please, how to save my tank

Nemo&Friends

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I wanted to grow caulerpa, and other macro rather than corals, and use it to feed my foxface and my eibli angel.
But I was having trouble doing so, as some worms was eating it. Finally, got rid of the worms and my caulerpa started growing, when another ugly dark brown algae started growing and covering everything else.
I decided to use a Molly, which I transferred from my fresh water tank, to it eat the ugly algae. Molly ate the green hair algae on the tank walls, but never touch the brown one. It was the only fish in the tank, and I was also using it to have nutrient for the macro algae. After a few weeks, the caulerpa really started to take off and I was hoping the caulerpa would eventually out compete the ugly algae as the molly did not eat it.
But, One morning, my Caulerpa was completely torn up and many leaves were missing. Very puzzled, I wondered what happened, when I saw the Molly champing happily on it. She ate it all.
I therefore suggest you try a molly, it is a very inexpensive and does not need a big aquarium. You should however check if molly eat corals, as I do not know that, but they sure do a great (or not so great in my case) job on caulerpa.
My Molly is now back in fresh water.
 
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Bigair

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thank you all for the response above!

as a summarize, for me seems using Fluconazole is the easiest and safest way - by so far information I read here and there. I will try this method first, let's wait and see if enventually not need to breakdown everything and start over

I love this forum and so many kind guys here! thank you again.

will turn back and give you a feedback of the result, this could be several weeks later, cheers!
 

damsels are not mean

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thank you all for the response above!

as a summarize, for me seems using Fluconazole is the easiest and safest way - by so far information I read here and there. I will try this method first, let's wait and see if enventually not need to breakdown everything and start over

I love this forum and so many kind guys here! thank you again.

will turn back and give you a feedback of the result, this could be several weeks later, cheers!
Remember to remove as much as possible by hand FIRST do not just dose fluc right away. If you kill hundreds of pieces of caulerpa or anything else all those nutrients accumulated over months/years are instantly back in the water. You will nuke your tank if you don't take any out first.
 
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Bigair

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Remember to remove as much as possible by hand FIRST do not just dose fluc right away. If you kill hundreds of pieces of caulerpa or anything else all those nutrients accumulated over months/years are instantly back in the water. You will nuke your tank if you don't take any out first.
thanks for your remind, I remembered that but forget to mention. I will do as good as I can to remove them from seeing as I know they will be turned to natrate, not want it to beyond 20ppm

I've just odered Flux RX, seems it is quite amazing but not everyone knows it
 

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It looks like Caulerpa brachypus. A pain in the X.. In my experience there is no way to completely get rid of it unless you are happy with taking the rocks out ank kill everything on it. In my tank removing caulerpa just became a weekly routine. Just remove everything manually and keep doing it every week. If you move it to your sump it will take nutrients before the ones in the DT and make the work easier. The problem with this species of Caulerpa is that it can grow deep in the rocks and even when it looks like it is completely removed it will grow back in few weeks.
 
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It looks like Caulerpa brachypus. A pain in the X.. In my experience there is no way to completely get rid of it unless you are happy with taking the rocks out ank kill everything on it. In my tank removing caulerpa just became a weekly routine. Just remove everything manually and keep doing it every week. If you move it to your sump it will take nutrients before the ones in the DT and make the work easier. The problem with this species of Caulerpa is that it can grow deep in the rocks and even when it looks like it is completely removed it will grow back in few weeks.
thanks und "danke"
I'm going to try manually clean + Fluconazole
 
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thegreat689

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Looks like C. brachypus, Fluconazole will kill it, might take 4-6 weeks, and a couple redosings, but it will 100% kill it.
This is what I did for bryopsis and GHA and it got rid of it all. It didn’t even hurt my cheato. I did one dose and waited 14 days to do a water change. Then dosed again for another 14 days just to make sure everything was gone.
 

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6934D123-609B-4E16-9349-1D9A1272DFA5.jpeg


this type of algea spreads so fast, is just beyond my control, but all water premeters are within normal range, of course no no3 problem, it is around 1~2

the question is if allow this algea attacking the othe creatures, some of my corals might hard to live, tried buy one algea fish but it overwhelm her ability…

any idea? turn over would be a huge work...
I think to start with, I would suggest doing a few more frequent lower percentage water changes until it gets to a managable level for her to eat. I would probably suggest starting there. Unless you've already tried that. Have you tried to identify the algae type so you can try and search to see what else might eat it in order to help her out?
 

KonradTO

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I think to start with, I would suggest doing a few more frequent lower percentage water changes until it gets to a managable level for her to eat. I would probably suggest starting there. Unless you've already tried that. Have you tried to identify the algae type so you can try and search to see what else might eat it in order to help her out?
? it is stated various times. It is Caulerpa brachypus.
 
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Bigair

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so finally they are vanishing, on a slow way. I am going to post some pictures in this 4 weeks treatment.
I did manually clean + Fluconazole, meanwhile stopped dosing NaNo3 and reduced fish food, transferred all algea from fuge out in a backup plastic container, at first 3 day removed skimmer cup. no any water change but only add some salt water to compenciate salinity. NO3 reduced from 1. 5 to 0.3 and kept as of ULNS, no no3 bomb as earlier expected, so far none of my corals and fishes are effected. But I still need to wait for another few weeks until they gone completely and also thinkin of second try. At least fluconzole works and in an amazing way, I think it is safe enough to kill Caulerpa brachypus.
 
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