Help with...Weed?

[chicago_animal]

Got the LR with the Green stuff on it. Been cycling for about 1 month now and the green is growling bigger. WHat is it and what can be done?

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[Raggamuffin]

WOW is that some serious algea you have going on! have you done water changes? trimmed and cleaned up that stuff during the changes? To me that looks like a take a toothbrush and scrub the hell out of the rock case.

As to that clump you are asking about I have no idea but I had some much smaller bits and the snails and urchins wouldn't touch it, I had to go the toothbrush route.

[chicago_animal]

This thing is growing more like a plant, not algae.

[olemiss reb]

Looks like a mix of bryopsis and green hair algae. Use tech-m to raise your mag to 1500-1600 to kill the bryopsis, gha- reduce nitrate/phosphate though water changes, phosphate reactor will help as well. If it was mine, I would ditch the rock and start from scratch, rocks can absorb phopshate leading to a long battle and bryopsis is a major pain

[chicago_animal]

Ditch the rock? Thats about $100 of rock.

[b0bab0ey]

Man, you are gonna have to take that rock out and scrub the hell out of it. Have you checked your phosphates? I'm betting they're pretty high. You're looking at an uphill battle no matter what you do.

As a measure of last resort, you could just break the whole tank down and start all over again. The rock is salvageable... but you will have to take it out, scrub it, scrub it some more, etc. If you can't get all the green hair algae out, you can always reuse it as dry rock.

[olemiss reb]

Ditch the rock? Thats about $100 of rock.

You've obviously never battled bryopsis.

[Mr. Fish]

Ditch the rock? Thats about $100 of rock.

$100 is nothing compared to the never ending struggle you will have with this algae. I say eat the $100 and start with new LR or dry rock.

[chicago_animal]

lol no. my last nano project was clean of it. I have 3 pieces covered in it. Should I ditch JUST those 3?

[Mr. Fish]

If your tank has no coral you could scrub all your rock then do a black out. You want to get most of the algae off the rock, so that way when you do the black out there isn't a big spike in nitrate from all the dead algae.

[chicago_animal]

I have ZERO corals. I have like 3 crabs and a few small stars that came on the rock.

SO, knowing this, whats the best way to do this? Will this be good in terms of getting rid of it and NOT ditching the LR?

[Mr. Fish]

I have ZERO corals. I have like 3 crabs and a few small stars that came on the rock.

SO, knowing this, whats the best way to do this? Will this be good in terms of getting rid of it and NOT ditching the LR?

Yes, then do the black out. Remove as much algae as you can before you do it, or it will all come back once you turn the lights back on. I would do the black out at least a week, preferably longer. Before turning the lights back on do water changes until your nitrate and phosphate are zero.

[olemiss reb]

The problem with blacking out the rock is that if a single bryopsis spore remains in the tank you are back to square one. Raising your mag to 1500 stops photosynthesis in bryopsis causing it to whither away, while not affecting beneficial macro. Raising your ph to 8.5 for 3 weeks will also kill it but maintaining a constant 8.5 is nearly impossible. A sea hare or couple of turbos will help with the gha in the meantime.

[chicago_animal]

So your saying using a product such as Kent-M to get my Mag up to 1500 and keeping it such as for awhile will kill the Bryopsis?

For the GHA do more water changes and use some turbo snails.

[njudson]

manual removal is the answer! rip that stuff out during water changes, using tech m will help kill the bryopsis

[olemiss reb]

So your saying using a product such as Kent-M to get my Mag up to 1500 and keeping it such as for awhile will kill the Bryopsis?

For the GHA do more water changes and use some turbo snails.

Yes. Adding a phosphate reactor will help as well. I would manually remove as much as possible outside of the tank and rinse LR with saltwater before placing it back in the tank. Bryopsis is imo, the hardest algae to defeat but raising the mag works, it just takes effort and time.

A sea hare will remove the GHA much quicker than turbos but will starve to death once the gha is gone.

[Kweli]

I came to help you with your 'weed' problem...

But i dont know anything about this microalgae stuff.... sorry

[chicago_animal]

After it dies....how long would I need to keep the MAG high for?

[geo11]

couldn't OP just scrub as much of as possible and then boil the rock?

[coralfish]

I used Marine Algae Fix...along with lettuce nudibranches, crabs, and snails. The lettuce nudis did eat quite a lot of it, but I think the Marine Algae Fix slowed the growth also. I have also heard that Kent Tech M works, but I can't say for sure.

My advice would be to pull out the rock that has it, ensuring that NONE of it breaks off and drifts into the tank. Or if its already started on other rocks (which it looks like to me is very pronounced in the tank), Marine Algea Fix and Lettuce nudibranches is the way to go.

[streak]

Scrub
I say re cook the rock.. and let it leech out all the phosphates.. 85 degree ro/di water for 3 days.. then ro/di vinigar bath for 3 days.. soak and rinse for a day till smell is gone changing water.. buy couple premium seeders and viola..

[kcooley]

i though weed was abundant in chicago anyways...?

[coralfish]

Whatever you do you better do it quickly and deliberately! This stuff is nothing to play around with. It is mean, nasty, and has a will to survive like no other algae out there! It will take over the tank and smother anything that it attaches to. You can NOT scrub it off, siphon it out, or pick it off the rock, it will return and you will fight it forever.

[epic.exposures]

Yes, then do the black out. Remove as much algae as you can before you do it, or it will all come back once you turn the lights back on. I would do the black out at least a week, preferably longer. Before turning the lights back on do water changes until your nitrate and phosphate are zero.

I hd this happen when I first started saltwater. I got hair algae on some LR and t spread quickly because I was feding the tank too much freeze dried shrimp(which I found out has a HIGH HIGH amount of phosphates on the rand I purchased). The way I got rid of it was scrubbing the hell out of the rock and blacking out the tank. THAN the best piece of advice I ever received on hair algae was to purchase a UV filter to kill the spores. It took 3 weeks to kill all the hair algae, but with the UV filter it never came back. It seems to me that algae and UV filters woul be unrelated but I guess it work, I got mine for 25 bucks at petsmart. Just placed it in the tank.

[chicago_animal]

I didn't know what it was when I bought the Lr that was covered jn it. I bought more LR from a different place that was clean. Should I separate the ones covered in it or consider it infected? Also, it has moved to parts of the sand.

[coralfish]

I would remove the infected rock and scoup out the infected sand, soak the rock in vinegar for a few days, rinse completely, then put it back in, and throw the sand away. Being certain that none of the algae floats to other parts of the tank. If it does it will start to grow.

[coralfish]

It sounds like you are fighting the idea of removing this rock.

[olemiss reb]

Scrub
I say re cook the rock.. and let it leech out all the phosphates.. 85 degree ro/di water for 3 days.. then ro/di vinigar bath for 3 days.. soak and rinse for a day till smell is gone changing water.. buy couple premium seeders and viola..

This is pretty good advice. For rock to get that bad it was kept in poor conditions and is more than likely loaded with phosphates making your battle much more difficult. Uv won't help with bryopsis. Scoop out and throw away the sand that it is attached to. There is no time-line for how long raised mag takes to work but I would leave it elevated for at least a week once you do not see any remaining bryopsis. Raised mag levels can have adverse effects on tank inhabitants, especially inverts, which is why ditching/cooking the rock is a realistic option. I'd have a long talk with whomever gave you the rock, a very stern talk if they charged you anything.

[olemiss reb]

google bryopsis, pretty much every link that comes up should provide solid evidence on why cooking the rock and starting over is a viable option.

[chicago_animal]

I got 3 starfish attached to the rock that's been on the glass. They will most likely die from the high Mag?

This really sucks, guys! I appreciate every response you have give.

[coralfish]

Bryopsis, which this is, is very tough to get rid of. "Black out" won't work, raised mag levels will take too long, and can hurt inverts,

[chicago_animal]

Leaning towards ditching the rock right now. My friend has a planted tank and has snail problems. Seems like this Algae is the equivilent of FW Snail problems.

[olemiss reb]

Leaning towards ditching the rock right now. My friend has a planted tank and has snail problems. Seems like this Algae is the equivilent of FW Snail problems.

Figure 8 puffer will solve his snail problem. Did you get the rock from a LFS or someone breaking down their tank?

[chicago_animal]

Bought it from someone here that was selling the tank and was selling the LR for $2 a pound. Only 12lbs came from him while I paid $4LB at LFS at thanksgiving sale. That was about 20LBs

[chicago_animal]

Found this as a part of an article:

Freeze Them Off

Finally, there is the simple method of removing affected rocks from the tank and placing them in the freezer for forty-eight hours or more. This is an understandable nuisance and may not even be possible if aqua-structure or coral life will not allow. The process will burst the cellular structure of the alga, thereby killing it. At this point, it would be advisable to brush off/manually remove any remaining visible pieces before returning the piece to the display.

[chicago_animal]

Any thougts on the freezing? I could just leave them outside. It's a high of 10* here at night.

[geo11]

Even if you kill everything on the rock, you could always reseed it, so there's really not much to lose by trying it

[olemiss reb]

Cooking/boiling it is a better option as it will remove the phosphate that the rock has absorbed, both methods will kill all beneficial bacteria.

[chicago_animal]

I found this thread http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1948991
and in it people mention thaty Blackouts and Boiling wont work on this and MAG is the only way to go.

Has anyone that made the boiling or Blackout suggestions actually done it?

[Mr. Fish]

I found this thread http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1948991
and in it people mention thaty Blackouts and Boiling wont work on this and MAG is the only way to go.

Has anyone that made the boiling or Blackout suggestions actually done it?

Blackouts will kill the algae, but there will always be the spores in your tank, so you will need to deal with removing the algae once it grows back. Blackouts will not kill the good stuff on your rock just algae. I recommend starting with something easy like a blackout. It wont hurt anything.

[chicago_animal]

I'm thinking of removing the really bad rock and ditching it. Then blackout the other pieces and then try the Mag.

[chicago_animal]

Last night I took out the infested pieces and threw then away. I didn't turn the lights o. Today and out a blanket over the cube so no sunlight gets in. Next week I will turn on the lights to see how things look. If it's still bad I'm gonna start adding the high levels of mag.