Nightmare Red Cotton Algae: Took over my tank

So how is it that one tells the 'fake' turbos from the 'true mexican' turbos?

Where does one acquire them?

I just need one for my now 29 gallon setup; tired of doing the hand-maintenance.
 
Yeah, quite some work. It can be summarized in one sentence: MEXICAN TURBOS (but not too many) ;)

Good note actually... When I was doing the manual plucking, if you turn down your powerheads to minimal flow as well, a net works wonderfully if you just gracefully go end to end on the tank picking up any floaters.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6956184#post6956184 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DensityMan
So how is it that one tells the 'fake' turbos from the 'true mexican' turbos?

Where does one acquire them?

I just need one for my now 29 gallon setup; tired of doing the hand-maintenance.
Click to expand...

Honestly it boils down to luck and truth. I am fortunate enough to have a couple LFS that do not sell BS to get a sale. From what I've read and heard, Mexican are obviously more comfortable in our 70-80 degree tanks. The "turbos" harvested in California are not and are use to colder climate.

Again, I think we're talking three things here. 1) Mexican Turbo's, 2) Fake Mexican Turbo's, 3) Astrea

Astrea are great snails, but did not seem to help this issue. When someone said they added 50 or so, I assume they were these.

If someone has bought them online successfully (and has a site for true Mexican Turbo's), please post. I've heard good feedback about http://www.etropicals.com/ but again have not ordered them from there personally.

Mexican turbo can be up to 2", 3" in jumbo form:
p_79687.jpg

http://liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=571&N=0

Astrea gets to maybe an 1" and has a much smaller mouth:
pw86499atsrea_snail.jpg

http://liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=563&N=0
 
Update on my tank:

2 weeks now with 25 Mexican Turbos and I see the biggest differance out of everything I have tried so far. My tank was over run with the "Little cute pink balls" I'm glad I found this thread. This algae is bad news. When the snails take care of it I'll pull out at least 1/2 of them and leave the rest for mantainance.

Thanks!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6996398#post6996398 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rainchief
Update on my tank:

2 weeks now with 25 Mexican Turbos and I see the biggest differance out of everything I have tried so far. My tank was over run with the "Little cute pink balls" I'm glad I found this thread. This algae is bad news. When the snails take care of it I'll pull out at least 1/2 of them and leave the rest for mantainance.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Pictures please......:D

Glad to hear your conquering the Red Nightmare......
 
Well update from me as well. I purchased 10 medical turbo snails last week for my 170 gal tank. Already I can see a difference. I took some pics to mark out the one week point and you can see a little difference. I will post in a few weeks when you can see a bigger difference.

it is amazing how much happier this makes me about my tank. It has been doing pretty well, but for the last 4 months I have really been less excited because this was so frustrating. I am so glad to have found this thread and the Mexican turbos - they are the only thing that has helped.

Mat
 
Well it's been about 3 weeks now and there is no sign of any red cotton ball left. Anywhere!

I want to thank you MMGM for this post. I had tried everything and talked to many people with no results. I even posted a thread here and didn't get far. I was loosing hope fast and loosing interest.

My tank is an 80 Gallon flat back hex with 20 gallon sump/fuge. (2) 250W halides and (2) 110W VHO's. It's as bad, probably worse than any of your examples. I have one whole corner of the tank full of Xenia that I harvest and take to the LFS every other week. It's pretty dense. The algae was almost as tall as the Xenia. It choked out most of my zoos and began to choke out my SPS. I have 150lbs of pemium fiji rock and you couldn't see any of it, anywhere. It was even on the sand about 2-3" tall. This was all in spite of weekly/biweekly water changes, siphoning and manual harvesting. I even had it in my Cheato in the fuge.

I got 25 XL Mexican Turbos. They did nothing for the first 4-5 days. Didn't even seem to move. Then, WHAM! I started to see a differance. I lost a few to crabs and falling and such. The cleanup seemed to pick up pace as time went on. They even cleaned up between the remaining Zoos.

I'll get rid of most of them inside the next two weeks and keep about 5 for general clean up. This is the answer. If you have this algae get the MEXICAN turbos!
 


I want to thank you MMGM for this post. [/B]
Click to expand...



Thanks...... I think Arconom needs a big thanks from all of us.....
:D He was the first unlucky person to experience the nightmare and very fortunate to have identified the solution......

Anyone reading this thread in the future........ you havn't experienced a nightmare until you run into this RED NIGTMARE.......:lol:

Enjoy the hobby.......:D
 
Add me to the list of folks that are so happy to have found this thread. I also had the "cute little pink fuzz-balls" that then started to take over the tank. I was getting very frustrated trying to get rid of it. Finally found this thread.

I got three of the big Mexican turbo snails last week for my little 20 gal long tank and they really went to town, immediately starting to mow down the stuff on the live rock and the puff balls on the sand bed. I got two more snails today and they are also going to work. At this rate they'll have the tank cleaned in a couple of more days. That's good.

Now, I wonder what to do about the asparagopsis that is intertwined all through the chaeto algae in my HOB refugium? It would seem that the only way to get rid of it would be to replace the whole ball of algae. But, if there was any trace of it in my main tank wouldn't it find it's way back into the 'fuge again? And vice-versa? Should I worry about the red stuff in the 'fuge?

Anyway, thanks to all who contributed to this thread. It sure helped to lessen my frustration level! :)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7317846#post7317846 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bcoons

I got three of the big Mexican turbo snails last week for my little 20 gal long tank and they really went to town, immediately starting to mow down the stuff on the live rock and the puff balls on the sand bed. I got two more snails today and they are also going to work. At this rate they'll have the tank cleaned in a couple of more days. That's good.
Click to expand...

WAAAAYYYYYY to many. One would have done the trick. I would start looking for local people who might want four of your five. Leave one in your tank, or you'll likely starve all five in a a very short time. I have two handling 150 gallons, and mine was REALLY bad. They cleared it up in days, but have some other minor algae to eat.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6956184#post6956184 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DensityMan
So how is it that one tells the 'fake' turbos from the 'true mexican' turbos?

Where does one acquire them?
; tired of doing the hand-maintenance.
Click to expand...
That's what I would like to know.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7319113#post7319113 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RokleM
WAAAAYYYYYY to many. One would have done the trick. I would start looking for local people who might want four of your five. Leave one in your tank, or you'll likely starve all five in a a very short time. I have two handling 150 gallons, and mine was REALLY bad. They cleared it up in days, but have some other minor algae to eat.
Click to expand...
Yep, you are correct. It has been just a week now, and the big snails have removed every bit of the asparagopsis from the tank. I think I am going to trade two of the four remaining (a hermit crabs seems to have killed one) away at a meeting of the local reef club this weekend.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7317846#post7317846 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bcoons


Now, I wonder what to do about the asparagopsis that is intertwined all through the chaeto algae in my HOB refugium? It would seem that the only way to get rid of it would be to replace the whole ball of algae. But, if there was any trace of it in my main tank wouldn't it find it's way back into the 'fuge again? And vice-versa? Should I worry about the red stuff in the 'fuge?
Click to expand...

I added about 10 Mexican Turbos to my 300 gallon fuge..... Also, I cleaned out the macro algae that was intertwined with the red nightmare...... In about two weeks the red nightmare was gone from my fuge too....

Enjoy......
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7338319#post7338319 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mmgm
I added about 10 Mexican Turbos to my 300 gallon fuge..... Also, I cleaned out the macro algae that was intertwined with the red nightmare...... In about two weeks the red nightmare was gone from my fuge too....

Enjoy......
Click to expand...

I threw mine away as well. You won't get everything your first time, but if your main tank is clear it will have a very hard time coming back in force.
 
I had a nasty outbreak of this stuff a while back. It was so bad you couldn't even see the LR anymore in my 100G stock tank. I threw in like a dozen jumbo mexican turbo snails from etropicals and it was gone in under 2 weeks. Gotta love those snails.
 
Maybe I need to get the kind from e-tropicals too . I have been battling this stuff for a couple years now. It smells sooo bad. When I try to remove it from the fuge..I put a pad on the outlet back to the tank because it turns into a veil of red liquid. I hate this stuff. The 'mexican turbos' we get here have ridges on their shell...are the ones you guys have smooth-shelled? I just had to remove my entire ball of chaeto this morning it was so full of this nightmare. I will replace it with fresh chaeto today. In the main tank it is minimal..thank goodness. It mostly catches in small holes and along the bottom edges of the rockwork, and I try to pull it with tweezers.:(
 
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