Red turf algae help!

Otter_rs · Feb 25, 2012

reefknight said:
It's all good, we all have those moments. ;)

This is absolutely one of those things that makes you shake your head and is frustrating!

Glad you understand.... And yes, this algae is super frustrating and usually takes many months to kick. The biggest key with this sort of thing is patients. If you get your nutrient load down, restock your cleaner crew and maybe a few other tricks here and there (such as larger water changes and shorter light cycles) you can beat it. I've done it more than once that way and had success. Just be patient, you will get there.

reefknight · Mar 15, 2012

Well two weeks ago, I pulled out the rock from my right side island and manually treated it with peroxide. Turned pink and began dying off, along with the addition of a few turbo snails its almost gone on that side. I do need to retreat a few rocks on that side that were heavily infested.

This week will I will start the left island. It's a little more difficult as there are several encrusted SPS corals. Also noted that during this weeks texting my PO4 shot from 0.01 to 0.38! I'm running Rowaphos as well for the past two weeks. I'm guessing that the rise in phosphate is due to the decrease in algae present in the system.

EpicWin · Mar 15, 2013

Ok. So here we are almost a year later... Just recently I have had another turf algae flair up.... seems eradication is very difficult. I honestly thought it was gone. I never had luck with snails, crabs etc..... just hydrogen peroxide and the laser.... So im wondering if anyone has had luck with any snails etc...

GrampaDon · Mar 16, 2013

Like most posters said it is the toughest to rid [so far] I had it once. So take my answer as such.
Manual removal probably helped it spread. So next was the peroxide. It worked fast and got 90% [I kept socks on to catch it] and after 3wks it came back some ,and the peroxide didnt help much after that. [others mention how it seems to get resistant to peroxide IDK] So before it got as bad as before I got a Zebrasoma flavescens [yellow tang]and he worked it away in about 3-4wks.

Its been gone now for 6mo. And I wouldn't say any one method works best. Some have luck with turbos others dont. I doubled my GFO the whole time ,maybe it helped ,IDK.
I restocked my blue leg hermits ,and maybe they help pick at the rocks ,not sure but the help in other ways.
Peroxide...same maybe yes or maybe no. I just hope mine is totally gone.

I just needed to keep telling myself "calm down ,or you will sleep on the couch if you scream and throw this rock out the window. :tsk: