I have just had it!

[johnnstacy]

Originally posted by hipertec
John,
did the emerald crab help or the foxface?

Well, it's just one small emerald so it's probably to early to tell. Haven't seen him since I put him in the tank. The foxface I just put in yesterday. I had him in the sump to see if he would eat off that rock but I think I was stressing him out. He wouldn't even eat the nori so I put him in the main tank yesterday. Today he ate some nori that I offered so we will wait and see. In the mean time my fish load has increased:

3 anthias
1 royal gramma
1 flame cardinal
1 hippo tang
1 red head salon fairy
1 clown
1 foxface

All of the fish with the exception of the foxface are relatively small. I'm glad I got the big deltec to handle this bioload though. If that foxface doesn't prove himself within a week, he's out.

[photobarry]

I would second the recommendation for the long-spined urchin. They grow rapidly and seem to eat almost any type of algae and are the best bet for the tough/fibrous types of algae that nothing else will touch.

[jacas34]

Emeralds will eat tons of chaeto so you may see your chaeto start to grow in the sump. I caught an emerald picking at SPS and did the samething you did. After a few weeks I noticed my chaeto starting to vanish. Then I caught the emerald tearing through it and I removed him. I have a Chevron tang, a rabbitfish and a sea hare. Out of the three, I would say the sea hare does the most work and poops almost constantly. The tang comes in second because his mouth seems better suited for this job. Are you adding any trace elements? I have read a few things about the synergistic effects of phosphate and trace elements. I know you said you are testing zero on phosphates but most test kits for this are not good indicators. I know I added some iodine and had some signs of excess PO and I got an increase in hair algae almost instantly. Good luck with the fight.

[piercho]

Diadema urchins are the best generalized grazers, IME. Chew the rock down to bare white bone, after which snails and bristle-tooth fish can do a better job keeping it clean. IMO Diadema would incidentally graze the short brown turf John has. IMO Diadema is not likely to graze Dictyota, though. Disadvantages of Diadema are that they grow very large, and may trim a coral on occassion or knock off a poorly-secured fragment. May damage acrylic tanks.

Siganus Lo and its close kin are good generalized grazers, IME. Not likely to entirely remove the brown turf, like Diadema, but is likely to graze it short. Grazes some fleshy algae, too. Not likely to graze Dictyota. Doesn't grow that fast and is fairly calm, slow, non-aggressive fish.

No experience with sea hares. Highly unlikely, IMO, that snails will affect the brown turf algae or Dictyota. Small crabs may pick at brown turf. Not much can control Dictyota except manual removal, nutrient limitation or specialized grazers, which I think include tangs from the Naso group (no experience).

Julian Sprung's algae book is a decent one for identifying algae and there grazers in reef tanks.

[photobarry]

I do have to warn you that a long-spined urchin might play rough with your Tunze Streams. Mine seems to have a taste for plastic.

[hipertec]

I have green hair algae all over my rocks. Its been a big problem.
I am now lowering my lighting to about 3-4 hours and have my skimmer to really wet skimming.
I have a sea hare but his rarely on the rocks and seem lazy. I dont know. He is always on the glass or on the sand. Rarely see him on the rocks.
I also picked up a short spine urchin and the same thing. Always on the glass and not on the rocks. I have a lawnmower blenny and he is lazy. I only see him kickin back or swimming around.
I just picked up a long spine urchin yesterday so I am hoping that he will be the one to tackle the green hair. Crossing my fingers!

[Fishyfreak031592]

Well first you have to try to get rid of the algae with your fingers or a brand new tooth brush. Then, either get a foxface or a yellow tang, those two fish are the best for getting rid of algea. Hermits will keep the algea away. I have 130+ in my 72, plus a few snails. The algea should then stay away.....if it comes back, then idk...

[johnnstacy]

Originally posted by photobarry
I would second the recommendation for the long-spined urchin. They grow rapidly and seem to eat almost any type of algae and are the best bet for the tough/fibrous types of algae that nothing else will touch.

Is it the black or the banded? They have two types on liveaquaria.com

[hipertec]

it should be the black long spine urchin. I just bought one yesterday. Hopefully this guy will do the job. I have read alot that this is the one to get rid of algae.

[photobarry]

The black. You want a Diadema species.

[piercho]

Diadema sestosum is the Diadema you will most often find. Usually available small, 4" or so. Grows fast. After a week or so you should see it "dig in", and start clearing patches of rock.

For those of you who are fans of Bomber's big tank, he has (or use to have) an Atlantic Diadema that has been captive many years. I think its been described as the size of a basketball. I have to pass mine on after a few months as they get too big for my 65G.

[photobarry]

Mine is about 1.5 years old and is about 10" in diameter. (It had 2" long spines when I got it.) It likes to eat meat in addition to algae and mine usually catches a few mysis shrimp when I feed the fish.

[johnnstacy]

Originally posted by piercho
Diadema urchins are the best generalized grazers, IME. Chew the rock down to bare white bone, after which snails and bristle-tooth fish can do a better job keeping it clean. IMO Diadema would incidentally graze the short brown turf John has.

Anyone know if I would be able to pick one of these up with some tongs or something and move it to where I want it to eat? Will it stay there or are they temperamental?

[photobarry]

They pretty much do what they want and will hide when first put in the tank. They move around pretty quickly so I don't think one would stay where you wanted it.

[johnnstacy]

hmmm....raises some questions in my mind. Only maybe 1/20th of the tank has this brown hair so far. I wonder though if the urchin will go to that area or will he just start wherever? I don't have a lot of coralline yet but it would sure be nice to spare what I have....

[photobarry]

I had to restart my tank from scratch and added the large urchin, along with two smaller other urchins, and still have a lot of coralline growth on the back wall of the tank. And I added them when there was zero coralline in the tank except what was on the rocks. It is definitely nice not having to scrape the back of the tank quite as often.

[Secondgen]

I had an algea outbreak much like the brown algea you've encountered, but started dosing the tank with reef DNA and that was that. Reef DNA is also good for many other organisms in your tank. Just a thought worked for me. It costs $39.99 at my LFS, but found it for $17.99 at Petsolutions. Hope this helps.

[gstuman]

John,

I ordered similar rock from reefer madness and had the exact same experience. The good new is that it goes away. My method might be a bit surprising to many here as well.

Since I have started 3 reef tanks previously and used the "cooking" method and have come out with almost no hitchhikers, this time I decided to just cure, not "cook", the rock in the tank.

I have a 150 gal. and a 6" DSP then placed around 200 lbs of reefermaddness "kailini" rock. It came in pristine shape as if it had just been pulled out of the ocean. I dropped it onto the DSP and put the photoperiod (2 x 250 DE 14K) at around 6 hours per day.

I had a major outbreak of the exact same algae you are fighting. It was some sort of brown hair algae that would just not go away. I, like you, use only RODI water, I have a big H&S skimmer pulling out the gump, no fish, a Tunze stirring it up and the stuff still grew. I finally killed it after around 4 months and here's what I did:

I ordered a very big cleanup crew with around 300 microhermits, 200 Turbo Snails and 50 Cerith Snails. I also added a Foxface. I started running Phosban in the Sump. Finally I added two Lettuce Nudibranches. It was amazing how fast the critters ate this stuff. I really don't know if any particular animal was the best eater but in combination they took care of it.

My observations tell me the Nudibranches were very good at eating the long hairs on the tufts and then it seemed the Turbo Snails would finish it off. I don't think the Foxface did anything unless he eats when I'm not looking, and the microhermits definitely pulled this stuff out of the crevices and would also form "herds" that would gang up on a tuft and eat it down to the rock. I think the nail in the coffin was running the phosban.

I also had a valonia problem at the same time and 5 emerald crabs really took care of it.

BTW, even though I didn't "cook" the rock I have a perfect reef tank now just like the last 2 where I did cook the rock. But, in this case, I have all sorts of sponges and corals that made it through the shipping process that are really cool. I'm personally not convinced that "cooking" is necessary if you order very fresh rock such as reefermaddness provides.

Now that the tough brown hair algae is gone my crabs are somewhat gone amock. I have been killing the blue legged microhermits them as they attack my sps corals. I am leaving the Hawaiian zebra hermits for now as they seem to kill more blue legged hermits than I can and then they will go too. The scarlet legged hermits don't seem to do much but pluck algae and the emeralds are also no problem, although, in past I have killed them too for picking on corals.

I hope this helps. If you can boil this down to one concept it is: attack the problem from many angles simultaneously and always keep good water quality.

Good luck with your tank. My suggestion is to attack from multiple angles. It worked for me, but, as in all things reef, it may not for you.

Happy New Year.

[mash35231]

Are those OceansMotions OmniFlex nozzles in the original pic?

[piercho]

Diadema will graze most coralines. It can't be located, and is fairly mobile and travels quickly. It tends to travel the tank and then choose a spot to dig in, where it will clear a couple square inches of rock before moving on. It will often return to the same recess to hide while the lights are on. It can be "shooed" by tapping its spines with an algae scrapper or other such tool. Its best to shoo the urchin away from where you will have your hands in the tank. The spines penetrate the skin easily, then break off and leave the tip in the skin.

[johnnstacy]

Originally posted by mash35231
Are those OceansMotions OmniFlex nozzles in the original pic?

Yes they are. I have retrofitted the OM nozzles on the sea swirls and I also use them to direct flow from the OM 4-way outlets. 2 on the lower back wall and 2 on the bottom facing the front glass.

[johnnstacy]

Originally posted by piercho
Diadema will graze most coralines. It can't be located, and is fairly mobile and travels quickly. It tends to travel the tank and then choose a spot to dig in, where it will clear a couple square inches of rock before moving on. It will often return to the same recess to hide while the lights are on. It can be "shooed" by tapping its spines with an algae scrapper or other such tool. Its best to shoo the urchin away from where you will have your hands in the tank. The spines penetrate the skin easily, then break off and leave the tip in the skin.

OUCH!

[johnnstacy]

Originally posted by gstuman
I have a 150 gal. and a 6" DSP then placed around 200 lbs of reefermaddness "kailini" rock. It came in pristine shape as if it had just been pulled out of the ocean.

I wish I could say the same. My rock came with a lot of die off and stunk bad when I unpackaged it. It took about 2 weeks to get the stink to go away. (The wife had a fit as I was cycling in the main tank in the livingroom) I wish I had known about cooking back then. I would have just taken all of the rock down to the basement and started the cooking then.....

It sounds like you basically just cycled this last tank for an extended period and used livestock to help the process. Good idea. I would be curious to see if your rock sheds at all on a bare bottom. Hard to tell with a SB since most of it will blend or mix with the sand. I vacuum the bottom a couple of times a week. The only thing that is really coming off the rocks now is just sand. I also vacuum a lot of snail poop. I just wonder with a SB what happens to the snail poop that I vacuum up in a bb.

Where did you get those microhermits? That is about the only thing I don't have in my tank. The foxface isn't doing anything so far in the display tank. I should have known. I almost didn't put him in but he looked so pitiful in my sump that I couldn't help it. I am really rethinking the urchin thing. I have a lot of smaller frags in my tank and they aren't set in stone. Sometimes even a mexican turbo comes in and knocks one out. I can imagine what the urchin will do. I am trying to maintain a ph of about 8.35 with alk at about 8.5 and doing only kalk instead of kalk and the calcium reactor. I have a 2nd phosban reactor on the way and am now running a reverse photo period on the sump which has been a HUGE help in maintaining th ph.

[Weatherman]

Originally posted by johnnstacy
The foxface isn't doing anything so far in the display tank. I should have known. I almost didn't put him in but he looked so pitiful in my sump that I couldn't help it.

Is your Foxface eating anything?

I just got a Foxface for my 120, and it looks like it eats absolutely nothing. I’ve never owned a Foxface before, but I had always read they were hardy fish. The last time I lost a fish to starvation was a Copperband Butterfly I had a couple of years ago. It ate all my aiptasia, and then refused to eat anything else. It really surprises me that Foxface are as picky as Butterflyfish in the food they’ll eat.

[photobarry]

Originally posted by Weatherman
Is your Foxface eating anything?

I just got a Foxface for my 120, and it looks like it eats absolutely nothing. I’ve never owned a Foxface before, but I had always read they were hardy fish. The last time I lost a fish to starvation was a Copperband Butterfly I had a couple of years ago. It ate all my aiptasia, and then refused to eat anything else. It really surprises me that Foxface are as picky as Butterflyfish in the food they’ll eat.

How large is yours?

I bought one as a baby, maybe 1" long, and it didn't want to eat much initially and spent most of its time hiding. It quickly learned about nori and then would not touch any algae in the tank. And it grew to about 6" in a little over a year. It never did show much interest in bubble algae except for pulling some of it off the rocks and watching it float around the tank. Hopefully most are better at eating that stuff than mine was.