What will eat neomeris sp (spindle weed) algae?

[Overland04]

I have a huge infestation of this algae in my new 50g sps tank. I don't know of any way to get rid of the problem. Its taken over 60 percent of the live rocks real estate.
Is there a fish, crab or medication that will get rid of these?

Thanks for the help

[luther1200]

Not exactly sure what algae you mean, do you have a picture?

[Imzadi]

Google rawks...

http://www.masa.asn.au/masawiki/images/4/4c/Neomeris_sp_01.jpg

I have never seen that before... It looks pretty cool. But, if it is takin over, not so good.

[Imzadi]

There a thread on 3reef, with a guy with what looks like a 200g, that is FLOODED with it... lol


Everything I see about it says it is actually hard to keep alive! You have to treat it like a coral, and keep your levels up if you want to keep them!

No one has said anything about anything eatin them, though... you might be able to make some money off of them! lol

Melev has a good pic on his site too.

They are neat, imo.

[Overland04]

I just don't think they look that great in the tank. It's also a new setup and I don't want to start adding expensive SPS corals when these Weeds are taking over the tank.

http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww47/Overland04/_MG_6601.jpg

[Peter Eichler]

How long have you had it and how long has the tank been set up? It has been my experience that it's usually fairly difficult to keep longterm and will die off on it's own and come and go in cycles. What are your calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium levels?

[Overland04]

I have the rock close to 9 years. 6 months before I placed into this new setup I did the rock cooking method to kill off a couple of spindle weeds that I saw in my old setup. When I took the rock out of the cooking method they all looked clean and all the spindle weeds were gone to the naked eye.
The new setup has been up for three months and It went from one or two weeds to a infestation.
my calcium levels have been high because of dialing in the new reactor so they are around 485 and the DKH around 6.9. I don't have a meg test yet so I'm clueless on that one.

[ser_renely]

wow, cool.

[bobparker]

Looks pretty wild man Take some and stick it in your sump than hammer it with a 500 watt light 24/7 while dosing your tank epsom salt/ magnesium phosphate till you get your magnesium up to around 1300ppm it should eliminate any further growth except for the algae in the sump being cooked with light. A good grow out in the sump good be very beneficial to your DT

[seapug]

It thrives in new tanks where there is little competition for light and calcium, which it consumes rapidly, like Halimeda. It typically goes away on its own once it has competition for calcium consumption. If you are supplementing calcium and alkalinity, stop, or add some clams or SPS corals that will give it a run for it's calcium consumption. As far as algae problems go, it's one of the easier ones to manage.

[Whalehead9]

rip it out and continue. I have this with a full mixed reef with sps and other stuff. try to get coraline growing as fast as possible. the neomeris loves to attach to uncolonized areas.

[rreed]

Just found this thread, I have been fighting this algae for a year now! I had clams and sps corals in the tank, and it still is thriving! One thing I have found it does love calcium. Another is you have to have tons of flow in tank to keep it from trapping detrius, and once it starts to desolve it makes a mess!! I've gone to taking each rock out and cleaning it off manually an rinsing rock off in water from a water change. Then re-introduce rock back to tank in reverse so that the cleaned area is getting no light. Too early to tell if I'm winning the battle yet.

[rreed]

Well 3 weeks into it, an I'm seeing a few spots here an there where algae is getting light an trying to come back but my rock work is about 98% clean now. I will continue to manually clean rock until its all gone. But for most part looks like I'm winning the battle.

[podcar]

Wow glad I read this! I just noticed some starting on a couple of my rocks.

[danch]

podcar, don't worry too much - breakouts like this aren't real common. I've had a finger or two of it for 3 years and it's never gotten to the point of being a problem.

Hope I haven't jinxed myself.

[Agathos]

I startet my tank in September last year, so it's only about 4 months old now. Neomeris started to spout a few weeks after start-up. I only have around 10 of them in total, and in that low number that are quite decorative, actually. They have grown to about 2 inch length now. How long will they become?