What are Good Algae Removers?

...

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
May 20, 2020
Messages
1,070
Reaction score
694
Location
Earth
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
My tank is infested with algae; Bryopsis, Bubble, Hair, Bit of Cyano and Dinos right after my fish died. :( I keep up with good husbandry and even the film algae is almost impossible to remove. I am willing to wait but I just want to know, besides Vibrant, are there any other Algae removers? I've heard Vibrant actually contains some sort of algaecide that can kill sensitive fish. I can't find an answer to this because products I've been hinted to talk about completely different things. Any ideas? Thanks in Advance.
 

Pistondog

5000 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 28, 2020
Messages
5,317
Reaction score
9,451
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
My tank is infested with algae; Bryopsis, Bubble, Hair, Bit of Cyano and Dinos right after my fish died. :( I keep up with good husbandry and even the film algae is almost impossible to remove. I am willing to wait but I just want to know, besides Vibrant, are there any other Algae removers? I've heard Vibrant actually contains some sort of algaecide that can kill sensitive fish. I can't find an answer to this because products I've been hinted to talk about completely different things. Any ideas? Thanks in Advance.
Emerald crab, but they can bother corals if hungry.
Rabbitfish if the tank is 100g or bigger.
Post your water params
 
OP
OP
...

...

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
May 20, 2020
Messages
1,070
Reaction score
694
Location
Earth
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I don't get Emerald Crabs in my country. Its been a couple days since I tested, all the inverts in my tank including a BTA and a Blue Lincktia are fine. Water perms are fine, its just the algae.
 

Ippyroy

Defeater of Dinos
View Badges
Joined
Nov 19, 2019
Messages
5,504
Reaction score
33,187
Location
West Yellowstone
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Vibrant is only a mask. You need to find the cause. I would recommend turning lights down to fewer hours, blue as possible, and maybe feed less. Next, manually remove as much algae as you can each day. Up your CUC. Snails and crabs, a good mix of as many as possible. Remove one rock at a time if necessary and scrub with a brush, and spray hydrogen peroxide on it. Scrub the rock inside of a bucket with saltwater. This is great to do using old water from a water change. Time and patience are your best allies in this.
 

Coralsdaily

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 28, 2014
Messages
895
Reaction score
1,065
Location
Madison WI
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Before you resort to CUC, start with treating your water. Algae blooms when there is excess nutrient in the water. Test your nitrate and phosphate. Find ways to reduce them first. then, you will need to hand pull as many as you can manage EVERYDAY for 1-2 weeks straight and only to leave what you can't reach or pull to the CUC. in between you can also try the black out method. corals has energy reserves to withstand black out for a couple of days. But algae has no energy reserve and will die after exhausting its energy after 48-72 hrs.
 

Marc2952

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 23, 2019
Messages
1,539
Reaction score
979
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Sea hare is probably the best at eating algae. I got one for my 75 gallon and i couodnt believe how much algae that bugger has eaten. Doesnt seem to like bryopsis though but ill give it time. Maybe once it starts to go hungry it will touch it?
 

Marc2952

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 23, 2019
Messages
1,539
Reaction score
979
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Before you resort to CUC, start with treating your water. Algae blooms when there is excess nutrient in the water. Test your nitrate and phosphate. Find ways to reduce them first. then, you will need to hand pull as many as you can manage EVERYDAY for 1-2 weeks straight and only to leave what you can't reach or pull to the CUC. in between you can also try the black out method. corals has energy reserves to withstand black out for a couple of days. But algae has no energy reserve and will die after exhausting its energy after 48-72 hrs.
It depends, in my case i had a very bad dino outbreak and the only way i beat it was by raising phosphates to 0.10 and nitrates at 10ppm. Thing is its been months since that and if i let it my phosphates will drop to 0 in a single day so i gotta continue dosing it even if its growing GHA and bryopsis.
 

vetteguy53081

Well known Member and monster tank lover
View Badges
Joined
Aug 11, 2013
Messages
91,828
Reaction score
202,776
Location
Wisconsin -
Rating - 100%
13   0   0
Fluconasal (flux) and reduction of white lighting
 

Miller535

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 11, 2019
Messages
2,203
Reaction score
1,936
Location
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I know it is not the answer you are looking for, but I am an old fashioned reefer when it comes to this. YOU are the best algae remover. If your tank has a sand bed, I would clean the glass as best as you can, take a brush and brush off as much rock as you can and pull out what you can. Then do a water change and suck up as much of that as you can, and vacuum your sand. I would then do a 3 day black out. And I mean black out, no light, not even natural light, cover the tank. Then at the end of the 3 days I would do another water change and vacuum the sand again, scrub the rock and everything again. If you have briposys and those other algaes you have excess nutrients. But after these 3 days and the cleanings enough algae should have died back to cause a spike in nutrients because they are no longer uptaking them. After this point you will have to keep up with scraping and scrubbing often, and water changes and vacuuming the sand. And watching your nutrient levels, because you also don't want them to crash totally.

Another option is if your tank is small (you never mentioned size), you could do @brandon429 "rip and clean method". He and many reefers have been pretty successful with it. And according to them it's an instant fix without any chemicals.
 
OP
OP
...

...

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
May 20, 2020
Messages
1,070
Reaction score
694
Location
Earth
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Indeed, I did try to perform a blackout but my BTA immediately started look all dull and unhealthy. I have cleaned the glass and now I am just pulling out the algae on the rocks whenever I see it. I'll do your suggestion.
 

High pressure shells: Do you look for signs of stress in the invertebrates in your reef tank?

  • I regularly look for signs of invertebrate stress in my reef tank.

    Votes: 27 31.8%
  • I occasionally look for signs of invertebrate stress in my reef tank.

    Votes: 21 24.7%
  • I rarely look for signs of invertebrate stress in my reef tank.

    Votes: 16 18.8%
  • I never look for signs of invertebrate stress in my reef tank.

    Votes: 21 24.7%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
Back
Top