An idea to erradicate Macro-Algae

[Ardeus]

I have a nano infested with caulerpa racemosa.

I would like to have feedback on this idea before I try it.

The idea is to remove the rocks and put them in a very small tank in complete darkness and leave the rocks there for some time until the algae dies. The tank would have an air pump and some fish food to keep the live rock alive.

What do you think?

[Samala]

Search, or even just browse, the main forum here on Reefcentral in the general discussion area. This is commonly called "rock cooking" here on RC and has been done several times over with many hobbyists that are having trouble with invasive and impossible-to-eradicate macroalgaes, particularly turf red macroalgaes.

It works for some people and doesnt for others. I hope someone can link you to a good post on the subject, I dont have any handy at the moment. :)

>Sarah

[graveyardworm]

Here's your link to "rock cooking (http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=485572&highlight=rock+cooking)". For more discussion (some very heated) go to the Advanced forum, and in the search this forum box at the bottom type in rock cooking.

[OrionN]

Diversity of life is the corner stone for aquarium. I would recommend that you just manually remove them, use tweezer if you have to. Keep a close eye on the rock and just remove any that grow back. In a nano this is very easy. The value of LR is the diversity of life on/in it. "Cook it", put it in darkness and other measure to kill macroalgae, depends on how drastic, will decrease the diversity (or in case Nuc it using microwave eliminate all live) of your LR and make it less valuble and less useful as filter for your aquarium.

[piercho]

Minh, thanks for stopping by the Plant Forum. You won't remember, but a squamosa and maxima you helped me cure of pinching 4 years ago are still around. Do you still have the gigas?

Ardeus, a lot of people attempt to control algae that way. However, algae can be pretty rugged, and some have mechanisms of survival for extended darkness and can magically come back weeks or months after you've treated the rock. I have heard of Dictyota and other tough weeds surviving over 2 months or light deprivation. I have no experience trying to exclude racemosa by light deprivation, and have no idea if it works or for how long you would have to keep the rock in dark.

I do understand the frustration with C. racemosa. Its best to exclude that particular noxious weed from the aquarium if possible. Hand harvest has to be done cautiously as any stray bits will spread it by fragmentation. But as Minh said, hand harvest is one of the best options for algae control in small aquariums. Given the problems racemosa can cause and the difficulty of permanent removal, I myself would be prone to get rid of the rock that has had racemosa on it.

[OrionN]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7847735#post7847735 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by piercho
Minh, thanks for stopping by the Plant Forum. You won't remember, but a squamosa and maxima you helped me cure of pinching 4 years ago are still around. Do you still have the gigas?

....
I am glad I can help. Both of your clams are very beautiful.
I took my tank down and sold/give away everything. I am in the process of setting up a small S. gigantea and A. percula tank. I will have high light, surge tanks, afew SPS and a few exceptional clams in it. No Gigas or Derasa but the other three Tridacna clam species will surely be represented in my tank.:)

[Ardeus]

Thanks :)

I've been reading a lot about it.

The idea is to have the bacteria removing the ressources algae use to grow. It still confuses me why algae don't exhaust their ressources with time on their own.

[graveyardworm]

Eventually the algae will exhaust their resources, but its a very long process, the algae grows using resources, then dies releasing nutrients then grows again, then dies and the process continues. With cooking your going to be doing constant water changes removing the released nutrients so they cant be used again.

[Ardeus]

I wouldn't mind to have a few spots of algae, but some rocks are completely covered.

I usually rip some algae off every couple of weeks. This prevents the algae from releasing the nutrients back, I think. But on the other hand, I've read that some algae release toxins when they break.

I've noticed that some rocks don't grow algae at all and others get completely covered. This means that the problem is mainly in the rocks and not in the fish food or water replacements, I suppose.

3 or 4 months ripping algae will not be enough?

I think I will try both methods: leave some rocks in the tank (isolated so that the algae don't easily spreads) continuing to rip their algae and cook some others.

[piercho]

I've read that some algae release toxins when they break. Caulerpa is protected from grazing by caulerpins (toxins). Caulerpins are released from Caulerpa all the time, but are probably most abundant in your tank when you break the Caulerpa ripping it off of the rocks. Bornerman and others have proposed that caulerpins may be detrimental to the tank, or could inhibit coral growth. Caulerpa also mass sporalates, which can cause (among other things) depressed O2 levels in the tank. IMO, the risk to your tank from these considerations is minimal as you are removing all the Caulerpa that you can on a regular basis.3 or 4 months ripping algae will not be enough? Some algae will pass through the tank if regularly harvested, some don't. IME, racemosa is an alga that doesn't. It is likely to persist, even at fairly low nutrient levels.

Please keep us posted how your efforts to eradicate C. racemosa work out.

[Ardeus]

Thanks piercho.

Today I put my rocks with caulerpa in a small dark tank with a powerhead. On these next days I'll be doing 50% water changer dayly.

Do you think vodka would accelerate the process by suplying bacteria with extra resources to consume the phosfates and nitrates available?

[Ardeus]

Or will the system collapse cause there's no skimmer?

[Ardeus]

By the way, here's a fresh water layout that can be easily adapted to salt water using caulerpa racemosa:

http://www.aquariofilia.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37250&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

(just in case the caulerpa beats me)

[graveyardworm]

Today I put my rocks with caulerpa in a small dark tank with a powerhead. On these next days I'll be doing 50% water changer dayly.

100% water changes would be more in line with the recommended way to do it. Swish the rocks really well and or blast them with a powerhead or baster and place them into new saltwater.

Do you think vodka would accelerate the process by suplying bacteria with extra resources to consume the phosfates and nitrates available?

Vodka dosing during the cooking process has been discussed at length. Most of the discussion was in theory, and if I remember correctly there were reasons why it wouldnt necessarily speed up the process.

[graveyardworm]

Here's the discussion about vodka dosing while cooking.
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=843085&highlight=vodka+dosing+rock+cooking

I also belive its discussed somewhere in the thread I provided earlier.

[OrionN]

For a nano, just manually remove it.

[piercho]

Ardeus, I can't offer any experience to you at this point as I've never tried light deprivation to kill plants, and have very little experience adding organic carbon to fuel bacteria growth. I do have a notion that adding organic carbon to a tank tends to promote low or fractional N:P ratios. For that reason and others, I don't add Vodka, vinegar, sugar, or any other form of organic carbon as bacteria fuel. Many people have, however most of them won't be found frequenting the plants forum.

As far a have a tank featuring C. racemosa: absolutely and it could be a swell-looking tank. We have a saying over here: if life hands you a basket of lemons, learn to make lemonade.

[Ardeus]

graveyardworm: Thanks for the link. I think I will try one of the ideas there on one rock: Bleach it then soft acid.

Minh Nguyen: I tried to manually remove it and had to give up.

Piercho: It's tempting:) I trying to refrain myself from saving some Caulerpa racemosa for that purpose.

[OrionN]

How big is your tank? How much rock are we talking about here? The trick with manual removal is to remove it as soon as you see it. That way the plan will get weaker and weaker and then died. It would be helpful if you tank it out of the tank the first time and very carefully remove them. Use tweeter and remove every visible fragment, one rock at a time.
I did this with my 100 g tank that had about 150# of rock. Once this is done, I leave all the rock that really clean back into the tank. The one that have smaller pieces of algae in it still I leave in the sump. I then check the rock in the sump once a week and remove the algae. For the tank as soon as I notice any growth, I just pull it.
Two weeks was all it takes. No more Caulerpa racemosa.
How effective this method is depends on how careful and how compulsive you are in remove the algae.
In a NANO, I cannot imagine that manual removal is not effective.

[Ardeus]

It's a nano with 25 gallons, no sump.

I managed to clean some of the rocks manually but I gave up on most of them. There are no instruments that can go through the twist and turns that some of these rocks have. The algae would always break and leave something in a place I coudn't reach.

[Ardeus]

Piercho: Here's the lemonade :) :

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/1284/img0022byc4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I hope that the caulerpa will hang to the little branches too. I named it "No hard feelings"

[piercho]

Those little branches had me confused for a moment. I see the little bits of Caulerpa on the rock, now. That rock does not look like "live rock" that is received in the US. Is it volcanic rock, or rock local to Portugal?

Back in the 80's, tank-o-Caulerpa was not uncommon for "advanced" marine systems. I look back at pictures from that era and find some of those tanks more attractive than what is considered in vogue now.

[Ardeus]

Madeira is a vulcanic island so, yes, it's volcanic dead rock. I picked it up yesterday on the beach. But it's very pourous, so I guess that in time it will turn into good live rock.

I also have some bits of halymeda and some "sprouts" of xenia.

I don't want to put any fish inside. In a few months, just a shrimp (what do you think about a stenopus hispidus?) and a small cleaning crew.

To tell you the truth, I've never seen a photo of a marine planted tank. I'm going to take your hint and try to see how they look and work (I should have done this before).

[piercho]

what do you think about a stenopus hispidus? Not a shrimp I've kept. Does it need a grotto or place out of the light to feel comfortable? I've kept a Pom-Pom crab - Lybia tessellata - in a 1.5 gallon tank with just one piece of live rock and some soft coral and plants. Its a very difficult crab to keep in a regular tank but in that small tank it did fine.

[Ardeus]

The stenopus hispidus normally needs a place to hide, so I would have to make a change in the layout.

Pom-Pom crab: Excellent suggestion. When you get the crab it always comes with the anemonies? And the anemonies are hardy?

[piercho]

My Pom Pom crab (http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/565/4100Pom-Pom_Crab_RC.jpg ) had a small, white anemone in each claw when I purchased it. I think that they may be obligate on the anemone to survive so I think that it would be normal for them to show up with anemones. I fed the tank a powdered plankton substitute (golden pearls) which would stimulate the crab and mysis shrimp in the tank to be more active so I think it was able to get some nutrition that way. These are very small, fragile, and reclusive crabs.

[Ardeus]

I already tried to find them for sale but without luck. They're not common around here.