Red macro algae help!

[reefknight]

I have several pieces of live rock that came in with a form of red macro algae. It has spread over several of my rock pieces and onto a few corals as well. How can I get rid of it, short of removing the rocks at fault? I had a long spinned urchin (Diadema) in my tank until my Mystery wrasse made dinner out of it. (Lunch was a cleaner shrimp!) I had thought about adding a foxface or tang of some sort, would this help? Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

[Blindmelonbob]

You can remove it by hand, but that can be tedious. Are you growing any macro in a fuge?

 

[reefknight]

I don't have a fuge and with a 30 cube there really is no room for one.

I have tried removing it by hand but it is really deeply rooted! I almost pulled the top end of my reef off yesterday.

 

[Justin/TiV]

do you have a sump...you can put some cheato in there. I have a sump that has cheato in it, the cheato is between 2 peices of egg crate so it won't get caught in the skimmer or return pump.

can you take a pic of the macro algae...that will help as well

 

[Aquarist007]

are you sure its not red cyano?

 

[reefknight]

No its macro, for sure seems to be of the genus Gelidium. (Modern Coral Reef Aquarium Vol. 1, page 309.)

I would like to find a way to rid myself of this in a natural way. Any thougts?


Justin - Do you have a way of taking a picture or two of your sump? I would like to see how you have done this as it seems intriguing.

 

[reefknight]

TTT - For more advice

 

[ManotheSea]

Make a 5 gal bucket of saltwater. Remove the rocks and scrub them with a tooth brush, then rinse in the bucket of water. Its done. You will drive yourself crazy trying to find something to eat it so just scrub it off. The coraline is tougher than the macro so it survives the clean up.

I once did this to get rid of a bad case of hair algae and it never came back. When I did it I rinsed my rocks quickly under fresh tap water. I then put them in a circulated tub of salt water for several weeks to see what the results would be. The rocks were fine so they went back in the tank.

 

[its fry]

^ Good advice. Your coraline will start to grow back in two weeks tops if your Calcium levels are right.