Ultimate Nuisance Algae Thread

Sorry, I probably missed something but what are "****ons"?

 

they are c h i t o n s funny thing about that profanity blocker. .

 

Oh boy

I know what a quarantine tank is...just set up one today...BUT...what do you mean when you say..."you didn't quarantine?"

 

chitons = c h i t o n s...

lets see.... can we opt-out of profanity filters?

****ake mushrooms, chitter chatter, pas****erageray (made up words are fun), etc... let's see...

..eerm...nope, all good there.

 

all those species under the "didn't qt" are species that are easily qted out of your tank, but are a pain to remove later. Other nuisances like diatoms, film algae and cyano etc... appear magically in a tank, and there is nothing anyone can do to effectively QT them away. (I guess with sterile lab equipment etc.. but they just appear no matter how hard you try not to introduce them).

 

I'm new to the hobby and my tank is starting to have at least 4 of the algae mentioned above.
I have the following:
Cyano
Film Algae
Blue Green Cyano
Dinoflagellates
How can I completely stop it from coming back? I have cheato, carbon and now thinking about getting the phosphate reactor. Do I take out the rock and start scraping it off?

 

sure it is dinos and not diatoms? how old is the tank?

 

i was just thinking about it...you guys QT rocks and corals right?

 

No, I was told I don't have to. I asked the same question before but everyone tells not too. How do you QT it anyway?

My tank has been running for the past few months and now I starting to see problems.

I’ve changed my lighting schedule, Actinic blue to 9 hrs and MH to 8 hrs, and start to feed once a day or every other day. Hopefully this will reduce algae.

Any other recommends?

 

when you get a frag place it in your qt tank, (which shouldn't be medicated with copper etc..honestly I think there is no use for copper in this hobby but anyway...)

inspect it for a week until you are sure there are no pests. the 10gal kits at wal mart are perfect for this. the bulbs are in the yellow spectrum to help grow fw plants, but will also help grow nuisance algae if there is any to pop up. Is it an ideal environment for the new coral? Maybe not, but a little bit of low lighting shouldn't effect it much, you can change the bulbs to something in a better spectrum if you are worried about color loss. Make sure the tank is cycled, good water chemistry etc.... Bare bottom is the best way to go.

(This is for algae pests, most people do FW dipping and the like for invert pests, different guide so that is the subject for a different post...)

The spores can remain dormant for longer than a week, it is not fool proof. But talking to hundreds of people I can say that the vast majority of the pests that cause tank breakdowns, frustration, and the like were on a frag or a piece of liverock that it showed up on shortly after being put in the tank. Usually what happens is we overlook the little bit of nuisance algae and want the nice looking coral in the tank etc.. and the little bit grows out into a menace. Normal algae problems like cyano, gha, film algae etc...aren't the target of the QT here, at this point you want to keep out bubble algae, byropsis, etc... Algae that normal CUC members don't eat, spread quickly, and are difficult to manually remove.

qting lr - if it is the first thing you are putting in the tank, curing in the dark generally does a good job, but you may lose the life you are paying for. Here I would just monitor it in the display, set traps for bristles etc... If you get an outbreak of one of the algae like byropsis, bubble algae, red turf algae etc... that are very difficult to remove without invasive procedures, then it doesn't really matter much, because there is no fish or delicate corals in the tank etc... and it should be relatively easy to treat. Still, any rocks that develop a problem should be taken to the QT tank for treatment - just to be safe. An ounce of prevention is a pound of cure and all that.

Also, if a "super pest" algae like those described above take hold on a rock in your display as it goes along, you should remove it and isolate it in a QT, and treat it there if at all possible. Finally, if you have an established system but want to fill in that gap with some additional live rock, then it would be a good practice to QT the rock you will be adding by monitoring the curing process, and isolating the rocks.

$36 at Wal-Mart for a Qt tank will go a long way for most sized systems, if it ends up saving you one fight with the algae described here it will be worth it. You can also keep out invert pests that are normally associated with QTs.

--In addition to LR and frags this goes for macro algae too. A recent algae QT I did stopped a ton of bubble algae in some chaeto I received from being past on. Most nuisance algae are epiphytic, which means they will grow on other algae (and sometimes even on coral)