Ulva taking over Frag tank and Chaeto Fuge died off! Need Help!

[Biglurr54]

3 months ago, i changed up my sump to add in a 60g frag tank and a 30 gallon fuge to get rid of my algae reactor. The frag tank was quickly overtaken by algae being that it was all new and dry. That algae subsided and the fuge took off growing. The fist size chaeto from the reactor exploded into a densely packed 20x20x20 cube. I harvested it and returned 1/4. That continued to grow. I had Ulva starting to appear in the frag tank. the Chaeto grew to fill up the fuge again but the ulva was really taking root. I pulled the chaeto and returned 1/4 and pulled the ulva that i could. The cheato depleted away to a sickly looking bunch and the ulva has taken off. I have completely pulled the frag tank apart and scraped it of all ulva 3 times now. Nothing is stopping the ulva and the chaeto isnt out competing it! My Po4 was close to 0.70 (not a typo) and it has been dropped to 0.14 with the fuge and ulva. It seems that the ulva is out competing the Chaeto. I dont know how to flip the script and get the chaeto out competing the ulva! I does a small amount of Chaeto Gro daily to boost the chaeto. It has brought chaeto back for me in the past.

I have added a Powder Blue tang and a stary blenny.
The Fuge is lite 15hrs every day and the frag tank is lit for 9hrs.

Params are stable at:
1.026
ph 8.20
temp 78-79
alk 8.20
Calc 410
Mag 1400
N03 15
PO4 0.14

The Ulva does not grow in the display, fuge, or sump. Only the frag tank.

 

[Spare time]

Maybe add some urchins? Small long spine urchins don't pick up frags and would fit. You could also get a small algae eating tang or a rabbit fish / foxface.

 

[jhuntstl]

Mexican turbos will gobble it up.

 

[Biglurr54]

I have a powder blue in there now. I may grab my monster purple out of the display. Maybe I'll get a urchin and some turbos.

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

I have a collector urchin and some turbos and a lemon peel Tang...they dont help. I am about to do Vibrant....anyone else have any ideas?!?

 

[brandon429]

we consider ulva the easiest to beat here, with pics and after testimony:

Reef2Reef Pest algae challenge thread hydrogen peroxide

Tank filled and was almost cloudless :D Turned on the klir roller and added a filter sock and it was clear in 2 hours. Made a makeshift frag rack as I cannot bring all rock back. Scrubbed each frag plug with a stainless steel brush or remounted depending how bad the plug was. Grabbed a couple...

www.reef2reef.com

*notice, its nothing we dosed into the water. it was direct contact onto target anchor spots. this means we may not get to use the lazy mode of dosing things to the water, it may take work. but there's the wins, and you can test rock one tiny area of a rock before doing the whole tank job. a test model proves it works, before you do the big work.

 

[Biglurr54]

Id caution against vibrant. It stopped my acro growth for about 3 months. Works on the algae but the across stopped growth.

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

Id caution against vibrant. It stopped my acro growth for about 3 months. Works on the algae but the across stopped growth.

Yeah..i dont want to do vibrant at all..just dont know how to get rid of the ulva. Its not just on the rocks..its also on the walls, on my over flows..so not sure how I can clean it out as I cannot remove all pieces and scrub them out of the tank.

 

[brandon429]

peroxide into the water can kill it, that stuff is whispy thin post a tank pic so we can assess sensitive organisms and from that an easy dose can be set for a no takedown run.

again per test modeling: we'd take out one portion of ulva attached to a rock or a plastic grate etc, attached not floating to mimic holdfast kill, and we can set that in a bucket of 5 gallons of saltwater test container and dose that container first to assess true kill before the main tank. Half the people who killed their tanks with vibrant would have benefitted greatly from test bucketing vs using tank as the experiment. post full tank shot, mainly lysmata shrimp are the sensitives. pretty much all else tolerates one mil of 3% peroxide per ten gallons once or twice a day, the test model tells how much we need

dosing peroxide into the water really has some strong fix outcomes for both dinos and ulva, pretty much that's it.