This is an awesome thread. Just this last week I started winning this battle after many months. I know this seems to be a very scarce issue, but we need to sticky this thread due to how nasty it can be in a tank.
Let me squash a few things I read I think are completely false:
1) It thrives on low PH. Very unlikely. My PH is at 8.4 - 8.5 constant since I started my tank.
2) Siphoning and/or pulling it off won't help much. This is couldn't be any further from the truth. I will comment on this later.
Soooooo... Mine started probably 4 months back as a "little cute pink ball". As many have realized, man I had no idea what I was in for. I couldn't find ANY thread on this stuff (which is why I really want to put my ideas in here).
Let me tell you, I know first hand about this stuff. I have a 58 gallon. This was just one of my main pieces of rock on a "good" day.
I tried EVERYTHING. Let me give you the list in order of changes made.
1) I went from a 20 gallon to 100 gallon sump
2) Added full time phosphate and carbon filters
3) Increased my macro algae (chaeto) massively
4) Went from a little AquaC EV-120 skimmer to a massive 36" GEO
5) Beefed up my cleanup crew. 40+ smaller snails (cerith, astrea) and my first crabs ever (20+ blue leg, 6 scarlet)
6) Switched from flake food to everything else (frozen, cylopeez, mysis, etc)
7) I did cleanup like you can't imagine. I started off just pulling out what I could by hand. The KEY is to grab a bunch between your fingers, and DO NOT LET GO until it is out of the water. You will have minimal float away. I intensified this later by using a suction and a toothbrush. This worked even better, but it was just a matter of days before it was growing back. I even took the worst piece out and physically scrubbed it (which is why you don't see my cool green macro anymore).
Each one of these helped, but barely made a dent. How much time and effort? No idea. How much headache, searching of threads, posting, and minimal responses that helped? Way too much.
BEHOLD!!! MY $2.50 SAVIORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 TRUE MEXICAN TURBO'S (about 1.5")
4 months of fighting and these little suckers have DESTROYED this stuff in ONE WEEK. Minimal remains in my tank.
I do want to clear something up though. Those of you putting in tons of "turbo snails" (and by tons, this is more than like 6), I really hope are putting in the small 1/2-3/4" Astrea. Their mouths are roughly 1/20th the size of the REAL Mexican turbo snail's. Even on a monster tank like a 400-600, unless you just grow algae that would keep a fleet of tangs happy, no more than two dozen TRUE Mexican turbo snails should be required. If you add more, you'll just be starving the poor guys in no time.
Note, I have NEVER EVER seen one of my Astrea sitting in a patch of pink muching away. I have witnessed numerous times the Mexican turbo doing just that.
Oh... I almost forgot...
BOOOGA BOOOGA!!!!!!!
(did I scare you?)
:lol:
