Nuisance sea grass hitchhiker invasion...HELP!

mark thompson · Jan 25, 2016

I have a out brake of a brown sea grass in my reef tank popping up everywhere I have been plucking but it just forms more colony's..... sea urchin (pincushion) nor crab & tangs will not touch it any ideas short of braking down tank and scrubbing rock and crossing my fingers that I got it all...S.O.S.

twilliard · Jan 25, 2016

It has become root bound.
If you are able to lift the rock out for 5 minutes soak the algae with peroxide and after that 5 minutes plunk it back in the tank

Ryengoth · Jan 25, 2016

Would be an interesting trial for the glycerine and peroxide spot treating. Check out the coral resistance charts closer to the last page of the peroxide thread. I have been in-tank dosing 2:1 and even 3:1 peroxide to food-grade glycerine directly to the rock surface to oxidize organics on the rock surface(GHA mostly at this point). It looks like most of your growth is in open areas which is good. The vertical-surface growth will be tricky, especially so close to the glass. I would use a 5ml dropper syringe and directly hit the leaves. The rest of the areas you can treat with a 10ml medicine dropper and, drop-by-drop, let the solution sink in. If you dispense too much on an incline it will run like lava, so test in an area that will limit collateral damage until you get a feel for the dosing. It will also run and pool underwater, so make sure there are no dips where coral, nems or urchins could get flooded. If there are, dose lightly and move on. Let it start reacting and then go back and hit it again. Don't exceed .5ml per gallon of water per 48 hours unless you have a carbon-hungry tank. Your skimmer will react over 12-24 hours. If it doesn't calm down by 24 hours, stop dosing until it does.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef2reef-pest-algae-challenge-thread-hydrogen-peroxide.187042/

twilliard · Jan 25, 2016

Hi!
My friends are doing well

Is glycerin sugar?
Sorry have to go google this!

Ryengoth · Jan 25, 2016

twilliard said:
Hi!
My friends are doing well
Is glycerin sugar?
Sorry have to go google this!

Hey twilliard! Hope the crew is growing and propagating!

C3H8O3, which is a different molecular formula from C6H12O6(glucose), makes it like a sugar but technically it's an alcohol. It's a by-product of splitting the glycol from the fatty acids using caustic soda. It's sweet, because of the ratio of the elements and is distilled to purify to 99.7% for food-use (USP).

mark thompson · Jan 25, 2016

It looks more like a sea grass like sargassum macro algae brown leafy some better pics without actinic im think its to close to corals to spot treat may have to brake down ...dip rock ?

brandon429 · Jan 26, 2016

They are recommending specific actions that prevent you from having to dip, the dip hits the corals too. The spot treatments mentioned are algae specific actions that lessen impact on coral

Before full tank work you could treat one area underwater, and one area outside, with no tank takedown just to see which works better

The Macro Guy · Feb 10, 2016

It's Dictyota sp. As much that is in your tank, your only option is a foxface fish or chemical (algaefix marine). That stuff nearly wiped out my 125g, it will spread into every inch of your tank. I used algaefix for about 2 weeks and it was a 100% removal. It will fall off the rocks with good enough flow, you can manual scrub the rest.