Id red turf aglae

[TiGs]

Can someone ID this red algae. What would eat this besides tangs?

TIA

 

[bluenassarius]

nice looking algae

 

[TiGs]

Ummmm, thanks. For me it more of a nuisance since it spreads and infests all.

 

[njmar1]

Snails will eat it, I let it grow down the back of my overflow since I can export it pretty easily and it acts kind of like a turf scrubber...

 

[kmk2307]

Try looking up Gelidopsis. I keyed a speices in my tank out to G. scoparia. It looks just like what you have from what I can tell of the picture. I've just let it take over in my tank so far. Various urchins might eat it? I have astrea, trochus, turbo, nerite, and cerith snails and they don't seem to like to eat it.

Kevin

 

[TiGs]

Thanks for the suggestion. I've heard from someone else that a tuxedo urchin munched it.

 

[kevin_mic]

I would identify that algea as "Pain In the Butt" algea. I have this stuff also and it grows like mad and is pratically impossible to remove completely. I think some keyhole limpets will eat it because I didn't have a problem with it until I removed my keyhole limpets (they were starting to munch on coral). As far as tangs or foxfaces I haven't found any that want to eat a lot of it. Let me know if you find something because I REALLY want to rid my tank of this stuff!

 

[TiGs]

I sold/gave some infested rocks/corals to a couple of reefers and they said that their sohol(sp?)tang and blue tang loved the stuff. Too bad my tank is way to small to house these fishes.

 

[kevin_mic]

I was at the LFS last week with a couple samples of the algea. They put some right on top of a an urchin and it tried to eat it, but unless it was sitting on them they didn't seem to interested. Next we tried to feed it to a sea hare. That didn't work at all. Finally we tried emrald crabs. They actually seemed like they were interested. One of the larger ones actually muched a fairly large piece. So I bought 5 of them and am seeing if they will make a differece.

I bought my live rock from tbs and so I asked them what they thought would eat it and they said a purple tang. I don't have room for another tang either so right now I am going with my emerald crabs.

 

[TiGs]

How are the emerald crabs doing?

 

[kevin_mic]

They arn't. I see them eating stuff but I have yet to seem them really go at any of the algea. So my population of algea continues to grow.

Now I am trying a different type of foxface. In another thread someone said they had red algea (similar looking but not the the same) as mine and they said they bought a dolatius foxface and it ate it.

Well I was at the lfs 2 days ago and saw a fish that looked like the dolatius and so I bought it. Ill let you know if it makes a difference.

 

[jennifer24]

have you tried mexican turbos? they munch just about any algae i have in my tank.

 

[kevin_mic]

I havent had any snail of mine eat the stuff. They only seem to eat soft algea in my tank and this stuff is not really that soft. I am pretty sure that I have some mexican turbos.

As far as the dolatius, it has yet to touch the stuff. He has only been in there 5 days so far though.

 

[wentreefgirl]

Its Ceramium species. How about an angel. They like to rip into that stuff.