algea help please.

[jmaneyapanda]

Lee- an urchin will mow that @#$% down. It will eat the coralline too. Most herbivores have trouble eating the tall strands, so whatever herbivore you may use, mechanically trim it to help them.

Also, If I'm not mistaken, flush your R/O wont really improve effeciency, just prolong the life. If you effeciency is bad, change the prefilter and carbon. Unless the membrane is mechanically damaged it should noty decrease in effectiveness. But I'm, not sure of that.

The last time I had a Bryopsis outbreak (which it what I believe this is), I just crank the skimmer to remove nutrients. After about two weeks, I noticed a reduced. During that two weeks, I mechanically pulled it out as often a I could too.

 

[cameron]

If it is Bryopsis plumosa I was reading an article a coulpe days ago and it suggested using a variety of controls including manual, sea slugs, urchins and some specialty snails. They strongly encouraged the use of a UV. Apparently this stuff gets through the digestion track of many animals and continues to replicate. The UV kills the floating bits which helps slow further growth and it also breaks down excess nutrients faster which aids in slowing growth as well. I would check the toxicity of any inverts before I just throw them in though.

 

[glxtrix]

hmmm intersting and yet I'm still stuck in the problem that I have a smaller tank than most so adding larger animals isnt an option for me. This totally bothers me cuz all my corals are growing really really well and the fact that there is this algea aggrivates me, and not to mention that my tank looks better than it ever has, lol. Oh well. I guess manual plucking will have to do for now, or just let the water go longer than usual and see if it'll die out somehow. Ive got my remora skimming as wet as it'll go so we'll see what happens. As far as UV goes, are there any down sides to doing that? And I hguess the only factor would be finding a UV for a decent price and thats rated for my 15g.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Cameron wrote: If it is Bryopsis plumosa I was reading an article a coulpe days ago and it suggested using a variety of controls including manual, sea slugs, urchins and some specialty snails. They strongly encouraged the use of a UV. Apparently this stuff gets through the digestion track of many animals and continues to replicate. The UV kills the floating bits which helps slow further growth and it also breaks down excess nutrients faster which aids in slowing growth as well. I would check the toxicity of any inverts before I just throw them in though.

Hey Cameron;

Can you hook me up with the link regarding the bryopsis surviving digestion?

 

[cameron]

Yep... http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=167632">http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=167632</a>

Funny I read this not two days ago. From the article, this is the sections that seemed interesting to me:

[QUOTE=]Even with herbivorous pressure, there is also the problem of incomplete digestion to consider: viable algal material is often found in the feces of many of these herbivores, and a biodiverse ecosystem, with herbivorous/omnivorous scavengers and recyclers of all sizes (the sort that live on eating the crap of higher herbivores....yechhh), seems the best way to deal with it.[/QUOTE]

and

[QUOTE=]A properly-designed UV sterilizer may effect a significant reduction in repeat manifestations of [I]Bryopsis</em>, within the context of physical removal, herbivorous suppression, and resource denial. Those latter three primarily deal with the presence of [I]Bryopsis</em> on substrate, whilst proper application of UV (or other prophylactic filtration) helps deal with the problemâ&#8364;&#8482;s presence in the water, obliterating many spores, gametes, microthalli and viable fragments. It is also no small benefit that proper use of UV filters also provides rapid oxidation of many dissolved nutrients in the water, reducing one fuel that powers [I]Bryopsis</em> blooms.[/QUOTE]

I also read this in a book about Inverts, but I can't remember which one. They basically stated some algae colonies will actual grow thanks to snails and such eating and crapping out the spores in other areas of the aquarium. It wasn't in relation to this type of algae though best I can remember.