pico reef pest algae problem challenge

hey ~! I know its hard to read lol. Just read the last 6 pages its all there under what we were calling a submerged spot treatment, with pumps off...once you factor in any sensitive animals its ready to go. I'll do it for you if you post a full tank shot
B
 
so what we do is eyeball the tank to see whats in it and set a max dose based on that, and id the target.

turn off pumps, use an injection tool to hit the spots underwater, w pumps off, with a fresh dose of h202. there are other concentration methods but thats easiest, we can tell w pics
 
This picture is a few days...one frag is able to be dipped but a lot of it is attached to.rocks that cannot be moved. I've attempted to circle the areas with yellow circles. The area have grown a lil bit more since this picture. I'll take an up to date picture when I get home.

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Thats a great shot, the tank is an easy peroxide candidate. The initial treatment will zap your limited algae, and then you can gauge the regrowth, if any, to find out your real nutrient issues if any. Simply having algae doesn't indicate a nutrient problem but the recurring them we see on this thread is that its a common assessment. Algae can grow in very low nutrient situations, so sometimes its handy to treat the actual problem vs going through a big nutrient stripping change for the entire tank chemistry.

Problematic, recurring issues might benefit from that, your tank doesn't strike me as severely eutrophic I give you a very high chance of simply fixing it with a spot treatment underwater.


The key for your tank is slow injection, use a diabetic's syringe and needle if you can, its the best above all. Outside that are common reef fluid injection tools...simple pipettes, there is Julian Sprung's 'thing' reef tool for 30 bucks and its a fluid injector.

You turn off pumps, wait for water for still, and very slowly inject a few ml's peroxide right into the patch. not on top of it, press the injector down to the base.

do one patch at a time, wait a few days to move on to another, gauge that first patch for receptivity and tank acceptance of the treatment. I can tell it will be fine in all likelihood those are corals we've come across many times in the thread. No acro has shown problems whatsoever.

use 1-2 mls per 10 gallons of water and inject that dosage all at once right into the first test patch, your tank doesn't have sensitive species, and slowly inject this first round of peroxide into a given test patch. The slower the better, its burning the algae as it passes through and into the water column. Its quickly dissipated out of the tank in a couple days, then run another patch and keep us some pics coming for documentation! try to take a macro close up shot with your cell phone of the first target patch so we can watch it die and learn the timing.

thanks for posting!
 
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Can you explain what you mean by sensative species? I do have cleaner shrimps...I thought I read something like that before.

Here are some up close shots.

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I could not see that little detail from the pics lol!

So yes a cleaner shrimp is listed as intolerant. Coral banded shrimp not a problem, but lysmata cleaners have to be disclosed as potentially a loss in this treatment. If you can catch him and QT him for a few days until all this disperses no prob!

if not, I still have a way to potentially help. even though losing it is possible, we have in tank treatments for tanks your size with no loss, just keep the possibility in mind.

Id bump your injections down to 1 ml per 1o gallons and do everything the same. try to inject when he's not near the patch, Ive seen this work several times if you absolutely can't get him out of the tank to ensure success with the lysmata species.

If you treat internally with him, at the 1:10 dosage, and he's not near the test patch you have about an 85% chance of not killing him.

15% chance says you lose a $30 animal but come out algae free :) time to pick!@!
 
Unfortunately I don't have before & after pics, but I can say that the treatment for me has been an amazing success. I had quite a bit of really tough either turf algae or bryopsis. I tore apart the rockwork completely and dipped everything in a 50/50 solution for 3 mins. Now my LR looks pretty much new. All of the coralline growth got nuked, but there is not a hint of the turf/bryopsis.

I'm extremely pleased with the results so far. I hope to never even consider doing the again as it was an enormous PITA. Hopefully spot treatments at all that will ever be necessary for here on out.
 
Unfortunately I don't have before & after pics, but I can say that the treatment for me has been an amazing success. I had quite a bit of really tough either turf algae or bryopsis. I tore apart the rockwork completely and dipped everything in a 50/50 solution for 3 mins. Now my LR looks pretty much new. All of the coralline growth got nuked, but there is not a hint of the turf/bryopsis.

I'm extremely pleased with the results so far. I hope to never even consider doing the again as it was an enormous PITA. Hopefully spot treatments at all that will ever be necessary for here on out.
 
Hey i'm glad it worked! sometimes its hard to get every single holdfast zapped but at least if there is a comeback it will be small and you can act fast with a quick spot injection underwater.

Gazzman's treated tank on the previous page had some regrowth and we're attacking that slowly...the main benefit is this fresh start and a chance to see a clean tank, with no re cycle, and a chance to evaluate your nutrient profile based on any kind of rebound growth if any. Thanks!
 
Just a couple bits of friendly advice for anyone looking to do the same thing...

First of all, don't do what I did in forgetting to soak or spray your return nozzles. Unfortunately, a couple of days ago I realized that I completely forgot these. The rest of the tank looks pretty awesome right now, but the returns look like hell.

The other thing is concerning the corals. I have primarily leathers and platties along with a couple of zoas and LPS. I believe it was mainly the platties that slimed up like there was no tomorrow. I mean that there looked to be a massive pile of snot floating on the surface of the peroxide solution. Everything came thru fine however, so don't be surprised or concerned if things look grim during or immediately after the dip.
 
Brandon, thank you for pointing me towards this thread. So far, I'm on page 10, reading through it, but figured I'd jump ahead to post my plan.

I've been dealing with algae, in our 40 breeder frag tank. For the most part, the algae issue is only effecting the frags, on frag racks, not the tank as a whole.

I've been using CoralRx, as a bath, every few weeks, with good results at killing the algae, but it always seems to grow back, after a few weeks. I've considered doing a CoralRx bath, every 2 or 3 days, for a week, to see if that puts a stop to the regrowth, but with the price of CoralRx, that could get expensive, so I've been looking for alternatives.

I did my last CoralRx bath, just a few days ago so right now, most of the frags are fairly "clean."

My plan:

I'll wait a week or so for the algae to regrow and then start a hydrogen peroxide treatment, with before/after photos.

I'm going to use two different methods, both with a 50/50 ratio of peroxide and tank water.

#1. I'll remove some effected frags from tank and spot treat by dipping just the plug portion, for 3 minutes, rinsing and returning to tank.

#2. I will make a bath, 50/50 peroxide/tank water, and actually submerge the frags/frag plugs in the solution for 3 minutes, rinsing and returning to tank.

Corals will include SPS, Chalices and Zoanthids.

I'm most interested to see if this stops the regrowth, after a couple of weeks. As I said, I'll photograph this process, posting before/after/possibly weekly progression photos.

If I'm happy with the results, I may attempt the same two methods, using full strength 3% peroxide, on another batch of algae effected plugs/corals.
 
Don't know if this has been asked yet, or even attempted. Is it possible to dip blue ochtodes (macro algae) that is covered in hair algae to kill off the ha without killing the macro its growing on? If that makes any sense. Also is it possible to treat the peroxide to a 3g tank to get rid of red slime?
 
I fully suspect it will kill the ochtodes, and yes we have done 3 gallon tanks post pics!!

some people use turbo snails though to just eat the red slime...
 
lets look into it...can you post new shots of the treated areas? After some verification of the origins of the rocks, filtration in the tank, time frame of tank, we might arrive you have phosphate loaded rocks, lets see the pics tho
 
The rock has been in my system for over 7 years. I got the bryopsis off of a frag at least that's what i think. I took all the rock out a month or two ago. All the rock was soaked in hyroperoxide and left to dry. All the coral was then dipped for 5 min in a 50/50 mix. It looked great for about 2 weeks. Now it has come back thicker than ever. I can pull the frags and some corals out and dip them again, but it's getting old and I don't know how much stress they can take. Problem is now, it's in my sand bed. I spend at least 30 min a night pulling it out just to see it again 2 days later. I am wet skimming, have cheato in sump, running phos guard, and treating with algea-fix marine:deadhorse1:.
 
peroxide has been working to treat bubble algae on some of my stuff.. i have some more to go, but its a good start
 
I'm out of 35% now

What an interesting thing to ponder my gallon reef has had half a container of 35% used in it on various paper towel wipes, drain and treat applications etc

The other half was household use, stuff is twenty bucks I hate buying it

This thread is great to link to the peroxide thread as it documents overdose rates, actions and recovery/losses


http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2212596
 
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