Logzor
02/10/2009, 10:22 PM
As some of you may know I have struggled with this algae for over a year now.
For those who are not familiar this algae can survive in very low nutrient waters and is toxic to most fish. Therefore it loves high flow sps tanks and almost nothing eats it.
This is really bad because this algae loves to grow up the side of sps, killing the tissue it touches. It also roots itself so deeply into the rock you can only remove it by chiseling away the entire area with some tool or bone cutters.
I found no way to eradicate it from my old 55g system. In my new 90g that has be up for around 5 month I swore that I would not let it enter the tank. Somehow one small piece got in and covered significant areas. Although, I found that in my new BB tank it did not grow nearly as fast, due to better skimming and high flow that removed detritus from the rockwork.
After doing a ton of research I found that the only fish that eats this algae is the two-barred rabbitfish. I finally found one locally and added him to the tank around two months ago.
He picked at it once in awhile but merely kept a few areas under control, which made me pretty happy.
I recently began dosing Vitamin C to my tank (carbon). This stripped enough nutrients from my system to weaken the algae. I found that when the algae was beginning to weaken/die off the rabbitfish would devour it. Currently about half of the algae is gone, there is still a good deal of work to be done. In some places I have noticed that the algae is simply dieing off - without the help of the rabbitfish.
Nonetheless I can finally say that I am going to win this battle. Vitamin C and a Two-Barred Rabbitfish. Thank god.
I know others have struggled with the algae so if you need any advice I am the expert and I can probably help fix the issue in a much shorter amount of time than it took me to.
For those who are not familiar this algae can survive in very low nutrient waters and is toxic to most fish. Therefore it loves high flow sps tanks and almost nothing eats it.
This is really bad because this algae loves to grow up the side of sps, killing the tissue it touches. It also roots itself so deeply into the rock you can only remove it by chiseling away the entire area with some tool or bone cutters.
I found no way to eradicate it from my old 55g system. In my new 90g that has be up for around 5 month I swore that I would not let it enter the tank. Somehow one small piece got in and covered significant areas. Although, I found that in my new BB tank it did not grow nearly as fast, due to better skimming and high flow that removed detritus from the rockwork.
After doing a ton of research I found that the only fish that eats this algae is the two-barred rabbitfish. I finally found one locally and added him to the tank around two months ago.
He picked at it once in awhile but merely kept a few areas under control, which made me pretty happy.
I recently began dosing Vitamin C to my tank (carbon). This stripped enough nutrients from my system to weaken the algae. I found that when the algae was beginning to weaken/die off the rabbitfish would devour it. Currently about half of the algae is gone, there is still a good deal of work to be done. In some places I have noticed that the algae is simply dieing off - without the help of the rabbitfish.
Nonetheless I can finally say that I am going to win this battle. Vitamin C and a Two-Barred Rabbitfish. Thank god.
I know others have struggled with the algae so if you need any advice I am the expert and I can probably help fix the issue in a much shorter amount of time than it took me to.