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bump again 
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gettin' there - hang on. thanks for the bumps
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Eric Borneman
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| Eric, since I began this thread I have taken a few steps myself so I will summarize these now, therefore giving you an up to date scenario to comment on. 1. I introduced a banded gobie to clean the gravel. He is great but has been making such a dust storm that the tank has been cloudy ever since  2. To limit the amount of detritus the gobie can kick up I syphoned out about 120 lites of gravel water. This made me realise how much detritus was actually in the sand so I then took all the rocks out, scrubbed them, and rearranged the in a fashion that allows maximum flow under the rocks and over the sand. ie many large bridges, minimum rocks on the sand. (Probably what I should have done when I set up the tank in the first place!). I turned the rocks over that were badly effected by the algae, so the clean side is now facing up, hoping that the left over algae (after scrubbing) underneath will not grow due to the lack of light. 3. To increase the water flow I introduced a new tunze pump, so now I have 7000 + 4500 + 2000 = 13,500 litres per hour water movement in the display tank. I calculate this to be around 40 times the tank volume moving per hour (should I get another?). It now looks as though there is good movement around and under all rocks and corals. 4. I have installed a remote dsb in a bin, next to my sump, which contains about 35kgs of silica sand (since I dont have a dsb in my display tank). It is supplied by an eheim pump, from the sump, and has about 600lites per hour water movement over it (not through). I'm hoping this may eventually take care of any nitrate source that the algae had. The algae issue now seems significantly reduced, however I am still concerned it may come back. Some of the corals still have some algae on the rocks they are attached to, which I could not remove completely, without damaging the corals themselves. There you go, up to date now. I look forward to your reply, and appreciate you experteise and time as always. Regards from Melbourne, Australia. Marcus
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Just a couple of questions before launching into this, and it may well be that, given your photos and responses below, that it is uneccessary in your case but should be written about anyway for others.
First, what kind and how many grazers do you have in the tank.
Second, how tenaciously does this algae attached to the substrate? Is it tightly adhered by stolons or does it attach in little spots that look like dots left on the rock when you remove it?
Third, if you bend a branch, does it sort of bend then pop/snap in two or does it just bend till it touches like a blade of grasss?
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Eric Borneman
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[quote]Eric Borneman (8/13/2007)
Just a couple of questions before launching into this, and it may well be that, given your photos and responses below, that it is uneccessary in your case but should be written about anyway for others.
First, what kind and how many grazers do you have in the tank.
Second, how tenaciously does this algae attached to the substrate? Is it tightly adhered by stolons or does it attach in little spots that look like dots left on the rock when you remove it?
Third, if you bend a branch, does it sort of bend then pop/snap in two or does it just bend till it touches like a blade of grasss?[/quote]
ok,
I have 3 fairly large snails. My local fs says that I shouldnt have too many because once the run out of algae they die pretty quickly. They do not seem to eat this red algae at all.
The algae attaches to the substrate by tightly adhering to it. It can be removed when large enough, in large bunches, sometimes 3 or inches in diameter.
It is very wiry. You could almost use it as a scourer to shower with or do the dishes (havent done that yet  ). When I ben it it bends, not snaps.
Hope this helps.
Marcus
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All right then - this calls for the tome.
There are a number of very tenacious creeping red algae that tend to grow on carbonate substrate and are very difficult to remove. They can overtake corals, especially those with low competitive ability (i.e Porites). They are very difficult to tell apart. I sent photos of one that was so invasive I had to break down a culture system entirely and refragment every coral to get rid of it. I sent it to the Littler's - preeminent algal taxonomists - and they said they could not tell and the amount of work to id it was too much for their schedule. They suggested perhaps a gelid (Gelidia, et al.). Many of these algae are used in carageenan and are generally palatable. Like you, I have found no grazers yet to consume it. Multiple types of herbivorus snails, lettuce slugs, crabs, fishes, urchins all avoid it. I was able to force a high density of snails onto a patch so they couldn't move and eliminated a spot of it, but the ability of it to colonize small recesses makes eradication practically impossible. As you may have noticed, manual removal is all but impossible.
Mine arrived via Bali maricultured fragments, and I thought being a red algae and a turf it would be rapidly consumed but found it thrives in high light and flow, mjuch like coralline algae. Reducing light causes it to grow slower and clumpier and is easier to remove, but this may jeapordize your rock or livestock. I am sure there is a grazer that will consume it, and a LOT of tangs seems to help (Zebrasoma spp.) but it is a very fast growing and invasive alga and I am afraid that I have no good solution for you other than what worked for me....major and invasive action with removal or fragmentation and replacement of all colonized substrates.
This is potentially a major new introduction for today's tanks and quarantine will help avoidits establishment. If ANYONE has found an effective grazer, please post to this thread. I have received numerous emails from othres with similar looking algae with similar behavior and although I cannot say if it is the same species or if there are a number with similar traits, it (or they) are a certain nuisance species that, IME, is far more problematic than any other algae I have encountered keeping aquariums. I will sticky this post and add some images.
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Eric Borneman
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Wow.
Hmmm. Ok. I think what you have described is unfortunately very accurate for my situation. Unfortunately when I first saw this algae I thought " it looks like an attractive macroalgae that my lawnmower blenny should take car of". When it didnt I was sure a rabbit fish would help. It didn't either. I hope others who see this will remove it before it takes over.
Since my major clean up on the weekend, including removing all rocks, scrubbing the algae off, placing them back in upside-down, introducing a banded gobie to clean the sand (as there was quite a bit on the sand), increasing the water flow and rearranging the rockwork for maximum flow, things of course look much more promising. However there are still a couple zoanthid corals that are surrounded, one is more than half covered.
I will let you know in a few weeks if the algae begins a comeback. If it does I think will take your advice, save what I can and start again.
Thanks again for your help.
Marcus.
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| Eric, After reading over this thread again I have just a couple of quick questions. If the algae does come back in force and I decide to start over, to what level should I do this to avoid future problems with it coming back again? Should I get rid of all the effected rocks, gravel and corals or should I get rid of all the live rock, all the sand and indeed all the water, and frag all the corals I can? Should i also get rid of the remote DSB I have set up? I am worried about introducing any new live rock in the new setup, as I am pretty sure that it was the source of this algae. Do I have to include live rock in a new system or will just white "base rock" be enough, with the other filtration I have? Thanks. Marcus.
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| I just had another thought. Could I take a few of the effected live rocks and place them in my sump (which is unlit) for 2 months until the algae dies off? In the mean time I could replace those rocks in the display tank with new dry base rock so I could hopefully continue my display as I know it to be. I do not have any means of quarentining, so I would have to give all my stock back to my lfs if I start the display again from scratch. After 2 months, when the rocks in the sump are free of algae, I could place them back in the display tank and take another couple of algae effected rocks from the display tank to place in the dark sump....and so on. Would this work?
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I don't know the answer to your question. Putting the rock without light will probably (eventually) kill off the algae on the rock. The thing is, you can find it on sand grains and powerhead screens with a microscope so I am not sure how possible it is to eradicate completely. If you leave some rocks with algae and then put them in contact with actively growing algae, I think it will recover the cleaned rocks. I think the key is to find an herbivore that eats it, but I haven't found it yet and for the effort and time and potential livestock losses of a long-term eradication program, its probably easier and cheaper to replace the rock and quarantine any new arrivals.
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Eric Borneman
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