Killing this Strange Algae?

[Mpthreer]

I have had this algae for quite a while, as small portions of it came in on some rock I got from a fellow reef keeper.
I nuked some of my rock that had aptasia on it but kept a high percentage of it live. Since then, the white rock that i had all looked fine, I had a mini cycle when moving to my new tank the snails and crabs and tangs kept all normal hair algae at bay, I had some cynobacteria but once I got my skimmer it stopped alltogheter. I am currently totally upgrading the filtration on my system to top notch from the powerheads to media reactors to the skimmer, DSB, and plenty of live rock, a refuge on it with macro algaes.... Anyway, this other alage started taking hold in my tank when not much hair or any other alage besides bubble algae was present. Probably because my cleanup crew specifically didnt like this alage that was taking hold, or because it was too stuck to the rocks. This stuff will not come off with an industral scrub brush unless you really really tare the heck out of it. I mean you need a drill with a wire brush or you will have to rip your fingernails off to get it off a rock. Crazy stuff. On to the question. Here is some before and after pics of this stuff. I have put all main chunks of rock in an icechest with a fresh batch of saltwater, i have deprived it of light and given it moderate flow, with a decent temprature for almost two weeks now, it will stay in there until i get the rest of my new equipment in and It comes time to clean out the tank totally and aquascape again. I looked inside, which it still has some crabs, some nerite, some turbo's, and I think an urchin, and some collinista, and some cerith snails in it. They are slowly working on the dieing algae but a lot of it is still there. Is there anything else I can do to get rid of this stuff with out killing all the benifits of my live rock?

 

[Mpthreer]

This is the newly nuked rock(the white one), a month or so after it being in the tank, its barly starting to sit in and some macro algae and some hair alage is starting to grow on it.

This is the same rocks at a later date, the one that had more coraline on it on the bottom now has been takin over by this tough algae, and spots are foriming on the top one. I will show some more pics of different nuked and unnuked rocks that have developed numerous colors of coraline, marron, purple, pink, but they also have this dark greenish brown algae on it. Its wierd, it grew as spots just like coraline would, and it grew at the same time as the coraline started to set in on the new rocks. It drives the coraline out and takes it over, it sucks!

here on the left you can see the marroon and see the difference between the alage on the right..

A full tank shot right after putting it together.

The same tank approx 3 months later

Sorry that is the most recent full tank shot that i have an its hard to see all the algae difference.

Anyone got any ideas, thanks a lot for your time!

 

[Mpthreer]

Anyone got any ideas?

 

[nrannalli]

It looks like the start of some kind of Rhodophyte. I had some spots like that and they turned into a weird rubbery/slick type bubble algae all I could find that came close was the Rhodophyte class. It quickly took over the rock and neighboring rocks. I took out eat rock scrub the algae off with a tooth brush and when I put the rock back in the tank it was left with those same red spots. Since I scrubbed the rock it has not come back. I guess just keep your nutrients in check and it shouldn't bubble up at least that has been my approach. Hope this helps and I haven't found a way to destroy it yet.

 

[HighlandReefer]

With the bubbles on it, is it possible that it may be a cyanobacteria? If you have your nitrates and phosphates at zero and have tried cutting back the light to no avail, then you might try AlgaeFix Marine. I have seen some good results with many types of algae and cyanobacteria, with few problems noted by many hobbyists who have tried it. There have been some reports of negative results in some of the threads on its use. I have been using the AlgaeFix on a problem dark green cyano (I believe) that I have in my tank, with good results so far.

 

[Kenmx10]

I would run the lights off for a few days and see what happens. What type bulbs are you running? It may be feeding of the light.

 

[nrannalli]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14754360#post14754360 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nrannalli
It looks like the start of some kind of Rhodophyte. I had some spots like that and they turned into a weird rubbery/slick type bubble algae all I could find that came close was the Rhodophyte class. It quickly took over the rock and neighboring rocks. I took out eat rock scrub the algae off with a tooth brush and when I put the rock back in the tank it was left with those same red spots. Since I scrubbed the rock it has not come back. I guess just keep your nutrients in check and it shouldn't bubble up at least that has been my approach. Hope this helps and I haven't found a way to destroy it yet.

Here is what mine looks like there are a couple of rocks I haven't got to:

It will eventually turn into this

It may help you find out what it is

 

[tany]

lobophora

 

[rbanks13]

It looks like the same thing I'm dealing with right now. Does your algae start creeping on the walls of the glass as well as the rock? My glass will start turning green after only 6 hrs of light after scraping!! What I was advised (by a supposed reef God in San Antonio) Was a total 3 day blackout. If it returns, then try a diatom filter. My nitrates, nitrites and phosphates are all zero but I picked this up from rocks that I got from another reefer. The reef god said it may be a photosynthetic bacteria like red cyano. In which case it will have a very short life without light (unlike algae). Hence, the total blackout. Good luck!!

 

[rbanks13]

Oh, that was a 72 hour blackout...I'm on my first day.

 

[Mpthreer]

mine definatly is not the typical strain/ form of cyno, I have had that before, it is however semi slimey. there appears to be a slight bit of fuzz on top of the greenish brown mat. I quarintined my rock in an icechest and have been doing a total black out for a couple weeks now. I will leave it in there for a month or so until my tank gets totally cleaned out and I install all my new hardware. I put a lot of turbos, nerite, and cerith snails, along with plenty different hermits. Hopefully they just work all the time on the dieing alage. the water is getting slightly colored though, I probably will change it soon. I hope this works, the slimy stuff that the last pics show looks similar to cyno to me, but the greenish brown short algae looks very familier. I have seen the bright green plant looking alage that is tall with little hairs growing off of the main stalks, but this seemed to come after the rock turned bright light green, kinda transparent, and then coraline started blotching the rocks, as well as the brownish green stuff, at first, since im color blind, i thought it was marroon alage, because i cant see reds very well, but once it got bigger, and i used a flash on the camera, i could see the difference plain as day. it blotched just like coraline, but it really took off way faster. With my new filtration equipment I believe that I will keep it at bay from trying to take it over again as long as the snails and the dark cycle are doing their job. Thanks a lot for all your great input and replies! Happy Reefing!