Algae Hair Or NOT?

may be bryopsis.

 

I have been battling this stuff for a while. Scrubbing it off of rocks pulling it off with hemos. Got a bio pellet reactor. Bought tangs algea blennies ,hundreds of snails and crabs and still cant knock this stuff out. I think it must be that bryopsis. ANYONE ELSE HAVE ANY IDEAS TO GET RID OF THIS . It has me down. I even invested in AI lighting because I was told it doesnt have the same spectrum that algea thrives upon plus the lights are very cool anyway.Please someone show me the way. Thanks.

 

vodka dosing?

 

feather calurpa is what it looks like to me do your tangs eat it if they do i sure thats what it is i had it bad just keep pulling it out and let your tangs do the rest

 

I do not know much about it but I thinkit was greenonion who was having an algae problem and he tried switching to a pellet reactor and it didnt help

went to vodka dosing and it cleared it up quickly.

 

bluish hue is typical of some types of Bryopsis, although the picture is out of focus. Alternatively I would ID it as boodlea or some type of fine filamented cladophora. In any case a Diadema urchin and boosting alk to more than 8dKh will usually do the trick. Also make sure to employ some type of phosphate export and strong skimming.

Vodka, or any other type of organic dosing regime isn't likely a great solution in your case since you keep soft corals, and if you're not comfortable with it, its application is critical, technical, and must be punctual, otherwise it's a lost cause. Honestly many times the proliferation of these types of things has more to do with the micro-porous environment localized in the rock. I've seen rock go through this cycle for more than a year before they began cleaning up and reaching a healthy equilibrium, if nothing else time and persistence will take care of these problems. Patience never comes easy though.

 

Not many tangs or snails will eat it when it's that bad. The best things you can do is physically remove as much as you can(toothbrush, pull by hand, etc...) since it "fuels itself", cut back feedings, cut back light cycles, up the flow, and get better filtration.

Buying an animal to remove it is just a band-aid solution, you should really try to find the root of the problem. I've got some questions quick:

1. Do you use RO/DI water? If so, are you sure your filters are up to date(ex. 0 TDS)?
2. How often do you do water changes?
3. What do you feed? How much? How old is your food?
4. What do you have for filtration? (list your skimmer model, powerheads, return pump if you have a sump, ANY filtration you run)
5. What livestock do you have in the tank?
6. What lighting do you have in the tank? How old are the bulbs? How long are they on?
7. Is the tank getting any natural light? If so, is the algae growing more where you see natural light?
8. What kinds of corals do you have in the tank? I ask this to see if you could do a 3 day complete blackout to help catch up with the algae.
9. Please tell me you don't run any bio-wheel filters.
10. Tell us anything else you can think of that will help!

If you've done everything, the best thing you can do is to remove as much as you can, do extra water changes, and possibly buy a rabbitfish (foxface). Foxface's do a really good job at eating this stuff, plus they're pretty reef safe and really cool looking. Good luck!

 

+1 on the foxface. Yeah tangs and snails won't actually outright eat this species of algae (or any of the 3 that I'm speculating) but a foxface or a diadema urchin will gorge themselves on it.

I'd also be interested in more of the specifics, if you can identify any of the parameters in Adams list that will be a good step toward diagnosing/remedying the problem.

However, I've also seen tanks where everything was just how it should be, and it didn't make a difference for some time. But those "who fkin knows" cases are few and far between.

 

its for sure byropsis. used to battle it a couple years ago. only thing that worked was keeping mag. at or around 1800, using gfo, and continually syphoning it out.