Help please, a little too invasive now!

L

llandegfedd

New member
So I have this algae, it looked nice, so I kept it, through the exam period, I've not given the tank my full attention, so the algae has taken over a little bit.

Now I would like to get rid of it, I haven't an exact name for the algae, it could be a Fauchea sp. I have quite a lot of the algae now.

Nitrate is at 0.5ppm and PO4 at 0.03, so fitting with the 16:1 ratio, I have been carbon dosing long term.

When ever I try to get rid of this algae, it just falls apart, and gets blown around. I can't take the rock out easily so this would be my last resort.

Here are some pictures:





It grows along the rock, and there's quite a substantial mass of it on another rock. Starting to come close to some of my corals. The ochtodes I have had some growing on it at one point, but that phase has gone now.

So.... How can I get this issue sorted? I had thought about an urchin, but the preferred foods of the reef safe urchins tend to be more calcareous, coraline algae etc. I had thought about a sea hare, and that is where I'm thinking at present, although , it hasn't been mentioned that this is going to be eaten by the sea hare, so I really don't have any idea what to do.

Ben :)
 
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No it is only 30G so won't be able to do that, we do have a little foxface in the 180G downstairs, but I still think the tank is too small for him, and he'd probably stress a bit much, through the whole transfer, as we have only just moved him into the 180G through an upgrade.
Thanks anyhows.
 
Turbo snails, astrea snails, and urchins all eat macro...they should at least help get it under control for you.
 
I have a macro that appears to be similar to yours. NOTHING touches it. Mexican turbos, yellow tang (though that may just be this particular fish), various other snails and several sp. of urchins. Nobody/nothing ate it. I just remove it manually.
 
For some reason notifications didn't come through to let me know of your posting...


No sump on the tank, so can't add an algae to compete with it, I also have a huge ball of ochtodes, a little bit smaller than a football, which needs pruning back a little! So wouldn't want to kill that off also.

In the tank downstairs there is a mexican turbo which popped up from no-where, must have been a hitch-hiker, so will give him a quick go in this tank. Though I am going to put in a CUC order over the net, trying some spiny astraea, and ceriths also.

I did disrupt the tank a few days ago, I pulled as much out as I could, and it has made quite the difference. Probably took about half a Gallon of the stuff. Though I am confused to its onset, I was in the same situation as "joekidwell" didn't grow much at all to begin with.
 
I was just asking about a sump because if you had one it would have been much easier to manually remove. All you would have to do is put a filter sock in the sump, then use a tube to start a siphon. Put the end of the tube in the filter sock, and you can siphon the algae out all day without having to empty any buckets or do any water changes. Without a sump you can still do the same thing in a 5 gal pail, that way the filter sock catches all the algae and you can pour the water back into the tank. Scrubbing the algae off the rock with a toothbrush will probably help a lot, just siphon up all the pieces as you do so.
 
Ah, I see, I did it as part of my water change, at which point I go around the tank with a turkey baster and blast crud off the rocks.

During which time I attach a sock to the nose of my Tunze to catch all the crud, like such:
IMAG0387_zps0d957f53.jpg
 
Here's the latest shot of the tank, before the algae took hold, I've got it looking reasonably good after the big pull-out, and have added a few corals to the tank since then, I'll add some more CUC and see if they make any dent in the algae...

DSC01324_zps30ef470f.jpg
 
refreshing and old thread. What ended up working? I have this stuff too in my 125g and I can't stand it. It was a pretty macro in my sons tank but it is an aggressive nuisance in my tank. What eats it?


John
 
Tagging along in this thread. I have the same problem. It is overrunning my tank. I have scrapped, scrubbed, and removed as much as I can, but it continues to grow. Looking for anything that eats it!
 
Thanks MonkeyFish, I will give those a try. I had one years ago, but it died....Stunk up the whole house before I realized where the smell was coming from.
 
Looks like red dictoya. It can take hold quite fast and has the drawback of flaking off and spreading everywhere. If you have access to temporarily try a small rabbit fish, that may be a good start. (Reading your posts again...) I see you had a small fox face. Rabbit fish/foxface are the only animals I have had go for the weird macro algaes. With snails, having a large variety is the best thing. But they tend to not really go for dictoya. I hope the plague is less now.
 
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