Algae on frag plugs

[Rmckoy]

What about black mollies ?

They are apparently great algae eaters .
But acclimating them to reef

 

[homer1475]

Pop coral off plug, dip in favorite dip, remount.

Easiest way to clean up the algae on the plugs.

Or a light scrubbing with hydrogen peroxide. Bout the only ways that are going to work.

Your heading down the path of SPS, you're going to have quite a few frag plugs coming in. Now is the time to decide what your plan of action will be, as this will be an issue in the future also.

 

[William Mumford]

Peroxide dip. Recommended by BRS as well.

 

[Backreefing]

Plus one on the trochus snails. I will add astrea snails, even small Mexican turbos. Snails have the ability to eat off the algae right to the edge of the coral.

 

[t5Nitro]

What did you end up trying @Rmckoy ? I have frag plugs looking the same and interested to hear how yours turned out. I've had sps straight up rtn following peroxide even brushing the plug and touching the base of coral tissue.

 

[Rmckoy]

What did you end up trying @Rmckoy ? I have frag plugs looking the same and interested to hear how yours turned out. I've had sps straight up rtn following peroxide even brushing the plug and touching the base of coral tissue.

Sadly .. that tank crashed In October 2020
I upgraded to a 230

good thing . Looking at the picture , the only frag that lasted was the small green monti .
it was dead , I saved it and now it’s completely encrusted and taken over that whole rack .
Tangs and blenny Did finally clean it up .

 

[Rmckoy]

What did you end up trying @Rmckoy ? I have frag plugs looking the same and interested to hear how yours turned out. I've had sps straight up rtn following peroxide even brushing the plug and touching the base of coral tissue.

 

[Ocelaris]

What did you end up trying @Rmckoy ? I have frag plugs looking the same and interested to hear how yours turned out. I've had sps straight up rtn following peroxide even brushing the plug and touching the base of coral tissue.

I've had a lot of success with dipping the plug in hydrogen peroxide if the frag is in good shape. Including the coral some. But I've found once a frag decides not to grow in one direction due to algae, it's rarely going in that direction any time soon. Frags in poor health I agree shouldn't go near hydrogen peroxide. But I've dipped a handful of corals multiple times and that gave them the freedom to grow over the dead algae. More often than not coralline algae replaces the hair algae and then the coral can force that back successfully.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Anyone know how long peroxide lasts? Mine is about a year old and I'm getting frags Tuesday... I saw a brs video recommend peroxide for algae plugs, but haven't tried it yet. If it's a lfs or hobbyist I will always break the frag off the plug, no matter how much I trust them. But I thought sps could handle a little peroxide? Ie dip the plug holding most of the frag out?

@LARedstickreefer do you keep the frag out of water for that minute?

Hydrogen peroxide is h2o2. When it loses the second 0 it becomes water. If it's foaming it's still h2o2.

 

[t5Nitro]

Dang is that your 230? Nice looking tank. Sorry to hear the other one crashed.

Thanks for insight. I'm essentially getting by with this tank until it moves in a bit over a year. I've got encrusting montis that seem like they want to encrust out and over the GHA strands. At the same time I just think growth could be faster if they weren't sitting within GHA.

 

[Rmckoy]

Dang is that your 230? Nice looking tank. Sorry to hear the other one crashed.

Thanks for insight. I'm essentially getting by with this tank until it moves in a bit over a year. I've got encrusting montis that seem like they want to encrust out and over the GHA strands. At the same time I just think growth could be faster if they weren't sitting within GHA.

Could you manually remove the gha to make room for them ?