Nuisance Algae Question

[Shep]

So there are a lot of different types of algae that people do not want in thier tanks and once there are hard to get rid of, my question is are these algaes always in our tanks and just need the right conditions or do they first have to be introduced into the tank?

 

[brandon429]

Thats a core tenet of the pest algae challenge thread in the algae forum.


cyano and gha variants can show up anywhere, any time, vectored in by the air and common contamination pathways (some cyano and nitrifying bacteria and x amnt of other bacteria are under anyones fingernails who touched garden soil, for example, to varying degrees)

but others like invasive macro algae, valonia, invasive dinos, bryopsis if truly id'd as bryopsis and not the hundred and fifty gha simulants we mis id, and many others are strictly obligate hitchhikers.


The reason this is impactful, is because for obligate hitchhikers nutrient control isn't required to beat them. you can simply export biomass or kill it in creative ways, and if you can get to it all, the tank w be free of it even if you increase phosphates threefold.

GHA and cyano are always part of our biosystems, in one state of repression or succession.
B

 

[brandon429]

Consider the unsafe reef practices of constantly adding frags and any hard shells or import surfaces. You might have a tank that never had invasive dinos, bought some snails in or some fish (dino thread posters have collected amazing high res images of fish housing the dino cells on their actual slime coats, even fish are vectors of pestilence) and had an outbreak, now you are having to strip phosphates from a system that had no prior phosphate issues, because the best online references you can find regarding dino battles recommend phosphate stripping as an approach, and its valid, it has some wins.

But then we get into the realm of overstripping, found online in countless threads as sps and coral bleaching, in thinking phosphates are the only way.

When an invader classes as an obligate hitchhiker, we've collected our wins by solely focusing on biomass and not even really caring what phosphates are like unless we are dealing with cyano and gha, or some obligates we couldnt get to to zap w peroxide or any other cheat doser. My own tank is truly truly immune to obligates because I quit adding anything to it in 2010. but Im ready to kill off the invasive red mushrooms and go w some new sps (vectors) so you can bet nothing will gain hold because Ill zap it until the biomass dies. and all along, ill never measure phosphates or even care to know their levels at any time in my ten yr old reef. before I go adding things however, it is currently impossible as in not possible for my reef to have any form of unpredictable invader. if I let levels go insane, then a forest of gha and or cyano w develop and not anything else. It used to be that algae control in the reef was a crap shoot, mines not.


B

 

[fishroomlady]

what do you do to zap it?