pico reef pest algae problem challenge

[brandon429]

if you ever have to externally spot treat or internally drain and treat the areas of GSP or some of the ricordeas go ahead and use a 50 50 dilution of half 3% and half saltwater, avoid application to the actual polyp if you can (except the gsp it will be closed up protected just brush it across the surface to get all the algae off) these are peroxide tolerant to a full dose but its less insulting to use a dilution run and that will still zap that algae if you let it soak in really well

make sure to use a new bottle of 3% not an old one
you don't have to manually remove the algae it makes better pics to watch it die. All of the nutrients locked up in all the algae in your tank doesn't amount to much past one daily feeding. unless algae is in an actively growing state, to the point it doubles mass regularly and has everything coated like a beard, it doesnt hold a lot of N and P. its holds some. and what we feed daily is hardcore N and P so its not worth the effort to meticulously remove it, its inconsequential in the long term as this initial mass is one big die off and then next week there isn't much left to continue degrading. clean up crew members will make faster work of the treated areas thats for sure too.

this low lying thicker bodied algae might be a little more resistant to peroxide than GHA but it will still die just a few extra days. on any rocks you are taking time to treat externally, let it cook really well. None of the corals you have will die from exposure up to several minutes.

I run 16 genera in my bowl, mixed lps, sps, zoanthids, corallimorphs and a CBS alot like yours and I leave the whole thing drained empty for 15 minutes regularly, absolutely nothing minds. It acts mad for a few days and then comes right back for the last several years now. so a good soaking of 5 mins, with multiple peroxide applications to the target around the corals during this external time, will really attack that stuff for sure. You'll get nice after pics in about a week I really bet.

 

[brandon429]

One last post just to bring up stronger dilution runs in these later pages. Remember on my tank that I only use 3% now for wiping off the inside of the lid from the greenish growth that results from weeks of splatter inside the neck area of the vase...for anything in the tank Im using straight 30% rocket fuel

I got tired of waiting for any kill time associated with 3% I wanted something quick. plus it was to further test the ability of the pico reef to adapt. the corals that were tolerant of 3% are still tolerant of the 30% as well, you'd think it would be opposite but its not the case.

get this stuff on your skin and you'll wish you didn't, but the truth is 30% solutions that come from health food stores should not be discounted/given up on if a 3% works too slowly or not at all. all the work we've done in this whole thread has been 3% except for napi napoli treating some kind of unresponsive algae we never identified and nacl treating neomeris with it only to have the neo grow back in untreated areas...its certainly not used very often.

But there hasn't been any algae in my own tank it couldn t beat, and my results are in 24 hours what you guys are waiting days for. then there's midlevel dilutions of the 30%, feel free to dilute down to 15% if you feel better thats still mild rocket fuel. thought this would be a helpful update to know there is much faster acting peroxide dilutions out there and people have used them enough to be able to predict them as well. you can expect your coralline to be bleached but it will come back. my own coralline is immune to it now; it does not bleach.

the likelihood is that a 3% run will be fine, this is just backup for you. such a nice tank should have all options applied before deconstruction and rock cooking, the last step to an unresponsive invader

 

[shifty99]

I'm gonna try to post a picture of my mess before I start tomorrow. Lets see if this works

 

[shifty99]

I'm gonna try to post a pic of my mess. Not sure if this will work

 

[shifty99]

oops sorry double post.

 

[shifty99]

Brandon, thankyou for all your time and effort in this thread. I have a 100g. tank and have been battling GHA for about a year now. Read through the whole thread and crossing my fingers that this treatment will solve my problems. I have been removing the GHA manually and have gone as far as removing all my rock last month and scrubbing it down. The regrowth has slowed since I added a GFO reactor and an RODI unit and switched out my old T-5s for an LED fixture.

This tank is a FOWLR so I was considering dosing the whole tank but I am impatient and it sounds as though the kill rate is better with direct contact on the GHA. This morning I am going to remove all my rock and drip 3% directly on to the offending areas, let sit for a few minutes, rinse, and return to the display. I will post photos of the die-off (hopefully).

One thing I have noticed in this thread is that there are usually great instant results but not much documented on long term results. It seems as though you are still treating your rocks. Is this because of regrowth or for testing? In other words, I don't want to do this process once a month to remain GHA free.

Since I have taken measures to reduce my phosphate levels dramatically, I am trusting that I just need to do this for the bulk of the existing GHA and then it won't return. If it seems to return, I will start dosing the whole tank as I don't have corals (aside from a few mushrooms).

Well, here goes and here are a few more pics for documentation.

 

[brandon429]

It's true we don't get a lot of follow up long term hopefully some of the original treaters will post back

I treat my own reef every few months as I don't use nutrient controls of any kind and algae is always natural in a reef tank, especially when phosphates go unchecked.
There isn't really a one off system for algae controls so we just have to see what works best. The predictable part of the peroxide method is the initial kill, how fast it grows back is unique to each tank well just have to see how it does in your tank

That's a pretty strong fish bioload to contend with it will be interesting to see


The reason I choose to use peroxide over other methods is it works best for my tank with the least work overall, in some tanks it didn't work.

Depending on how long your tank has been In a eutrophic state the rocks and substrate might be bound with po4 more so than a tank that started with nutrient controls, these are things to address if any of the popular algae control methods don't work long term. If further testing shows po4 bound rocks then acid etching might be needed as even gfo cant remove phosphate that doesn't originate in the water column

I fully predict you will need an ongoing management approach the balance will be to find what works best with the least work for you


Thanks for posting!

This is a great challenge to see what happens after the initial run

Your particular algae is not the obligate hitchhiker type, variants of green hair algae always make re entry into our tanks as they are among the species distributed worldwide on air currents through various vectors and through most common items input into our tanks that haven't been truly sanitized, that's what I retreat in my bowl every few months as well.

The tanks that have a chance to rid an invader with a one off approach are the ones with obligate hitchhikers like valonia or red brush algae, those must come in on substrate of one type or another so there is a great chance of a lasting kill if all the biomass is truly removed the first time. These invaders can be killed independently of nutrient controls since they are obligate hitchhikers but you really have to get it all out at once and this is hard for large tanks

Gha variants and Cyanobacteria are the constant invaders and nutrient controls are a valid approach with them due to the constant influx into our tanks

Can't wait to see your next pics your algae has a die off time of 3-5 days predictably using the treatment method you described of an external treatment

 

[ampemployee1]

Not quite long term, but...

Not quite long term, but...

@shifty,

To your point, I'm also not interested in long term, continued peroxide treatments. I combined the treatment, however, with GFO and daily phosphate testing. I embarked on the initial peroxide treatment about 6 weeks ago, and GFO about 10 weeks ago.

I went from 0.36ppm to 0.04ppm over the period of time that I did the peroxide treatment in conjunction with wet skimming and GFO running in a TLF reactor, and 5% water changes every 3 days.

I had to treat every rock twice (there were some strong algae holdfasts). I'm optimistic, because I haven't seen much regrowth since the second treatments, and by keeping the phosphates in check with water changes, and GFO. Just for context, the second treatments were on spots that I probably missed when I spot treated outside the tank. I didn't do the 50/50 soak method.

Here's a pic from a few days ago. Since this pic, I treated a couple of small patches, and hope that will be the last of the peroxide treatments for a long time!

Good luck with the battle.

 

[aleggett321]

Brandon, first let me say thank you for all the time and effort you have spent over the last year on this thread. You have helped out so many of us.
I'm starting an experiment on my 150 gal with luxurious amounts of GHA. I cooked everything in muriatic acid several months ago and thought my problem was solved, however the green stuff is back, even with nutrients in check. (nitrates 0, PO4 <0.04 per hanna checker)
I just removed one third of my rock and did the direct out of tank treatment using 3% peroxide. The next section I am going to spot treat, using plastic wrap wherever possible, using 15 cc per day of 3%. The last section I am going to leave for a while and see if, over time, I will get some die off just from the amount added (equal to 1cc/10 gal.) during the spot treatment.
I'll let you know how it goes, thanks, April

 

[bbwebb]

Okay, we treated two rocks today using full strength 3% solution. We pulled the rocks out and both poured and painted the peroxide over the affected area. As promised I have some photos of the algae under various magnifications. I plan to make a new slide each day while the algae dies off (fingers crossed) so that we can see from a microscopic level the cell damage as it occurs.

First, here are two pictures of the rocks we just treated

Algae under 60x Magnification

Algae under 150x Magnification

Algae under 600x Magnification

 

[bbwebb]

24 Hours after treatment

24 Hours after treatment

It's been 24 hours since externally treating two rocks in the tank. Not seeing much change so far.

Reference location

60x Magnification

150x Magnification

600x Magnification

 

[brandon429]

very good updates we'll watch a little longer for the tell tale bleaching. the bottle was new, unopened right

also, on your test samples that you are magnifying would you soak one little batch of removed algae for about 10 mins straight and then photograph in 24 hours, that will be a magnified speed run and even if the first run on the rock takes a little longer we'll get to see at the magnified level what destruction looks like, a little quicker. I can't wait to see if cell wall compromise is initial or if the chloroplasts lyse internally first, and Im just being impatient lol

 

[laugh]

Could you zoom in a little so we can get a clear image of the algae? For real though microscope pics before, during, and after treatment is a great idea. I want to see the look on it's face as it withers away.

 

[brandon429]

Yes 600x isn't quite good enough for me either


laugh you want him to zoom more! the public demands it

 

[brandon429]

Lets take bets on what those little brown dots are

anyone have a guess

Since they are found regularly interspersed and in groups i really wonder if its a reproductive unit for the algae

My next guess is some reproductive unit from benthic creatures that live in the tank, but as well distributed as these are I'm really leaning towards something from the plant

Will seek out Ron Shimek from marine depot forums for id, and our online friend Albert Thiel he's great at id'ing

Just looked above to see that -awesome- pic of one protruding through the cell wall, again a reinforcement the node or spore is self generated
Allegit how is your tank going now some time after treatment
I was wondering about your regrowth rates, how they are doing

And laugh i recall your tank was a tricky drain and treat run...hopefully the p helped a little
This has certainly been long enough to evaluate the regrowth factors for your tank too.

 

[laugh]

Yes I did a drain and treat and it did a good job of knocking it back. But have since upgraded to a larger tank and I treated all my rock externally. The only algae that remains is some very stubborn red hair algae. I will get some pics of the new set up that has no more hair algae or bryopsis.

 

[bbwebb]

very good updates we'll watch a little longer for the tell tale bleaching. the bottle was new, unopened right

also, on your test samples that you are magnifying would you soak one little batch of removed algae for about 10 mins straight and then photograph in 24 hours, that will be a magnified speed run and even if the first run on the rock takes a little longer we'll get to see at the magnified level what destruction looks like, a little quicker. I can't wait to see if cell wall compromise is initial or if the chloroplasts lyse internally first, and Im just being impatient lol

Yes, New bottle straight from Costco.

I'll do a second slide this afternoon when I do the 48 hours pictures. Maybe that will give me some additional confidence!

 

[bbwebb]

Lets take bets on what those little brown dots are

anyone have a guess

Since they are found regularly interspersed and in groups i really wonder if its a reproductive unit for the algae

My next guess is some reproductive unit from benthic creatures that live in the tank, but as well distributed as these are I'm really leaning towards something from the plant

Will seek out Ron Shimek from marine depot forums for id, and our online friend Albert Thiel he's great at id'ing

Since I'm pretty sure I'm dealing with Derbesia, this is from Julian Sprung's Algae Problem Solver Guide:

"Dark green extremely fine filaments, loosely attached under low velocity water movement, tightly adhering under strong water flow. Filaments usually have distinctive grape-like sporangia visible under magnification of a microscope."

So based on this your first guess sounds about right.

 

[bbwebb]

Could you zoom in a little so we can get a clear image of the algae? For real though microscope pics before, during, and after treatment is a great idea. I want to see the look on it's face as it withers away.

I was so frustrated with trying to get rid of the algae I decided I needed to know exactly what I was dealing with. Specifically, a siphonous or non-siphonous variety. Fortunately we bought my daughter a pretty decent microscope (Celestron 44104) a couple of years ago. The camera upgrade was a bit of an impulse buy, but it takes pretty good pictures for the $35 I paid for it.

 

[bbwebb]

48 Hours Later

48 Hours Later

It's now been 48 hours. Starting to see some bleaching. I'm cautiously optimistic at this point.

Reference Location - Algae is a much lighter green compared to yesterday's shots.

Here is a comparison from yesterday and today:

Under the microscope there are large areas of the algae that appear to have far fewer chloroplasts. There are still some areas with a high density, but it is an improvement from just yesterday.

60x Magnification
Lower Density

Higher Density

150x Magnification

600x Magnification

Brandon - About to get your request underway. I'll have before/after pictures tomorrow.

-Bill