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

[meysam_b61]

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

Oh no! The tank has been overrun with algae! It happens. Life gets in the way and we take our eye of the tank or maybe the algae sneaks up on us, but either way when there is algae it can often be dealt with by getting the water parameters in line, feeding a little less, dialing in the dosing, checking the lighting and flow, and manually removing as much as the algae as possible. Unfortunately, sometimes algae is persistent and hard to eliminate (or at least significantly reduce). What have you found to be the toughest algae to get rid of in your tank? Please tell us about your experience with stubborn and aggravating algae invasions.

Pro Tip: When fighting red turf algae, one approach is that if you can remove the affected rock then pull the rock from the tank and spray the red turf algae with a household mixture of hydrogen peroxide and let sit for a minute or two before rinsing and returning to the tank. Often the red turf algae will change colors to a brighter red before it disappears in a day or two.

Photo by @Thunder_reef


This QOTD is sponsored by Nutramar: https://www.qualitymarine.com/nutramar/

“Nutramar’s 100% natural food products are used by public aquaria and breeders around the world. They offer superior nutrition to your most finicky and delicate fish and invertebrates.

I had green hair algae and fight it with hermit and snails and we won

 

[Hhaynie]

I feel like we all chose the algae we're currently fighting

 

[McPuff]

I've battled all of those listed in this thread and found a way to get past them at some point. Lyngbya is not easy as it required a lot of manually removal. Green turf algae is a slight issue in my lagoon right now because I can't put CUC in there to any extent... I've got two Rhinecanthus triggers in there now. So it's manual removal; scraping off the bottom and removing rocks to scrub and soak in H2O2. It always comes back though. Eventually I'll figure it out as well.

 

[EricR]

Turf algae on Trochus snails in QT right now -- that stuff is TOUGH!

GHA never seemed too tough to me when I had a little bit of an outbreak in main tank earlier on.

 

[design.maddie]

Green and Red Turf Algae. I am not scared of anything else other than those.

 

[Miami Reef]

Can you give some tips on how to control/beat GHA that has worked for you in the past? Plz&TY

Herbivores, and personally, dosing silica replaces the green algae on my glass (and @Randy Holmes-Farley ’s previous tank as well) to diatoms which is less noticeable and very beneficial to the tank’s organisms (snails, copepods, sponges, etc).

 

[ca1ore]

None for me. 'Army' of herbivores seems to take care of all kinds.

 

[pennied]

fluconazole makes bryopsis a non-issue, and is also effective against GHA if you can handle two weeks without your skimmer.

@pennied totally agree, I believe my ‘gha’ outbreak was lyngbya and it was absolutely oppressive until i did a risky double dose of flux. i may have misidentified it tho because I haven’t seen much evidence online that flux is effective against lyngbya. any thoughts?

just be careful if you have acros, not sure if flux was the cause but i started seeing STN on my acros around the two week mark.

Flux is ineffective as lyngbya is a cyano based algae. Im currently dosing h2o2 and lights out and seems to be working.

 

[Waters]

Only algae I have ever struggled with in the past was GHA.

 

[Boomer52]

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.

 

[Slocke]

I have found GHA and bubble comparatively easy to solve. For me a foxface will immediately eat all bubble in a tank and urchins will decimate GHA. However cyano is absolutely killing me. It just keeps coming back.

 

[Pelagikos]

Herbivores, and personally, dosing silica replaces the green algae on my glass (and @Randy Holmes-Farley ’s previous tank as well) to diatoms which is less noticeable and very beneficial to the tank’s organisms (snails, copepods, sponges, etc).

How would one dose silica? What are the cons?

 

[Miami Reef]

How would one dose silica? What are the cons?

Silica In Reef Aquariums

Why would I recommend dosing silica? Largely because creatures in our tanks use it, the concentrations in our tanks (at least in mine) are below natural levels, and the sponges, mollusks, and diatoms may not be getting enough to thrive.

reefs.com

The cons is some people might find diatoms unattractive. If diatoms do grow in over abundance, a lower dose is suggested. It can also fuel the growth of sponges which might some people might not want.

Dosing silica is commonly used to outcompete dinoflagellates, which are a much worse pest to have than just GHA.

 

[MnFish1]

The toughest algae to get rid of - is the algae you have

 

[Salty_Northerner]

I chose other, had a tiny bit of GHA the once my Scarlet crabs found out where it was growing it's no longer there.

I've got some very hard green algae that is covering the glass and if I don't keep up with it everyday my magnetic glass cleaner no matter how much I go back and forth will not remove it. I need to pull my scraper out and that's the only way I can get rid of it. Anybody know what this type of algae is?

 

[billysprout]

Flux is ineffective as lyngbya is a cyano based algae. Im currently dosing h2o2 and lights out and seems to be working.

Okay, I definitely just had GHA then. wishing you luck with your L-word infestation :'(

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.

i dodged a bullet here. intentionally bought some live rock with this stuff on it. but it mysteriously died phew!

 

[zoomonster]

I voted for cyano but been around long enough I have experienced them all, at one time or the other, and all are a big PIA!

 

[shakacuz]

lyngbya followed by bryopsis. i’ve had gha and bubble algae and both are non existent in my tank. haven’t dealt with anything else recently other than dino’s that is held at bay by my obscene amount of silicate in my water.

 

[Outlaw Corals]

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

Oh no! The tank has been overrun with algae! It happens. Life gets in the way and we take our eye of the tank or maybe the algae sneaks up on us, but either way when there is algae it can often be dealt with by getting the water parameters in line, feeding a little less, dialing in the dosing, checking the lighting and flow, and manually removing as much as the algae as possible. Unfortunately, sometimes algae is persistent and hard to eliminate (or at least significantly reduce). What have you found to be the toughest algae to get rid of in your tank? Please tell us about your experience with stubborn and aggravating algae invasions.

Pro Tip: When fighting red turf algae, one approach is that if you can remove the affected rock then pull the rock from the tank and spray the red turf algae with a household mixture of hydrogen peroxide and let sit for a minute or two before rinsing and returning to the tank. Often the red turf algae will change colors to a brighter red before it disappears in a day or two.

Photo by @Thunder_reef


This QOTD is sponsored by Nutramar: https://www.qualitymarine.com/nutramar/

“Nutramar’s 100% natural food products are used by public aquaria and breeders around the world. They offer superior nutrition to your most finicky and delicate fish and invertebrates.

Best investment I’ve got for my tax so far hands-down is my algae scrubber, it’s been a complete game changer in the battle against algae. No need to run a protein skimmer anymore.

 

[Cheezle]

Bryopsis is my enemy, I feel like it hitchhikes in on everything I've ever bought lol