Obnoxious overgrowth: What is the toughest algae to get rid of?

[Petcrazyson]

What did you do to get rid of it?

Time. I let time do its thing as nothing I added would have a good enough effect. I’m sure I could’ve sped it up with a UV sterilizer and possibly NoPox

 

[Bob E]

For me it's Cyanobacteria and some Bryopsis

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[Cool Fish]

Time. I let time do its thing as nothing I added would have a good enough effect. I’m sure I could’ve sped it up with a UV sterilizer and possibly NoPox

Thanks. A lot of people say the same thing. But I’ve been waiting for about a year and losing patience .

 

[Petcrazyson]

Thanks. A lot of people say the same thing. But I’ve been waiting for about a year and losing patience .

There is a great plan that can help you with cyano and water clarity. It’s a Calcium Powder blend with RO https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/extreme-water-clarity-and-cyano-eradication-made-easy.916381/

 

[SantaMonica]

The weaker photosynthesizing algae, which are any of the brown dusty types like diatoms or dino's, go first because they don't pull nutrients out of the water very well because they can't anchor strongly, and thus they can't make use of strong water current (much less, turbulent air/water interfaces) which remove the boundary layer barrier of water insulating the algae. Also they only form on surfaces, which stops flow from going through them. So they are weak filters and need lots of nutrients; when nutrients in the water first start to drop, these algae can't survive.

Next comes GHA (green hair algae), which has more of a translucent "antenna" to catch flow and light; it can extract nutrients from the water longer, and anchor in high flow and turbulent air/water interfaces better (which removes the boundary layer barrier of water insulating the algae), and thus survive by extracting nutrients even when nutrients are barely available. This is of coarse, until GHA is eaten by fish! And since a lot of GHA attaches to rock, as long as phosphate is flowing out of the rock, there will be GHA on it.

Next come the tough ones that have stronger strategies to get nutrients:

Bubble algae concentrates very low levels of nutrients that are outside the bubble, into to high levels of nutrients inside the bubble. Even if nutrients measure "zero" outside the bubble, the bubble will have some nutrients stored inside it, and will take an abnormally long time to deplete these internal nutrients. But the bubble will eventually go away, if nutrients are kept low enough in the water.

Bryopsis, which uses "roots" to extract nutrients deep in rock. Even when nutrients in water measure "zero", bryopsis can survive from nutrients in the rock. So only after depleting the nutrients in the water for a long time, do you then deplete enough nutrients in the rocks, to kill bryopsis. But bryopsis too will go eventually, if nutrients are kept low in the water. If there is phosphate coming out of the rock, the situation can be really confusing because both the bryopsis and GHA can appear to be increasing, even though you have been testing "zero" nutrients for weeks!

And lastly, there is cyano, which does not care about any of this; cyano can "feed" on food particles, so your clean up crew should be increased to consume and stir up all the food particles on the substrate; water flow along the substrate can be increased too, to help with this. This will also stir up the food particles for the corals to eat!

 

[KrisReef]

When did Cyanobacteria become an algae?

The Differences Between Bacteria & Algae

Bacteria and algae are both microorganisms. Many of them are single-celled creatures that feed themselves through photosynthesis. Both algae and bacteria are essential parts of the food chain. Algae makes up the basis of most marine food chains, fueling the ecosystem. Bacteria helps to break...

sciencing.com

 

[jabberwock]

Caulurpa. Specifically, C. Racemosa.

If you've ever had Caulurpa go sexual in your tank, you're going to side with me on this one. The rest can be a pain, no doubt, but there's really no comparison.

I once used 180lbs of very expensive, wet shipped Marshall Islands live rock to fill a hole in my back yard. Yeah. That's what it takes to get rid of Caulurpa when it takes over an aquarium.

I love my Racemosa. Just have to keep an eye on it and trim it back when it starts looking randy.

 

[jabberwock]

I lost this GHA battle.

 

[AydenLincoln]

GHA! Nothing eats it faster than it multiplies ugh!

 

[FishTruck]

Bubble algae, I battled it for a few years in my old tank. It took over my refugium... then ended up in the display. I shut down the fuge... bought a bunch of emerald crabs, and resorted to an algicide (vibrant). This eventually worked and no bubble algae now in years.

 

[Kenneth Wingerter]

Had a weird planktonic desmid algae for years. I think it emerged first in a brackish tank, but then found a way to get into and subsequently overrun every tank I ran for like four years. A MASSIVE nuisance. Would turn the the water pea green whether in freshwater, marine, or whatever. Even if I tried to keep some pods or other odd thing in mason jars in the window, it would find a way to invade those (kind of useful for that though). Only after heavy UV sterilization and countless extended blackouts, I finally wiped it out a few months ago. That stuff was evil!

 

[David Gaskins]

I am trying to figure out if Lobophora (reddish encrusting corraline algae) is an issue in my tank. It grows at an accelerated rate compared to say purple corraline (glass/live rock/frag plugs).

While I have not been able to scientifically prove it, in areas where it comes across stony corals, it seems to prevent the further encrusting (only branching actions) and for some ( like Tyree Pink Lemonade), seems to irritate and prevent any further growth or PE (still maintains color). It's as if it out-competes with stony corals for space by Allelopathic warfare.

For reference, I also have a large quantity of stony colonies that do not seem to be affected by any nearby Lobophora, so this affect is very specific to particular species of stony corals.

I did some research and found several published report that seems to reinforce my observations here at:

https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps2007/342/m342p139.pdf

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep18637

Any thoughts? I was thinking of fragging some of the suspect corals above the base tissue and re-glueing to new plugs to see if the health/growth of corals changed.

Sincerely,

David

 

[j.falk]

Lyngbya is absolutely the most difficult and often misidentified algae.

^ This 100%. Hate that stuff. It will destroy a tank setup in no time.

 

[Azael]

I had last year hair algae so bad that it killed most of my corals and I almost quit the hobby. It lasted for a very long time and it was horrible to look at the aquarium.

 

[LadAShark]

I have a weird type of red algae that grows in tufts that peel off pretty easily, however nothing eats it and it regrows incredibly quickly. Definitely not cyano, but is definitely obnoxious.

 

[LadAShark]

I voted other. The worst algae is neomeris annulata. I had to tear down my entire tank and sterilize everything. Quarantine fish and corals to make sure they were free of it. Then basically start over.

Funnily I had that spring up in one of my reefs, and it never showed again. Either my weird red tufts of algae did it in, or my foxface/longhorn cowfish. Maybe some work done by urchins as well.