very terrible algae..

[pigflied]

hi,guys..
here is my friend's tank.e.........looks very terrible.

there are much annoying aglae spilling out of the tank which caused the tank ecosystem to collapse.

someone told him that aglae can be eliminated by eating-aglae-creature.
so,he got one yellow tank,one fake sheep shrimp,one sand sifting sea star,two pincushion urchins and two blue leg herimit crabs into tank.

but,it's seemd that these creatures are not interested in this aglae..

his corals have been dying one by one gradually.he is very sad and wondering what kand of algae it was and how to exterminate it to save his tank..

tank you very much..

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

It's hard to tell from the pictures but it sort of looks like bryopsis but it could also be dark green hair algae, there's not much that will eat either of them. Does your friend test his water at all and if so do you know what the water parameters are for the tank?

 

[pigflied]

more pictures.

 

[spiraling]

It also might not be the algae killing the coral, but high nutrients fueling the algae and killing the coral.
Does the algae have a feather or fern look? Or more straight or branching like a tree?
Does he have any snails?
How old is the tank?
How big is the tank?

 

[Ocean Lotion]

Tell him to treat with fluconazole. Lots of info on this site about it.

 

[pigflied]

It's hard to tell from the pictures but it sort of looks like bryopsis but it could also be dark green hair algae, there's not much that will eat either of them. Does your friend test his water at all and if so do you know what the water parameters are for the tank?

yeah,no3,po4 all zero..

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

The algae is probably throwing off results then, I would reduce feedings and make sure you are feeding consistently and around the same time each day. You also would probably benefit from consistent water changes a couple of times a week and manual removal of the algae. That, for the most part, is the simplest way to battle this stuff, other methods such as fluconazole are a bit more involved and have to be well calculated.

I personally used fluconazole and it killed all of the bryopsis in my tank in a couple of weeks. Make sure whatever you and him decide to do is well researched to the point you both understand what to do and what's going to happen.

 

[brandon429]

What size is this tank

If it's close to a nano, super easy fix. Permanent fix we have tons of after pics

If it's large tank, same fix options, but more work. The fact he's bare bottom is awesome that's rare. Curing and reversing that specific type of invasion is easy in nanos we have probably 100 restores collected for it specifically. You don't have to do a thing to water or filtration thankfully.

 

[Hans-Werner]

In my eyes PO4 is too low. This is a problem to the corals, especially the seriatopora, and makes the corals look bad. Since corals can´t grow they can´t compete with the algae. Growing corals will deplete nitrogen (nitrate) and trace metals like iron so far that hair algae can´t grow. But for growth corals need some phosphate. Try to raise phosphate to the detection limit (0.05 to 0.1 ppm).