We must force take ground where happenstance didn't fall in our favor
All of reefing was taught and based on dealing indirectly with invaders, making purposeful ugly phases that distribute alternating generations of not coral all over the place. And we are told to wait; nothing good happens fast. Following the normal rules, the aquariums dictate to us how time will be spent and that's normally a delay on actually enjoying our investment from day one
a select few got fed up with that standard of losing a third of tanks to invasions and they began directly killing invaders to make ground for coralline and coral. By hand, taking apart a tank and cleaning it. They glue corals into place and cover rock, exclude ground and light, to algae that formerly had it's spot of choice in the sun. They scrape and clean out algae, assertively, and permit no invasion due to tools of hand
A select few got lucky, had no issues keeping rocks clean
A select few waited the years it takes for ugly phases to hopefully subside
Clean up crews fail. Nutrient detailing fails
But if you let us have at that tank in a rip cleaning thread, it will comply over time. Reefing needs to be hands on active gardening if you want your rocks to be purple with reef accretions and not invaded.
That's good coralline base and it's not a bad invasion at all, you need light hand guiding and cleaning
Make your sandbed clean, not housing a bunch of cloudy waste. That looks like bryozoan filter feeder invasion
true periphyton, that's how rocks look to scuba divers. It's not like our tanks, it's bearded in different communities but we tend to guide it cleaner in our reefs. Post a full tank shot, I have a thread of tank fixes that would fix this tank too.
13 yrs, no invader, no clean up crews, a grill torch lighter and peroxide burning (cheating) got me uninvaded coral + coralline ground. I started busy early, vs later, and only chilled into cruise control mode when the coralline levels allowed it and I didn't have to manually guide any more (forever)> I have not had to address algae on the rocks since about 2011 ish:
I figure the only place algae could grow if it wanted to was right in the mouth of something, the vase is literally all mouths on purpose. bioexcluders/apex space occupiers.
anyone ever seen an algae invasion thread where the mouth area of acanthastrea was invaded? how about xenia, ever seen algae stuck to the fronds of pulsing xenia? How about a red or blue common mushroom... ever seen algae stuck to the polyp area (no, its always on the abutting rock) --->that means something strategically, so I captured and am testing that as we speak. my phosphate levels tested 3x over allowed levels, that affects me in zero ways. I couldn't care less what my nitrate or phosphate are, I don't own the testers and just for fun I had John M Cole from this board test my water on his quality gear once at a frag party.
There is no invader stuck to your sps, so that means in time more sps is what you need to be invader free
Your opening pic includes a striking example of natural space domination for both the invader, and the areas where coral always wins.
