Gelidium creeping on LR

[OceanJack]

Bought this beautiful live rock from Tank Stop back in August, it's been a little battle with pests, bropysis, majanoe anems and now I have been finding creeping red wiry gelidium.

I did take the rock out when I did find the algae and removed it with dental picks/broke the rock off. But seeing that it is isolated on one rock right now, do you think the best course of action here is to remove the single rock and nuke it?
I was thinking about taking it out, bleach then dry and reseed it in my system. I have no corals right now, just two fish. So I prefer to not rip it all clean and start over, but will this prevent the gelidium from spreading? Or has it already spread to the other rocks?

 

[Subsea]

Take a picture of algae in question, because when I Google it, there are conflicting examples.

This is what I am familiar with:

Gelidium, Red Wiry Turf Algae​

Many species of short creeping red algae exist so the hobby generally lumps all of them under the heading "Gelidium", (the genus that is home to many of those species), and the common name Red Turf Algae, or Red Wiry Algae.

Manual Removal: Difficult. Macros that have fragile runners and creep along the rock are the hardest to manually remove. Do the best you can. Use a dental pick to remove it if possible. Fragments of the algae can spread though, so make sure to net any pieces that break loose. Yeah I know, it is boring as can be, but if you do it once surgically with a dental pick the problem goes away for good. If you can take the rock out, all the better.

Clean Up Crew: Emerald Crabs, urchins, sea hares, and large turbos.

 

[OceanJack]

That's exactly it, I got Trochus snails that eat it's cousin Red Turf but they won't touch this stuff for whatever reason.

I'm ok with pulling the rock and bleaching it, to hopefully control the spread. Or possibly pulling the rock and getting some turbo snails but I'm afraid it won't get the roots of the gelidium.

 

[Subsea]

Use a 10% solution of 3% peroxide for 10 minute bath. Algae be gone.

Urchins eat it and they also eat coraline algae.

 

[Subsea]

This is a rock from a tank that I broke down a month ago. It was 100% covered in red wire algae. One week ago, I added this urchin and he eats everything including disintegrating biomass from sponges. I would estimate that only 40% is still covered.

 

[OceanJack]

Use a 10% solution of 3% peroxide for 10 minute bath. Algae be gone.

Urchins eat it and they also eat coraline algae.

I might try this first, I'm OK with going full nuke option as well.

Was thinking of just getting an urchin and quarantining this rock and letting it go to town.

 

[OceanJack]

This is a rock from a tank that I broke down a month ago. It was 100% covered in red wire algae. One week ago, I added this urchin and he eats everything including disintegrating biomass from sponges. I would estimate that only 40% is still covered.

What kind of urchin do you have?

 

[Subsea]

It’s from the Caribbean along with the sponges. LFS called it Purple Urchin. This one is hiding but I’ll take a picture of one in a different tank.

PS: I remember now. I removed urchin from 30G sponge cleaning tank because urchins are bulldozers and I have too much small stuff inthe tank.
I emulate Nature and actually enjoy this different macro algae. In my experience, It grows slow.

PSS: Here’s a picture without the actinic light bar, because iPad exaggerates blue. Also, this 75G tank is 25 years set up and I had a forest of GSP everywhere. So it is in a remodeling mode as I set up a 150G Rubbermaid tub to take down back wall of GSP and large live rocks removed as well. At this point, I am ready to introduce diver collected live rock from Florida vendor.

Post in thread '25 year old 75G Jaubert Plenum on top with 30G EcoSystem Mud/Macro'
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/2...-30g-ecosystem-mud-macro.421526/post-13282613

 

[OceanJack]

Beautiful tank! I don't like gelidium as a macro, I think I am going to pull the rock and bleach it. There's more than enough lr to sustain the system and reseed it when it's dead. This stuff seems impossible to remove unless you go full bore with it.