Please help, this stuff is taking over my tank...big pic

[mcanavan69]

I have this macro/micro? algea growing all over both my 30g softy tank and my 75g mixed sps reef. It is very hard to get rid of. I have tried every animal and even removing it by hand. I have even taken the rocks out and used a toothbrush on it. Nothing helps and no one knows what it is. It started out as just a little piece on a rock I got from a lfs.

Please help...
Mark:strooper:

 

[desi04]

macro algae

macro algae

Hi! Jack:

hard to tell from pic not focused?


Dan

 

[mcanavan69]

I found out they are colonial hydroids

 

[DensityMan]

Beat me to it.

If it isn't a favorite rock of yours chisle off the infected area. If it is a rock you like then take it out of the tank and scrub it with a wire-brush (while rinsing it or dunking in a bucket of reef-water) until all of it is gone.

I keep some in a 10g nano where I still have to hand-prune toikepp it in check and it is in all manner of interesting places there currently.

 

[DensityMan]

after scrolling across and rereading you entire post I see it is already all over...

Kalk-paste, as applied to aiptasia. helps to keep them in check IME... it doesn't ever seem to get rid of them entirely, but it does hold them back to regenerating...

 

[mcanavan69]

I wonder if joes juice will do the trick

 

[mcanavan69]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=395442
in this thread I was talking to Dr Ron about the nudi that just popped up on day. I wonder if this is what is keeping him alive. I was told he eats hydroids and since he has been in the tank for a couple of months he had to be eating something.

 

[DensityMan]

It might... but Joe's Juice is a little thinner than I make my paste... it's dissolved or washed away before having much effect on them in my 10g.

 

[mcanavan69]

You did try it?

 

[DensityMan]

I tried it and they bounced back quicker than they had before using straight kalk-paste. Nothing scientific... just time noted by me after a dosing of JJ while nuking aiptasia's in the tank... /shrug

The nudibranch may be eating those, but as Dr. Ron noted he could also be eating any other soft-corals in the tank. Using a general knowledge of camoflauge; I'd guess he's more interesting in xenia oand is similar enough that it could be a zoanthid-eater... or it could be starving.