scrub that macro down to a shorter level than get a few pin cushion urchins. I per 50g type size tank is plenty.
They will mow that down on a regular basis. Some of your coralline will get eaten but it's a small price to pay. Be aware your going to need to have all frags or small loose rocks secured or the'll become urchin riders or just get knocked off their positions.
The whitish type urchins that you can get for like $10 are fantastic work horses.
They will mow that down on a regular basis. Some of your coralline will get eaten but it's a small price to pay. Be aware your going to need to have all frags or small loose rocks secured or the'll become urchin riders or just get knocked off their positions.
The whitish type urchins that you can get for like $10 are fantastic work horses.
blasto_master
New member
Actually, from all the good advice I received, my live rock looks immaculate now. I take all of the info you guys gave me, and pass it around to others on reef central. Scrubbing the algae off of the rock, and keeping low nutrient levels, phosphate reactor, and water changes helped me to defeat the kraken. I must stress manually removing the nuisance algae, is the biggest factor in getting rid of it.
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