https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef2reef-pest-algae-challenge-thread-hydrogen-peroxide.187042/
team just as a base read wanted to link that
but it distills to this based on those pics above in my opinion:
do consider fluconazole if its a bad tankwide invasion, or it can be used secondarily after the peroxide assessment we cover regarding rasping/and applied peroxide to
former invaded areas vs just placing peroxide into the tank water, or just on the target without actually rasping/ripping that target unanchored off the base first.
I know you can't knife stab your nice zoas
tweezer it out
pull it up off the coenenchymal tissue I didn't bother spell check heh
but its true that zoanthid flesh
is substrate, its written in the books. inclusions, pebbles, algae etc. In this case use the tweezers to pull it off the flesh and I would see if that alone stops growback before we test apply peroxide to that skin of the zo
Regarding hard frag plugs, scrapable areas, def hit those hard with a metal knife precision tip
debride like a dentist does some plaque
the rasp is what removes the algae off a scrapable hard surface, not the peroxide
the peroxide is applied to the clean condition, post tweezer or post rasp, that's the trick for 2018 to reduce growback
peroxide will kill both those targets for sure, but they'll growback without some amplification being built into the step
at any point fluconazole can be used, its indicated for this type of invader, but do practice some actual work modeling and testing on targets as well, develop more than one response ability is my offer
****something I feel very comfortable in saying based on my time in messages and threads is to remark on this cycle here involving real estate and algae management:
we have to strive to catch all invasions, especially anchored ones, before they take mass ground, that's number one rule.
ANY way you kill off a mass of algae, any way, leaves a huge dead open gray field like you see on discovery channel of a dying reef
what takes over dying reefs, regardless of nutrients
algae, that which you just killed after hesitation...
so, the rule is, be quick early in the invasion to debride and remove tiny spots of algae, before they take over and literally exclude corals and coralline, so that you are guiding your mass of reef rocks away from plant dominance and into pigmented animal dominance...coralline, coral, fanworms, various sponges, all the goodies. waiting too late to begin surgical scraping and rasping means there's BIG catchup time needed for that rock to rebound and become anything that looks like ideal purple live rock. be busy, early.
by hand guiding algae out while small, you protect the coralline and coral from nearby areas that are naturally algae rejecting if they're not overwhelmed.
there comes a point in any tank challenge where we must take action, and if that action catches up a bunch of space at once then be prepared to
really rework those areas time and time again, as algae always pops up on the barren reef landscape.
use fluc for noncompliant reefs, agreed its ok and a fine partner in the war. use test modeling we speak of in that thread to know what works; don't subject your whole reef to testing. You can use fluc in a bucket of water + rock as a side test, we always have ways to mini model the algae fix so that we
know what works for the main tank, before we run it.
our rasping is a neat two edged sword; it clears both the invader and 100% of all bio excluding life forms like coralline, so we must not wait until deep into an invasion to resort to physical force on next go round. Im just saying by staying on top of an invasion early, by any means necessary, you prevent the mass portion of your live rock real estate from being forced into a -monoculture- of plants and hardly any animals.
if you keep the plants in control, or totally gone right off the bat (never accept any uglies phase in reefing, ever) then you immediately allow bio excluders like coralline and coral to take over, turning those grounds into a heterogeneic culture of animals vastly outdominating plants, and we're not having to rasp anyones diverse animals off a section of reef. its always plants.
