new algea identification...

[ltouchette]

Hi all... I've had this new Algae show up in my tank after moving it to the new house. I've had the tank here at the new house for about 9 months now, it was setup at the old house for almost two years.

Here's some pics of the Algae. It seems like a macro algea, it grows pretty quickly and is becoming a nuisance in my tank.

Can anyone identify it or recommend something to combat it? I have all the same rocks in the new tank as i did in the old, I never saw any of this Algae when the tank was at the old house, it's almost like it was dormant on the rocks and now after the move something has woke it up...

Thx,
Lt

[Silverfin]

What type of fish do you have in the tank?

A Lawmower Blenny might do the job of cleaning it out. I have two and they made my 210gl and Nano cube spotless with algea. Before we got the Blenny for the Nano,
the tank was filled with all types of algea. the reef rocks were unable to be seen becuase of the overgrowth. Now, the Blenny in the Nano has stripped the rocks bare of algea, leaving it exposed.

[Amphiprion]

Some Dictyota species. Rather difficult to get rid of, since it seems to do well in lower nutrient tanks, as well. I would suggest scrubbing it off as best as you could in a separate container.

[supervdl]

Another reefer with the same issue. See my reply in the other thread.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...readid=1115138

[Samala]

I agree, definitely a Dictyota.

>Sarah

[frederickk]

Is that the only spot you have or is it worst?

[SPS4Life]

That algea looks funky I know I dont want it.

[Frick-n-Frags]

Oh yeah, you had best keep a very close eye on that. If that crap gets away from you, it can infest into corals and you will never get it out of all the nooks and crannies.

that could be one of the ultimate nastiest pest algaes there is.
seriously. In fact, I think it is Eric Bornemann's favorite too because of how it screwed up his corals.

I always thought it was cool looking. The stuff I had, had the blue iridescence going pretty good. I had a huge population of macros at the time, so no single algae could attain pest status and I only had a couple well behaved clumps of Dictyota like on the tank glass.

[ltouchette]

Oh, i've got it in about 4 spots pretty bad right now. I guess i'm going to have to take out the rocks and scrub. I'm afraid of leaving little algae frags on the rocks that may cause a bigger problem when i put the rocks back so i'll have to rinse real real good. I'm gonna have to prepare a big water change so i have alot of rinsing water to work in in different tubs.

Man this is a bummer, my tank was doing so good, i dont know how this crap even got in there. I'm thinking that it was on a rock in my tank that never got any light, then when i moved the tank to my new house and had to re-position all the live rock i must have exposed it to sunlight.

I can't even remember where the first spot it popped up was...

I've got to go out of town this week but next weekend will probably be spent scrubbing rocks... sigh... stuff like this happens and makes you wonder why you burn so much time in this hobby...

Lt

[InvertLover]

Dictyota indeed. I had it a while ago, and I'm still not 100% sure what I did to get rid of it, out of all the things I tried. I can tell you scrubbing your rocks won't work however. When it comes to removing it manually, I had much better luck if I let a clump get huge, because the roots would die off in the shade, allowing the clump to pull loose from the rock very easily. I also began growing huge amounts of cheato. About 1/3 of my display tank and my refugium both were full of growing cheato. I also noticed that my Sally Lightfoot crab ate the small bits left on the rock.

[kipher]

Hi guys. I'm the other reef ltouchette mentioned, and that more or less looks exactly like what I have growing in my tank. It has pretty well grown on every rock in my tank now. If what all of you say is true. I'm almost to the point of saying screw it and going to go buy all new LR. Do you guys think that cooking the rock would help? I'm thinking it might not due to the fact that ltouchette's rock had some that layed dormit in the rock work until that one rock got light and then it took off from there. BTW, I checked my tank out after lights out and found my emerald crab up there eating it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now all I need is 800 emerald crabs and the problem might get fixed. There's just way to much of it in my tank.

[kipher]

BTW, when it first started spreading I took every rock out of the tank and broke way the portions of the rock that had the algea growing on it. I would say I had to have gotten 99+% out of my tank and it came back bad again. The problem, IMO, is that this goes sexual and releses spores into the water. You would probably have to break away the portion of rock that it is growing on, do a 100% water change, if you have cheato in your sump....I would replace all of it and start over from scratch....as the spores could be in there. Also I have a ASM skimmer and there is a black sponge on the ouput from the skimmer. The algea is going on that too. So if you have any sponges I would think replacing the sponges would be a good idea too.

[ltouchette]

Thanks for the new info kipher...