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#76
02/23/2006, 10:10 AM
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The picture wth the hairy almost purple-color algae above was from my tank. I now have no algae whatsoever to speak of in my main tank (220 gal). Three tangs, a lawnmower blenny and two turbos plus a growing number of small snails of some sort keep it totally in check. FWIW, I have observed the lawnmower blenny eating the hairy red-purple stuff. I have also observed the turbos. I avoided the mexican variety since my tank temp is 80-82 and they are cooler water animals.
Have you guys considered what would happen when your 50-70 snails begin to die-off from starvation? They are big animals and pollute quite a bit when they die. Now this said, I do still have the red stuff in my overflow - where light gets to it but no snails/fish, and some in my fuge. Somehow it manages to grow on my Caulerpa. No biggie - I pull it out when I prune back the Caulerpa. FWIW, I have not found a limiting nutrient for this algae. I have reached nitrate-limited and phosphate-limited lack-of-growth for my caulerpa and have to balance heavy feeding of the tank to generate enough nitrates/phosphates to keep the caulerpa growing. The fish don't seem to mind  . With my current feeding regime, I rely in the DSB and caulerpa to control nitrates and I run a small fluidized bed filter filled with ROWAphos to control phosphate. I have found that removing too much phosphate causes the caulerpa to go sexual, while not removing enough allows cyano to bloom. I run a skimmer but don't heavily skim.I'm at a happy place now.
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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. -Unknown |
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#78
02/23/2006, 11:01 AM
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I have a Regal Blue, Yellow and Sailfin. I haven't seen any of those three eat the red hairy stuff - but they totally knocked anything else out that may have thought of growing - except for some sort of reddish-brown leafy stuff that doesn't grow too fast and the Grammas use it to build nests. They don't eat that. The LMB occasionally nibbles at it. As far as fish go, the LMB was the best eater of the red stuff. The turbos worked great as well, but as I said, what do you do with them when they've eaten it all and start starving to death?
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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. -Unknown |
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#79
02/24/2006, 01:08 AM
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Quote:
I have the same situation where the red stuff seems to grow on my caulerpra...... but this is minimal and I pull it off whem I trim the Caulerpra back...... Tank looks best it's ever been...... Just taking my good old time slowly stocking this big baby......  Can't afford to go too fast and it's more fun to take time doing this..... I'm being very selective about what I put into the tank.....
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#80
02/25/2006, 04:56 AM
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And who says nothing good ever happens fast in this hobby?
 
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90 gallon w/ 100lbs. live rock 2- 150w MH and 2-96w actic pc's Some LPS and softies. 2 Chromis False Perc. Powder Blue Tang Orange Dottyback Firefish goby *RIP - You lil' carpet surfer you! |
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#81
02/25/2006, 08:59 AM
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Quote:
  Nothing good ever happens fast in this hobby except for JUMBO MEXICAN TURBO SNAILS!! And we changed this rule without breaking the Golden Rule.....  No Chemicals it has to be natural... Great way to wrap up a thread...... Only on RC......
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#82
02/25/2006, 07:15 PM
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EVERYONE THAT HAS HAD THIS ALGEA CAN YOU PLEASE TELL ME WHERE YOUR LIVE ROCK IS FROM? LOCATION AND VENDER PLEASE.
THANKS MICHAEL
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Life is to short to buy frags ! But for FREE I'LL take them ><((((º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><((((º> ·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·.. >((((º> IT'S NOT THAT SIMPLE....... BAREBOTTOM ALL THE WAY® |
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#83
02/26/2006, 01:52 AM
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Quote:
Interesting question..... I only experienced the Red nightmare when using "Dead Rock" to establish my new system..... Prior rock ( for 2 years with NO signs of the nightmare) was used from my old 90 gallon reef and moved to the new tank. My LFS speculated the problem may have resulted from spores in the dead rock..... but of course he lost big$$$$ not selling me LR. IMO I understocked the cleaner crew from the start..... (My mistake) but how many out there have had this problem occur when introducing "Dead Rock" in your tanks?........ Although I am surprised that some snails made such a significant difference to combat this issue...... Why?.... Any opinions? Is understocking your cleaner crew the reason why folks have had this problem? I guess another question moving forward is what do you do to avoid this nightmare? (Other than buy some Mex Turbo snails) Trust me it's a nightmare that makes you think about quitting the hobby...... but so simple to resolve.... If you know what to do.... If not...... no logic (or science ??) will help..... Last edited by mmgm; 02/26/2006 at 02:22 AM. |
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#85
02/26/2006, 11:49 AM
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My rock and the algae (I'm sure) came from Reef Science. I suspect this issue will occur with any live rock so I would not eliminate vendors listed here. I am quite pleased with the Indonesian LR that Chad (Reef Science) gets ahold of. Although nothing beat Harbour Aquatics when they were still in business.
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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. -Unknown |
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#86
02/26/2006, 01:18 PM
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I asked for vendor and location of rock. Only becuase there a few others on R/C that have had this out break as well even after cooking there rock. So i am looking to eliminate possible causes. any input on your rock curing and location and vender would help.
__________________
Life is to short to buy frags ! But for FREE I'LL take them ><((((º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><((((º> ·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·.. >((((º> IT'S NOT THAT SIMPLE....... BAREBOTTOM ALL THE WAY® |
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#87
02/26/2006, 10:04 PM
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Unfortunately, my problem came from live rock I aquired from a friend who had the problem. I had no idea that it would turn into what it did! Anyway, the milk is now cleaned up and I'm a little wiser for it. BTW, I have never had this problem, or any other from Walt Smith's premium fiji. Love the stuff!
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#88
02/27/2006, 06:06 AM
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Anyone tried "ordinary" turbos to battle this algae? The Mexican Turbo seem to be impossible to get hold of here in Europe.
Thanks! |
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#89
02/28/2006, 08:17 AM
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I have 10 “ordinary Turbos� in my 66g tank. They took care of a brown algae outbreak that I had. They also ate all the HA except where it was in long tufts.
I think they will go for whatever food there is. Good luck. |
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#90
02/28/2006, 09:31 AM
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I'd like to get on board here as my tank is just as bad or worse than the pics posted with the red cotton ball algae. It is very discouraging. I'm happy there is a light at the end of the tunnel using mexican turbos. I'm going to get some, LFS has a bunch.
My comment to the thread is this: Out of curiosity, have any of you tested your top off and water change water with a TDS meter? I'd like to see some results. I got an inline TDS meter for my R/O unit that has been in service about a year and will put it in today. Any comments? |
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#91
03/01/2006, 12:42 PM
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Quote:
I might add before I found out about Mex Turbos I had a water sample shipped out to two independant sources fro testing. My LFS also took a water sample and shipped to another location for testing..... Trust me with a 350 gallon refugium packed with DSB and macro algae the water tested perfect..... My tank never looked better.... but those Turbos are ending up all over the place..... Found one in my MTC 3000 skimmer yesterday????? How it got there I have no idea..... 
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#92
03/07/2006, 06:37 PM
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MMGM, sorry to get off topic but do you visit or have you visited frazer zoo?? Because I was talking to mike about macros and he mentioned your problem to me.
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RIP A+ FBM factory -Mushumatt- |
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#93
03/07/2006, 07:30 PM
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Quote:
I don't know anyone from frazer zoo...... also I don't know any Mike ...... |
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#94
03/07/2006, 08:34 PM
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okay, because he was talking about someone with your problem and your from NJ so I was just wondering. I hope everything works out, I havent read all 4 pages. But why dont you cook your rocks?
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RIP A+ FBM factory -Mushumatt- |
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#95
03/07/2006, 09:32 PM
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Quote:
Have a good one....
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#96
03/14/2006, 04:58 AM
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I don't know if this adds anything but I have developed this algae in my display and fuge to gigantic proportions over the last 7 months. My tank was otherwise well established with few new additions. After much research on Asparagopsis it sounds like they grow well in high flow, are more-or-less independent of bright vs low light (though they do need some) and may fix Boron into their cells, thereby making themselves less palatable. I pull about 4-5 cups a week out by manual removal.
Briefly, water paramaters are all ok, I run RO water with 0-1 TDS in my topoff and water changes, I run Phosban reactor with new media, Instant Ocean salt, run an Aqua C skimmer 24/7, have a 30 gal fuge with chaetomorpha, wash all my frozen foods, have a light bioload and 10-20% of the water every other week. I have a lawn-mower blenny which eats this some as well as a foxface, kole tang and coral beauty that basically ignore it. One thing I can think of, is that this really started to take off when I stopped dosing Kalk. I changed to almost exclusively a calcium reactor and my pH dipped some to around 8.0. That is really the only major thing (coincidence or not) that I can tie in as a change at that time. This thread has inspired me that this is a battle I can win, and I will get some Mexican turbos this weekend. Thanks for the tread guys. Mat |
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#97
03/14/2006, 07:49 AM
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Good Luck...
I am certain the Mexican Turbos will make a difference.... For the record do you have any pictures? Keep us posted on results.... The more success stories with Mexican Turbos the better battle plan we have to combat this stuff.......
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#98
03/14/2006, 04:38 PM
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I guess one other thing I left out was that I went through something similar before this with Bryopsis and ended up taking all the rocks out and scrubbing them down. Also installed the phosban reactor and started washing my foods. I had a period of about 4 months with limited algae, and then the red cotton-balls started.
yeah I have a few pics from back when it was just a few isolated clumps. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...c/DSCN1453.jpg  http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...c/d0ce9da7.jpg 
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#99
03/14/2006, 07:53 PM
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This is an awesome thread. Just this last week I started winning this battle after many months. I know this seems to be a very scarce issue, but we need to sticky this thread due to how nasty it can be in a tank.
Let me squash a few things I read I think are completely false: 1) It thrives on low PH. Very unlikely. My PH is at 8.4 - 8.5 constant since I started my tank. 2) Siphoning and/or pulling it off won't help much. This is couldn't be any further from the truth. I will comment on this later. Soooooo... Mine started probably 4 months back as a "little cute pink ball". As many have realized, man I had no idea what I was in for. I couldn't find ANY thread on this stuff (which is why I really want to put my ideas in here). Let me tell you, I know first hand about this stuff. I have a 58 gallon. This was just one of my main pieces of rock on a "good" day.  I tried EVERYTHING. Let me give you the list in order of changes made. 1) I went from a 20 gallon to 100 gallon sump 2) Added full time phosphate and carbon filters 3) Increased my macro algae (chaeto) massively 4) Went from a little AquaC EV-120 skimmer to a massive 36" GEO 5) Beefed up my cleanup crew. 40+ smaller snails (cerith, astrea) and my first crabs ever (20+ blue leg, 6 scarlet) 6) Switched from flake food to everything else (frozen, cylopeez, mysis, etc) 7) I did cleanup like you can't imagine. I started off just pulling out what I could by hand. The KEY is to grab a bunch between your fingers, and DO NOT LET GO until it is out of the water. You will have minimal float away. I intensified this later by using a suction and a toothbrush. This worked even better, but it was just a matter of days before it was growing back. I even took the worst piece out and physically scrubbed it (which is why you don't see my cool green macro anymore). Each one of these helped, but barely made a dent. How much time and effort? No idea. How much headache, searching of threads, posting, and minimal responses that helped? Way too much. BEHOLD!!! MY $2.50 SAVIORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 TRUE MEXICAN TURBO'S (about 1.5")  4 months of fighting and these little suckers have DESTROYED this stuff in ONE WEEK. Minimal remains in my tank.  I do want to clear something up though. Those of you putting in tons of "turbo snails" (and by tons, this is more than like 6), I really hope are putting in the small 1/2-3/4" Astrea. Their mouths are roughly 1/20th the size of the REAL Mexican turbo snail's. Even on a monster tank like a 400-600, unless you just grow algae that would keep a fleet of tangs happy, no more than two dozen TRUE Mexican turbo snails should be required. If you add more, you'll just be starving the poor guys in no time. Note, I have NEVER EVER seen one of my Astrea sitting in a patch of pink muching away. I have witnessed numerous times the Mexican turbo doing just that. Oh... I almost forgot... BOOOGA BOOOGA!!!!!!!  (did I scare you?)
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-Eric- CORA Member |
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#100
03/14/2006, 08:33 PM
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Quote:
What a really cute pink ball...... Honest I did...... And all the work you did? Almost a Ditto here...... I used to spend 7 hours a day scooping this stuff out with a fish net..... Looked great.... but a week later the tank was run over again..... Anyway, we truely have light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to this stuff... However, looks like more people than I originally thought have had the same nightmare......
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