Battle of the algeas, whose the baddest one of them all?

[cdeakle]

I have battled all of them and so far I'm getting my arse handed to me on a silver platter by one, DAMNED dinos!

This has got to be the worse of the worse. 10x worse then the hair algae and 5x worse then cyano.

Which ones have you had the hardest time with and how did you finally conquer them?

 

[Aff]

My hardest time was with feather calurpa. Basically I had a 20 gal that got quite of bit of cyano. So I upgraded the lights and then got dinos. So did all the bit for them. Leaving off lights/etc. Finally broke down and through some feather calurpa in there and got rid of the dinos but the calurpa took over the tank growing through everything. Pulled it out and pulled it out. Took the rocks out and scrubbed them with a toothbrush a couple of times. Still came back. Finally took a day and used tweezers to pull every little root I could find off the rocks, but still could see little frags of it coming back so I bought a couple of sally lightfoot crabs and threw them in the tank. They actually managed to finish it off. All that being said the dinos looked a lot worse than the calurpa.

 

[cdeakle]

Yeah, dinnos got me by the balls right now lol

I just got my macros today to help me fight these dinos. I heard the horror stories with calurpa so decided to get chaetomorpha.

So the macro is responsible for eradicating your dino problem?

 

[Anonymous]

cyano is the debbil. i've been pulling my hair out trying to get rid of it. one day earlier this week i woke up much earlier than normal. turns out that very early morning light directly hits my aquarium for about two hours. doh!!

i thought i had scouted a great spot, but i guess i am wrong. this combined with other imperfections (it was my first tank) are why i am going to discombobulate it as soon as my nanocube is cycled and the LR cured, i can transfer the few things i want to keep (snails, crabs, polyps, corals) to the nano. then the big one goes bye bye

 

[cdeakle]

Did you ever try Chemi-Clean? I had cyano bad like you and for the same reason, sunlight. I used Chemi-Clean and it killed those little buzzards....

 

[LilBugger225]

The worst algae in the world is turf algae. A long time ago I got a rock with some "grassy" stuff on it. Let's just say that stuff spreads like crazy. I have a 75 gallon tank with about 100 lbs of live rock in it and once every other month I have to take the rocks out and pull the turf algae off. It never completely comes off since it is deeply rooted into the rocks like grass. This is the only means to control it that I've found. I've tried dripping kalk, phosphate absorber, emerald crabs, a lawnmower blennie.... everything! About a week ago I bought a yellow tang from a store that was going out of business, and low and behold he loves the stuff. For now the turf algae seems to be staying under control. We'll see how long though. Anyone else have turf algae?

LB 8)

 

[cdeakle]

Tangs are the best for hair type algae, my new yellow tang "Wu-the-tang" is my best friend now for this reason

 

[dtiedke]

Bryopsis is by FAR the worse! Nothing eats it, and if you pull it off the rock inside of your system you will have 3 times as much within a week....

What started as a golf-ball sized clump has now spread to 30% of my 6' tank....in only a month :evil:

15 emerald crabs, 20 lettuce nudi's, 2 sally lightfoots and manual removal has done NOTHING to slow it down....

At least with dinos you can usually beat it back with massive skimming and flow...but bryopsis actually trives under those conditions....


Sigh.....

Dave

 

[GSchiemer]

Bryopsis is by FAR the worse! Nothing eats it, and if you pull it off the rock inside of your system you will have 3 times as much within a week....

What started as a golf-ball sized clump has now spread to 30% of my 6' tank....in only a month :evil:

15 emerald crabs, 20 lettuce nudi's, 2 sally lightfoots and manual removal has done NOTHING to slow it down....

At least with dinos you can usually beat it back with massive skimming and flow...but bryopsis actually trives under those conditions....


Sigh.....

Dave

I have to agree with Dave. There is no worse nuisance algae than Bryopsis. Short of throwing out every rock that has Bryopsis on it, there is no sure-fire way to get rid of it.

Greg

 

[PeeJ]

Ouch. That sounds really rough

 

[fishfanatic2]

Cyano ----i-- SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!! i clean the rocks off and it is back full force the next day and does not look like i did anythiing to it. :x :x :x :x

BTW, i have some algae that looks like macros butt eventually gets glued to the rocks and doesnt come off. It is getting annoying, looks like mini-brown Caulaustrea. Looks kinda cool, but it is gettting very hard to get off. ANy ID's?

 

[das75]

Not sure of this type but it's a pain. Some, the edges are lifted so you can pull it out, other patches are tight to the rock so you can't get under it to remove or it just comes out in tiny frags.

 

[Len]

That red cotton candy stuff can be really nasty and unstoppable too. Ask Sanjay!

 

[Irie Eyes]

In my earlier years of marine tank keeping, I had a battle with cyano in a seahorse tank that drove me up the wall. 8O I conquered it with the usual remedies-carbon/polyfilter/skimming/macro, and it eventually went away in a month or so. I also spent every other day manually siphoning it from the tank, which was a pain in the arse. Let me tell you, I learned all about nuisance algae real quick from this experience; it was my first and last battle.

 

[Anonymous]

cyano is the debbil. i've been pulling my hair out trying to get rid of it. one day earlier this week i woke up much earlier than normal. turns out that very early morning light directly hits my aquarium for about two hours. doh!!

i thought i had scouted a great spot, but i guess i am wrong. this combined with other imperfections (it was my first tank) are why i am going to discombobulate it as soon as my nanocube is cycled and the LR cured, i can transfer the few things i want to keep (snails, crabs, polyps, corals) to the nano. then the big one goes bye bye

:lol: It was probably a fine spot in the summer, but the sun's angle changes all year....Damn that tilted axis thing! :lol:

 

[-JB]

So far I've been plagued by, and beaten, almost all of the nasty ones. Dinnos, Cyno, Valonia, Red cotton and Bryopsis.

IMO Bryopsis was the worst. At one time I had about 2/3 of my rocks covered in it.

 

[Anonymous]

Das75 - I think that's Lobophora in your pictures. Maybe Padina - but I've only seen padina in it's elaborate scroll like growth.

 

[Robf]

I beat dinos, cyano, bryopsis, but red turf beat me.

The bryopsis took 2 years to control. This included removing the fish and adding nothing in the way of food to the tank. Aggressive carbon and kalkwasser, and basically water changed via the skimmer. It was a long haul.

Red turf finally kicked my arse last year. I broke down and ordered new rock just before a move. I put the old rock in a brute trashcan in the dark to cycle with a SRD skimmer and a mag 9.5. It's been cycling for 7 months now. :twisted: It'll be anything but live rock when I'm finished.

Every week it gets a WC from my sps tank... We'll see what happens in a month or two.

Rotten stuff.

R.

 

[-JB]

IME, Mexican margaritas snails, those big ones, will eat the red cotton algae

 

[Anonymous]

IME, Mexican margaritas snails, those big ones, will eat the red cotton algae

I second that.

My yellow tang finished that stuff off too, but I don't think that is typical of YTs.