Nightmare Red Cotton Algae: Took over my tank

Where you ever able to get rid of this stuff??? I think I have it slowly growing on all of my rocks and nothing stops its slow onslaught. It grows in very high flow. My display has about a 90X turnover rate. My phosphates are undetectable. I have a deltec ap600 on my 70 gallon system and I use GFO as well. My phosphates are undetectable with a Salifert test. It's this brown/black fuzzy turf algae that just slowly creeps and creeps over everything. It's not this red nightmare algae stuff, it's worse since it literally clings to the surfaces of the rocks. It's also a little fuzzy on the surface.
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I did finally get rid of almost all of it after I put about 100 astrea snails in. I have lost quite a few snails and I'm seeing a bit of it coming back. Guess I'll get another load of snails.

I still have a ton of the red cotton stuff in my fuge. I took a couple of Mex. Turbos out and put them in my display and the red stuff took off in the fuge. So I guess I'll get a couple more Mex turbos when I get the other snails. I dont see any red stuff in the display though.
 
algae

algae

I have red cotton-like algae in my fuge, too. It is not in the display. Is it a problem if it does not go into the display? Any toxins, etc.? It grows like crazy, so I'm sure it absorbs nutrients like the Chaeto it hangs with.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11921154#post11921154 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Tylt33
This crap is taking over my tank... let me know if you have any luck getting rid of it.
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I had turbo's in my tank and they didn't touch the stuff I had. I ended up manually removing as much as I could from my rocks. Whatever I had was extremely slow growing and took a long time to make a comeback.

Since I had this problem in my 20L nano, tangs were not an option. Wish there were more suggestions for people with nano's. Snails didn't work for me.

Good luck to all still fighting the battle though!
 
Normal Astrea "turbo" snails aren't going to touch the stuff generally. Only the mexican ones. They're considerably bigger, and have striped shells.
 
I too have this red menace called red cotton algae. I have several tanks connected and perfect water quality. This has been frustrating to say the least. I read this thread and picked up 12 mexican turbo snails to see how they do at placing this algae in check. I placed
x3 in my 240G (tangs keep it out of there already)
x6 in my 75G refugium
x2 in my 50G refugium
x1 in my 50G frag tank

I will post results in a few weeks to say how well they did at eliminating my problem, hopefully my beautiful green chaetomorpha display will be clean and clear so I will no longer be embarrased when company views that tank in the dining room.
 
Mexican turbos will not touch this. You need Pacific turbos, they are different, smoother in shell with some purple striping. They tear this red nightmare up. I also learned that you can take a plastic syringe, fill it with the alkalinity part of the two part A&B by B-Ionic. Inject it straight into the algae. The algae will turn hot pink immediately, and all that the alkalinity touches will die. I tried another brand of alkalinity, and it did not work.
 
oh....the dreaded pink chenille algae. looks cool but then wow does it spread. not asparagopsis, i have an identification book at my house i will try to get you a species name if i can.
 
I would not want this stuff in my fuge or anywhere else. They break off and spread where they attach. They will clog up your fuge, and smother your cheato by shading them.
I had purchased what most call 'mexican turbos', the ones that are about the size of golf balls. This guy only seemed to eat the red cotton algae, and not much else.
 
My mexican turbo snails done a great job cleaning up the refugium, but over half of them died in the first week. I don't understand why. I have had a dinoflagelate issue in the past that wiped out many snails though. I have a very stable 500G reef though. At $3/snail, it really hurts when they die like that.
 
Mexican turbo's did a great job for me with this stuff. The giant zebra turbo's didn't.

I have had a pyramellid snail problem however and eventually I lose my snails. It's sad to see them all flaccid and paralyzed. I guess the pyramellids inject venom because the snails seem to be immobile when they attack.
 
has anyone actually heard that this stuff is harmful in the fuge? I agree it would totally suck in the display, but I try to throw it away from the fuge, and I wonder if I am wasting my time. It does seem to grow faster than the chaeto, though so I worry that it will take over the fuge. thanks!
 
It breaks up and spreads very easy. Just like calupera, unless you want it in your display, I would keep it out of your tank (sump/fuge included) period.
 
I'm wondering if throwing it out is worth losing lots of chaeto....the stuff is so dense that debris, algae and other gross stuff clumps up and makes it difficult for water to flow through it. I've thought about trying to get it all out, and just keeping the little chaeto that would safely stay without the red stuff...I would have only a small amount of macro algae though for a 650 gallon total volume system.
 
I would recommend getting clean chaeto then. I would break the fuge down, clean it, and start it up again.
 
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