Losing battle with turf algae.

[OMGdavid]

Here's some more pics. If its not turf I have no idea what is it. The fact that nothing will eat it and its incredibly hard to remove led me to belive it was turf algae.

I have 2 tangs ( scopas and blue hippo) 2 large turbos. 25+ astrea, trochus and cerith. 5 blue legged hermits. I also had 2 pitho crabs but had to pull them from the tank because they were messing with the corals. I've put different types of snails , some hermits and pitho crabs in a small qt tank with bad rock and they didn't do anything there either. I have had bits of green hair algae in the past but the tangs took care of that no problem. They dont touch this stuff even when its long.

Gonna pickup an urchin this weekend.

 

[nielskeiser]

+1 on the tuxedo urchin

This is my in-laws tank. Half of the rocks are covered in turf algae. A true pain in the a** to remove. Sticks to the rock like hell

We added an urchin, and cleanup (trochus, and hermits). The urchin was a menace. 6 months after the turf is almost gone (a small patch on the backside is left)

 

[Hans-Werner]

Lowering nutrients is the wrong direction. Increase phosphate to at least 0.1 ppm and try to keep iron as low as possible. No or only little water changes and no trace elements high in iron.

Keeping phosphate at 0.1 ppm or higher will speed up growth of your Acroporas, keeps iron low and Acropora growth can outcompete nuisance algae in nutrients nitrogen and iron, making the algae starve.

 

[rayadog]

This seems like a common theme for man made rock. I have a mix in my tank and all the rock from the ocean is CLEAN.

 

[X-37B]

I would get a Sea hare. I have used them in the past. Once the algae is gone you can remove it to another system with algae or it will die.
I just took mine back to lfs.
I have urchins in every system.
I prefer the short spined black ones. They don't pick up things and carry them around like tuxedos do.
Trocus snails work well also.
In my 150, last count was 70+, I have no algae.
System is 1.5 years.

 

[DanATL]

I had bad turf algae in a 90gal and two pin cushion urchins cleaned it up in four weeks or so and it has remained turf free for the past two years. Worth a try.

 

[ryshark]

Here's some more pics. If its not turf I have no idea what is it. The fact that nothing will eat it and its incredibly hard to remove led me to belive it was turf algae.

I have 2 tangs ( scopas and blue hippo) 2 large turbos. 25+ astrea, trochus and cerith. 5 blue legged hermits. I also had 2 pitho crabs but had to pull them from the tank because they were messing with the corals. I've put different types of snails , some hermits and pitho crabs in a small qt tank with bad rock and they didn't do anything there either. I have had bits of green hair algae in the past but the tangs took care of that no problem. They dont touch this stuff even when its long.

Gonna pickup an urchin this weekend.

If nothing eats it then it might be Chlorodesmis

 

[Ziggy17]

Sea Hare FTW. It’s mows it faster than an urchin, and doesn’t knock over every stick in the tank doing it. Not easy to find, but if you can get one, borrow it for a few weeks and you should be gold.

 

[MBruun]

For Sea Hares and Urchins it depends on the type of Turf algae's if they eat it or not. You could also try long spine sea Urchins

 

[mcarroll]

Been battling it for quite some time. Tank is full of acros that are doing great but the turf algae is making me want to tear down the tank and leave the hobby. I've tried every snail imaginable. None will touch it.

I've pulled all the rocks out of the tank and scrubbed them clean. It is very hard to remove so basically have to remove the outside layer of the rock to get it. It all comes back. Whenever I lower my nutrients and think I have a hold on it. I get dinos. Have dealt with 3 dino outbreaks in this process. Washed outside of rocks with peroxide and got them looking good. But it came back.

Honestly have no idea what to do at this point. Any input is appreciated.

One green algae grows out big enough to see, it's too big for the snails.

Pulling the rocks and scrubbing them is false progress – what you're really doing it priming the surface for new algae to settle.

Gotta learn the lesson on Dino's – stop trying to use nutrient levels as a control for algae. Algae are superior competitors for N&P than any of the critters we try to keep like corals. It's a lose-lose battle.

sorry for lack of information.

-Tank has been running 2 years. 125 gallon. 1 year with coral. Sat 1 year before I added any coral.
- I feed algae sheet and mysis cube daily
- hippo tang, scopas tang, small melanurus and sixline wrasse. 1 firefish
-Phosphate measures about .04 and nitrate around 10ppm.
- I use skimmer and waterchanges for export. I can get nutrients low and improve the algae but I get dino outbreaks so it always ends up with me raising nutrients to fight the dinos which makes the algae worse
-not currently dosing anything other than kalk, alk, mag and calcium
- clean up crew consists of trochus snails, astrea snails, 2 large turbo snails and a few cerith
- have not dosed any chemicals but I do run UV.

Here are some better pictures in 100% white light. Its not terrible right now because I scrubbed most rocks with a stainless steel wire brush a couple weeks ago.

I would ease up on the nori (even stop for a while) and see if the fish help out more on the rocks.

Agree with @Hans-Werner to please allow PO4 ≥0.10 ppm. (NO3 ≥ 5 ppm)

Skimmer and water changes are fine, but stop doing water changes if N&P levels are already low.

For a tank this size, that's barely any CUC. For a heavy bioload with lots of algae, you might want upward of 2 Turbo snails per gallon. Don't add that many at once, but that gives you an idea as to how outmatched your CUC probably is. Especially more Turbos and more Astreas....add a mix of 5-6 at a time, but allow enough time to judge their progress before you add another batch.

How: Clean a spot (hopefully clean LOTS of spots), put a few snails right on that spot, and see if algae still comes back. If it does, the system still needs more snails.

Check the status of your UV. Still on? Bulb old or new? How is it installed? This algae spreads through the water, so it's not working well if it's working at all. We might be able to tell you why if you can share more pics. :)

When it grows out it looks like a tradional turf algae but im not 100%. Under more blue lights it looks brown but it's green under natural light. I've had a little bit of GHA but fish got rid of that quickly.

CUC don't touch it. I've put rocks and snails in separate tank no type would touch it.

They won't....you'd have to try with your fish, but don't.

Here's some more pics. If it's not turf I have no idea what is it. The fact that nothing will eat it and it's incredibly hard to remove led me to belive it was turf algae.

I have 2 tangs ( scopas and blue hippo) 2 large turbos. 25+ astrea, trochus and cerith. 5 blue legged hermits. I also had 2 pitho crabs but had to pull them from the tank because they were messing with the corals. I've put different types of snails , some hermits and pitho crabs in a small qt tank with bad rock and they didn't do anything there either. I have had bits of green hair algae in the past but the tangs took care of that no problem. They dont touch this stuff even when its long.

Gonna pickup an urchin this weekend.

I would add a six-pack of Turbos and see how they do before "going nuclear" with an urchin.

I like urchins, but they can be bulldozers, even compared to turbo snails.

Green algae have "roots", so it's often difficult to remove – especially if it's growing on freshly scrubbed rock. Seriously, it would otherwise be growing much more weakly on an "under turf" of various periphyton.

Snails only have tongues, BTW, no teeth – so they have to lick up the algae. Consequently, they really only go after freshly sprouted algae....but they hunt for it 24/7 for it so when they have sufficient population, it's an excellent control. Their size is their weakness – a reef has A LOT of surface area – so they make up for it in numbers....

 

[OMGdavid]

A couple people suggested raising nutrients. I tried this a while back. Dosed phosphate and nitrate to .08 and 15ppm. The algae exploded. Every square inch of the tank completely covered. I don't have a ton of coral to where im not sure if it would ever out compete anything. Maybe I should have kept with it? Mostly still frags.

Some people are suggesting more snails. It doesnt seem like they're actually able to do anything to the algae. I've set them on problem areas many times. I set up a small qt tank with bad rock and different types of snails. Made no difference. They hangout on it a while like they're doing something but when they leave its no different. I counted all the snails I could find and put them on rock. It was 53 snails + a ton of little baby trochus snails. I have no problem getting more but I haven't been able to notice even the slightest difference. If it takes a steel bristle brush to remove the algae in not surprised the snails aren't able to get it. As much as I hate urchins I am gonna try and get a couple. I've also been getting a decent amount of snails deaths. Not really sure why. I haven't seen the wrasses doing anything to them but cant know for sure.

UV has new bulb and sleeve. It is plumbed off my return manifold so I know its not super efficient because its getting a a lot of the same water run thru it. Am considering plumbing directly in display.

 

[OMGdavid]

Not very good at pictures but its starting to grow out again

 

[ryshark]

A couple people suggested raising nutrients. I tried this a while back. Dosed phosphate and nitrate to .08 and 15ppm. The algae exploded. Every square inch of the tank completely covered. I don't have a ton of coral to where im not sure if it would ever out compete anything. Maybe I should have kept with it? Mostly still frags.

Some people are suggesting more snails. It doesnt seem like they're actually able to do anything to the algae. I've set them on problem areas many times. I set up a small qt tank with bad rock and different types of snails. Made no difference. They hangout on it a while like they're doing something but when they leave its no different. I counted all the snails I could find and put them on rock. It was 53 snails + a ton of little baby trochus snails. I have no problem getting more but I haven't been able to notice even the slightest difference. If it takes a steel bristle brush to remove the algae in not surprised the snails aren't able to get it. As much as I hate urchins I am gonna try and get a couple. I've also been getting a decent amount of snails deaths. Not really sure why. I haven't seen the wrasses doing anything to them but cant know for sure.

UV has new bulb and sleeve. It is plumbed off my return manifold so I know its not super efficient because its getting a a lot of the same water run thru it. Am considering plumbing directly in display.

Did you look into Chlorodesmis? Nothing eats it because it’s toxic and it grows pretty slow. Still hard to see much from your pictures

 

[slingfox]

Not very good at pictures but its starting to grow out again

A super dark turf algae caused me to do a tank reset. I replaced all of my dry rock aquascape with Australian live rock. This was not cheap but I am six weeks in and the live rock is 65% covered with purple coraline with limited signs of any algae growth on the rocks. I previously pulled out all my rockscape 6+ times and scraped it down but the turf algae kept growing back. After about 9 months the coraline started to slowly get real estate but it was going be a long time with an ugly tank so I decided to reset.

 

[mcarroll]

Did you look into Chlorodesmis? Nothing eats it because it’s toxic and it grows pretty slow. Still hard to see much from your pictures

Most algae gets less palatable as it matures....that's a general feature, at least of pest algae that we get.

That why past a certain stage, manual removal is the only option. In general, I consider visibility to the naked eye the boundary. Once I can see it well, IMO it's verging on being too big for snails.

In the wild, larger herbivores and even non-dedicated herbivores would come through a reef and clean all this out.....we are simply taking their place. (Most are too large for small aquariums.....eg. the smallest Parrotfish is something like 8" and would turn a typical reef tank into a sandbox too quickly.)

 

[sixty_reefer]

Hi, it can be sometimes very frustrating to deal with so much information.

I will try and confuse you a little further to if I may.

Firstly let’s look at nutrients:
All we have at the moment is a snapshot in time of your residual N and P, this wont help us much to determine the root cause of the problem although it is very important to keep Nitrate and Phosphate detectable in order to feed the microbes in your tank and a way to ensure your corals don’t starve during this process.
If you had a history from the last two months it could be useful.
Your main goal at the moment should be to manage ammonia (that is preferable over nitrate to most photosynthetic organisms as it doesn’t have to spend energy reducing it to a usable form) in your system this is usually the root cause for algae takeover, not nitrate or phosphate, my suggestion would be to install a large algae refugium with stronger light than DT.
To help reduce algae from your rock as it seems that no CUC is eating it it’s best to grab a small terracotta pot soucer and cover small areas at the time, keep them in each location for a week.
What you have to take in consideration is that killing the algae in the DT will lower you N and P due to increased microbe activity from the stored sugars present in algae if you want to avoid other nuisance to replace your algae problem I strongly suggest you to increase Nitrate and phosphate as needed in order to not becoming a limiting factor for beneficial microbes to use the organic carbon released by your dead algae.