Odd macroalgae spreading over tank. Please HELP

xdcbenoitxd · Sep 15, 2023

I have been fighting hair algae/dino/diatoms ect in this tank and am making some headway and am going further into getting things set up to get my tank in much better condition (uv, new bacteria regime, replenishing my copepod population, change of light bulbs and shorter photoperiod). My parameters have been great for months (had an issue with very high phosphates which really fueled my problem for a while) but now I am faced with a whole new problem. There is a new algae that most likely got through QT unnoticed on my frag and is causing havoc. Nothing in my tank will eat it. It looks just like chaetomorpha but attaches to the rock. It grows very densely trapping debris and when I remove it manually if I press down it feels like I'm popping a bubble. It has now spread through most of my aquascape. I was considering pulling the rock out, scrubbing them and putting them in a sealed 5 gallon buckets with water (to keep micro biome somewhat alive). But I have no idea how long the algae can survive without light and therefore don't want to stress my tank out without any real benefit.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of something like this?

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · Sep 15, 2023

Picture?

xdcbenoitxd · Sep 15, 2023

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal said:
Pictures

xdcbenoitxd · Sep 15, 2023

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal said:
Picture?

The first picture is the thickness but I had just harvested it so it small. The second is what the strands look like grown.

brandon429 · Sep 15, 2023

Do not run experiments in your display

You'd take a test rock out and run experiment in a 5 gallon bucket reef. Start with fluconazole

brandon429 · Sep 15, 2023

When you find what works: do not then go apply that in your display you'll turn all that mass into dinos for the next two years

You'd then rip clean that tank to make the rocks and sand totally clean, find one of the hundreds of rip clean threads by search and run it. Your tank will be clean and free of the growths.

You then apply your discovered solution from the bucket test reef into the display, in the clean condition and it won't turn into dinos for two years. Letting it go this long has a work price you can't avoid or you'll get evil dinos for your years, a rip clean is your penance

brandon429 · Sep 15, 2023

That stuff is mean enough a rip clean alone won't fix it, but with your discovered regrowth preventer it will, after the rip clean from the uninvaded condition

There's no way to kill that in your tank, saving you physical work, without alternating the invasion into dinos or really bad cyano

Borat · Sep 15, 2023

Nice pets!

xdcbenoitxd · Sep 15, 2023

brandon429 said:
That stuff is mean enough a rip clean alone won't fix it, but with your discovered regrowth preventer it will, after the rip clean from the uninvaded condition

There's no way to kill that in your tank, saving you physical work, without alternating the invasion into dinos or really bad cyano

I'm sorry I'm not understanding. How is letting the algae light starve in buckets of water then reintroducing the rock going to cause Dino's?

brandon429 · Sep 15, 2023

it's searchable in algae eradication threads if you pull up fifty of them to read from the nuisance algae forum- someone adds a chemical, it kills the target algae, that mass dies in the tank, then it turns into 2 years of dinos.

the opposite of what the masses are doing to wreck their tanks: do not kill all that mass in your display with a chemical and rot it in place. you'd do a rip clean, taking apart your tank and cleaning it out without harming the cycle, putting the rocks back scraped clean, the sand absolutely rinsed clean, and then the tank has no algae/isn't wrecked like it is now. you'd use the chemical/fluc/whatever you choose to prevent growback which is how that algae wins. killing it is easy, common peroxide probably would, but it will grow back because I've seen that strain for years wreck on reef tanks. it takes exceptional moves to beat it especially after it's set this well

any questions about a rip clean or the procedure is easily searched on the site, we've done hundreds of them/search key terms to see the jobs. its a special way of taking apart your reef to clean it out that doesn't cause a cycle, it's that simple.

read the nuisance algae forum to see this pattern: at the top of that forum is an eight hundred page fluconazole thread, the very chemical I'm recommending you try in a bucket. if you study that thread, fluc kills 90% of any green invasion. then you will see in tradeoff they get dinos for two years. none of them do rip cleans first, because they want to avoid work at all costs, and the price paid is massive dinos invasions that the dinos thread can't fix very well (a second eight hundred page thread you can scan for patterns same forum)

xdcbenoitxd · Sep 15, 2023

Ok I didn't read the fluconazol part. I'm not planning on adding chemicals in my tank I want to improve the microbiome not kill it. Plus I'm in Canada I can't get it without a vet. I was hoping on more holistic methods and for advice on livestock/timeframe to light starve algae.

brandon429 · Sep 15, 2023

all rip clean threads show a peroxide application step. that's available, and might work but is a much smaller chance than fluc. it's not added to your display

its you removing a rock, rasping it clean, digging out the holdfasts of that algae with a knife not a brush, detailing all that algae off the rock (reef dentistry/exacting/takes a long time per rock, this stuff is bad it's not an easy win) + applying peroxide to the rock outside the tank when it's clean, let sit ten minutes cooking (spray or dribble it on the surfaces you ridded of the algae) then rinse with saltwater and put back in the main tank to observe among the untreated rocks, see if it holds clean state long enough to make the whole job worth it.

I've seen lots of tanks harmed by that type of aggressive growth, I know of no animals that will remove it for you/ in my opinion it's a physical work job strictly

there is 10-12 years of peroxide-in-tank data online to show most green plants are killed by it. then it grows back...because the masses won't rip clean anything they always demand some non-work option. doing opposite of what the masses do is key to winning. if you try and add some animal, disease threads show a high % risk of importing disease which then kills all or some of your fish. a rip clean doesn't harm anything, it's the work required to safely disassemble a reef tank, so you can get to all the critical areas without stirring up deadly waste clouds in the tank, and then you hope that you have a functioning growback controller in place after it's all put back together safely.

*there is a huge chance that your lights are way too bright for the system and the corals would grow just fine under half the power, and half the power/intensity/ is something we do in rip clean threads for extreme invasions that lessens growback, along with out selected chemical burn.

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · Sep 15, 2023

xdcbenoitxd said:
The first picture is the thickness but I had just harvested it so it small. The second is what the strands look like grown.

I'm not sure what it is but I'll see if I can find out.

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · Sep 15, 2023

I'm not very confident in this guess but could it be neomeris?

Neomeris - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · Sep 15, 2023

Better guess -Cladophoropsis?
Thread 'Weird cluster of green solid tube-like structures' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/weird-cluster-of-green-solid-tube-like-structures.883405/

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · Sep 15, 2023

From the last thread I posted... maybe an urchin will help? I also read that emerald crabs may eat it.

Post in thread 'Weird cluster of green solid tube-like structures' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/w...olid-tube-like-structures.883405/post-9795327

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · Sep 15, 2023

This looks similar to your pictures...

File:Cladophoropsis sudanensis.jpg - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

xdcbenoitxd · Sep 15, 2023

brandon429 said:
all rip clean threads show a peroxide application step. that's available, and might work but is a much smaller chance than fluc. it's not added to your display

its you removing a rock, rasping it clean, digging out the holdfasts of that algae with a knife not a brush, detailing all that algae off the rock (reef dentistry/exacting/takes a long time per rock, this stuff is bad it's not an easy win) + applying peroxide to the rock outside the tank when it's clean, let sit ten minutes cooking (spray or dribble it on the surfaces you ridded of the algae) then rinse with saltwater and put back in the main tank to observe among the untreated rocks, see if it holds clean state long enough to make the whole job worth it.

I've seen lots of tanks harmed by that type of aggressive growth, I know of no animals that will remove it for you/ in my opinion it's a physical work job strictly

there is 10-12 years of peroxide-in-tank data online to show most green plants are killed by it. then it grows back...because the masses won't rip clean anything they always demand some non-work option. doing opposite of what the masses do is key to winning. if you try and add some animal, disease threads show a high % risk of importing disease which then kills all or some of your fish. a rip clean doesn't harm anything, it's the work required to safely disassemble a reef tank, so you can get to all the critical areas without stirring up deadly waste clouds in the tank, and then you hope that you have a functioning growback controller in place after it's all put back together safely.

*there is a huge chance that your lights are way too bright for the system and the corals would grow just fine under half the power, and half the power/intensity/ is something we do in rip clean threads for extreme invasions that lessens growback, along with out selected chemical burn.

Thanks