pico reef pest algae problem challenge

I did the peroxide dosing and never again, stuff aint not joke. Killed the bryopsis for a little while but it came back after 4-5 weeks. Corals took a while to come back to life also about the same time as the bryopsis did.

Increasing the MG as my next venture in the battle with Bryopsis.
 
that didn't happen with the spot treatment it should be said...other methods of application have tighter control. whole tank dosing is risky and tends to vary in consistency among experimenters.
Additionally, bryopsis that was allowed to proliferate is never expected to go away with one treatment. It takes total control over future substrate import and certainty that the total biomass was wiped out in the first run. peroxide is not a one off usage, I don't know of any method that is. GFO has to be replenished etc
 
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Mr Syg I don't know about the flatworms do you have a pic

If you are treating outside the tank your tiger pistol and goby won't be stressed

and, nothing says you have to treat your whole infestation in one pass. Anyone who is hesitant to try a spot treatment after this many pics can take any sample substrate out of their tank and just try one area, take it slow no rush. I retreat 2 spots in my tank that like to send up tufts of algae about once every 2 or 3 months as an ongoing regimen to avoid the greater outbreak. Did you take any pics of your corals healing up brad
 
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hey everyone looking to try the peroxide trick as I am having a little bit of an algae problem.... just dont know where to start
 
Think those are the suckers swarmed a new 3" piece of base rock pretty quick. now i see them all over the sand

I started the peroxide. Here's what I did:
Took out the problem area. In this case a powerhead covered with awful red algae and also some bryrposis.
Dipped in a peroxide 3% solution for 3 minutes
Washed it off
Put it back in tank

have I done anything wrong
1hdz68.jpg
 
no thats a perfect peroxide treatment, when fully rinsed none gets back into the main tank and it will die very fast, 3 mins submerged in 3% is nuclear there's no way it can survive. your treated surfaces will die back and clean themselves back to the original condition~

curry nice to meet you man. we need pics of your tank and treatment to both get a plan ready and to document the outcome for others
B
 
Syg those flatworms are something all of us have to deal with. They hitch a ride in on frags and live rocks we buy from fish stores or other tanks. They make medications to add to them but I recommend we wait, if it was my tank Id clean the algae first and then handle those flat worms, no reason to run concurrent meds.

In my vase when I used to get those I never added meds for them. they would congregate on the glass sides eventually and during a water change I would take a paper towel and wipe up and out when the tank was drained (you can do a lot of work on a tank when its drained)

by removing the mass as best I could they just died out and didn't come back because I started dipping new frag bases in peroxide to kill all hitchhikers. It also helped that my tank was full of corals and had no more room for additions, this cut down on my list of invaders significantly. I would siphon those out off the sandbed, and replace a handfull of new sand wherever needed. that will keep them controlled until you are ready to start stronger target meds like flatworm exit etc, and, they may die off anyway without cause like they did in my tanks. no hurry on those guys, the algae is more of a risk to your tank
 
Been a day since i did the peroxide dip to my powerhead. It hasnt killed the red algae although turning it orangish neon and red color

izlw7n.jpg
 
what a great after treatment pic!!!!!!

The harbinger of death for red algae is hot pink coloration. Notice this as well, if you have any clean up crew members who can get up there they will, for some reason they start to go crazy on peroxide treated targets. Its only a guess but it may be some kind of cellular cooking that either increases palatability or chemosensitivity to predators of a given algae...who knows but its a fact.

That was a particularly burly growth, really glad you posted this. right at about 5 days after treatment the stuff will be so loose it will probably just fall off in the current. It won't matter if you remove it from your tank or not because the whole biomass will be dead.

I do not believe that algae masses of any size contain substantial nitrate and phosphate compared to the feeds we add everyday, so removing the algae from the system isn't as important as killing it. Any negligible amount of phosphate and nitrate bound up in algal cells is so offset by feed and whole particle waste from the inhabitants its just not a big deal to remove it. Maybe clean up crews, who we have been told will prevent the algae in the first place (not) will actually eat some now!
 
No clean up crew near it but a weird thing was as soon as I put it into the tank my clownfish started to go near it and nip it
 
Ok I gave the magnesium a try. It was pretty successful but the bryopsis came back in less than a week. I'm joining in.
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Day 1: Pretreatment
 
that appears to be a thick bodied macro of some sort, not like any bryopsis variant Ive ever seen this should be neat. you did spot treatments, drain and treat right? vs adding to the whole tank?
 
copied this short list from the nr thread:

List of reef inhabitants we've seen that do NOT tolerate peroxide contact very well
#1 Bristleworms
die when even in the most diluted contact of peroxide
#2 Lysmata cleaner shrimp
#3 coralline algae
#4 decorative macro algae
#5 xenia

any use of peroxide outside of the external spot treatment method can cause loss of the top 5 in my opinion, although many peroxide treated tanks ran whole tank dosings with no loss. the list is just an aggregation of what I see as recurring themes across the major peroxide threads online.

Using the external spot treatment + rinse + reinstall correctly has a 100% track record across threads (zero loss to unintended animals).
 
can't wait for the pics of the kill! most green targets die in 24 hours cant wait to see if a large macro does the same!!!
 
I have some of this delicate macro on one of my rocks and have found it easy to control. My purchase of a Scribbled Rabbitfish to help with the bryopsis did not work of course, but he absolutely loves this small delicate macro. I can't find the name of it, but it doesn't matter, it will soon be all eaten by my rabbitfish.

I have started the peroxide method on a few of my rocks overrun with bryopsis. I did succumb to scrubbing it afterwards, as well. Salifert magnesium test kit and a large bottle of Kent Tech M are also on their way to me! I have a 135 stocked with very large cleaner shrimp and a pistol shrimp, so I am not going to be adding peroxide directly to the tank. I also have a lot of nice sps that would be harmed by this method.

Great thread discussion!
 
We are currently wanting all tank sizes! Thank you all for excellent pics and feedback the rabbitfish has been duly noted i didnt know that
 
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