Ulva aka green seaweed help

[Bluto Blutarsky]

Hello all
I have a growing issue ( no pun intended) in my rsm max nano setup on 6/4/17
I apparently introduced ulva rigida aka sea lettuce into my system from a frag
It is spreading like wildfire and need to eradicate it asap
My cuc:
1 Tiger conch
3 Zebra turbos
5 Ceriths
I also have a kole tang
None of the above will touch it and am running out of options here
I export nutrients via the stock skimmer,DIY chaeto reactor,weekly 10 %
water changes
My lighting is the ai prime(stock) running all blues at the moment 9 hours a day
to help as well
All replies greatly appreciated
Thanks in advance
Bluto

 

[rinckemd]

It grows in my display and I love it. Great export and easy to remove once the sheets get long. Lots of fish eat it, my yellow tang and blue-lined rabbitfish eat it. Urchins and sea hares also like it. In fact, years ago I bought it just for sea hare when the tank ran out. I’m not aware of any magic to remove it, it can grow pretty fast in high flow areas.

 

[Bluto Blutarsky]

Bump for help

 

[Tahoe61]

It grows in my display and I love it. Great export and easy to remove once the sheets get long. Lots of fish eat it, my yellow tang and blue-lined rabbitfish eat it. Urchins and sea hares also like it. In fact, years ago I bought it just for sea hare when the tank ran out. I’m not aware of any magic to remove it, it can grow pretty fast in high flow areas.

^ Good advise.

My Rabbit fish would love it as would some urchins.

 

[alten78]

Bumping this up since I'm dealing with the same thing except mine grows fierce and fast on my overflow and pumps, thankfully not too many coral but some so its annoying. My tomini tang barely touches it and I've been wanting to add a rabbit fish anyways but not to just control this garbage. I know my po4 and no3 are higher than I want since its growing so rapidly but this stuff is pretty awful and hard to eradicate completely.

 

[ksfulk]

Urchins - pencils or short spine would be my choice - for a tank that size. They should plow through it quite quickly. As they scrape the rock as they eat, it should get rid of the ulva. Tangs (yellow etc) and rabbitfish are much too large for that size of tank and can be hit or miss for algae eating.

 

[tripdad]

I have no specific treatment other than what you already know. However I can tell you it will subside. It is an opportunistic algae that is taking advantage of a nutrient source. Just go about your business, keep up with your maintenance and it will subside. If your just done dealing with it give Vibrant a try. I have had some success with it but be careful as a cyano bloom can follow it's successful use.

 

[brandon429]

this is easy to fix if you want it done. I can tell by your pics that rock is accessible, can be lifted out. this particular singled celled macro is highly susceptible documented several times over with this little ace I keep up my sleeve

want it dead in 48 hrs> test peroxide on it. That stuff is massively susceptible to it, and nothing else in the tank is. can be considered a magic bullet for your particulars. we don't dump it in your tank, we test a single rock and establish proofs that don't affect the rest of your system

then we upscale

then I add another clean tank to page 70
the degree that id like to take on this challenge not knowing tank size, stocking density or any other factors is 100 degrees of certainty.

 

[alten78]

this is easy to fix if you want it done. I can tell by your pics that rock is accessible, can be lifted out. this particular singled celled macro is highly susceptible documented several times over with this little ace I keep up my sleeve

want it dead in 48 hrs> test peroxide on it. That stuff is massively susceptible to it, and nothing else in the tank is. can be considered a magic bullet for your particulars. we don't dump it in your tank, we test a single rock and establish proofs that don't affect the rest of your system

then we upscale

then I add another clean tank to page 70
the degree that id like to take on this challenge not knowing tank size, stocking density or any other factors is 100 degrees of certainty.

for starters


your invader is classed 100% as a requisite hitchhiker. You could add straight phosphate to my tank and never generate that, and in most other reefs. It must be brought in directly, and from that, we know not to try and nutrient starve it, nutrients didn't cause it.


its such an invader that when its truly beaten, and it doesn't root deep at all, it cannot come back. for sure grazers would want that.

tang keepers would want your rock, untreated, because its awesome for their niche

I like it too


but if you want it gone, did that already and documented in reefcentral huge peroxide thread in probably 2013 ish.

all you do is find one single test rock, any rock, with some of that growth on it.


lift it out of tank, spray peroxide or dribble it on the target let sit 3 mins, rinse off, put back and don't scrape the algae

chart its death for us in pics that's always fun, the test rock as it morphs into what you want.

later on, if it turns out your tank is huge, we'll run a dilution test rock which mimics the entire tank being dosed where you could kill it all at once. we may not need that way, especially if this is 50 gallons or less

Not to hijack Bluto's thread but it doesn't appear that he is around much...

Unfortunately my one tang barely touches the stuff and even though my rock isn't as bad as his pictured, if i dont keep up on my nutrients then it certainly gets out of hand. My tank is 75g mostly filled with SPS and the option to take rock out really isn't an option.

 

[brandon429]

Nice save, it is apparent now I didn’t see blutos post wasn’t recent, at all heh


There may be other ways to kill it, if you think it’s a headache

I’d rank it as perhaps the single most receptive plant I’ve seen in the peroxide threads, the old school ones from the start. That means if it’s headache, we can calculate a less than normal dose for your tank that won’t burn corals and it has a great chance of killing it bc it’s mega receptive usually.
peroxide might be uniquely indicated here.


We’d start with a small test not a big jump

After seeing pics to check for obvious sensitives we’d turn off flow, use an injection method to slowly inject, underwater, directly into your thickest growth area of that macro...slowly. Slow burn no removal. We watch only that tiny spot for regrowth, if it regrows fast it’s not worth upscaling to the whole tank. But I think it might work nicely, we work in patches till done, always staying under the known safe dose of one mil per ten gallons
No fish we keep are sensitives

Even if you don’t use it as the sole method, it’s handy to try the test run to at least know what does work if ramp up is required.


The total amount injected would be well under the already known safe dose considering your Sps, and if you want to see threads where others did highly similar work those are avail before you run. Also, see if just one rock is removable




You can run the dilution test on it vs the direct method, modeling exactly how your whole tank will respond before any corals are included

2018 algae control should be experiments and verifications on test rocks, not whole tanks.

If one rock isn’t removable, some plant is. Run dilution tests on culled growth in a cup.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

If it’s growing that fast and well, yea scrub the best you can, and get the nutrients down. Wc, gfo.
And if they aren’t that bad, you might look at other things.
I’ve had a dictoya in my system for years. Not even noticeable. Changed to balling method salts for cal alk. And it bloomed big time. So did the pink corraline.

 

[brandon429]

That’s pure reefy. To be totally plant free is so unnatural I just leaned that way overtime via developed ocd from algae challenges in others tanks. If I saw a reef with healthy ulva or dictyota and even a couple -controlled- patches of gha, I’d think hey that looks just like scuba diving.

 

[The Reef Dork]

Hello all
I have a growing issue ( no pun intended) in my rsm max nano setup on 6/4/17
I apparently introduced ulva rigida aka sea lettuce into my system from a frag
It is spreading like wildfire and need to eradicate it asap
My cuc:
1 Tiger conch
3 Zebra turbos
5 Ceriths
I also have a kole tang
None of the above will touch it and am running out of options here
I export nutrients via the stock skimmer,DIY chaeto reactor,weekly 10 %
water changes
My lighting is the ai prime(stock) running all blues at the moment 9 hours a day
to help as well
All replies greatly appreciated
Thanks in advance
Bluto

How did you sort this in end?

 

[Burrito]

can i scrub sea lettuce IN the tank and let flow send most of it to my overflow without fear of just spreading it?

 

[tripdad]

It's going to spread whether you scrub it or not. Get out all you can and add clean up crew if your low, and check No3 and PO4 levels.

 

[Burrito]

nitrates and phosphate are zero, i have a fuge PACKed with cheato, but still have a few patches of sea lettuce. not sure why...

 

[tripdad]

Of all the algaes it's really not the worst to have. If you have sea lettuce and chaeto growing then you have nitrates and phosphates. You may indeed have no "measurable" level in the water column but they are there or stuff could not grow. This is just the natural cycle. If it really bothers you then you can get a critter to eat it, spot treat to kill, or manual removal. A little algae is not a big deal other than aesthetics.