Red turf algae help!

EpicWin · Feb 21, 2012

Has anyone defeated this stuff? It's the very coarse bristly stuff that is the color of coraline. My turbos don't seem to do much and my emralds just stay away from it.

specvjeff · Feb 21, 2012

I had it till I added turbo snails. They mowed through it in a week. I've read urchins will eat it as well as Tangs.

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RadReef · Feb 21, 2012

I've had luck with Florida nassarius and cerith snails.

SteezySPS · Feb 21, 2012

the largest turbo snails you can find and return them after you're done since they will bulldoze through everything.

Dave3112 · Feb 21, 2012

My yellow tang will pick at it but he doesn't keep it in check. The only thing I have found that took care of it was blue leg hermits and a longspine urchin. I had a bad case of it in my frag tank and I added 50 blue legs and a longspine urchin and its gone. I have moved the hermits to my display and the urchin I just feed algae sheets for now until I re-home it.

Steven R · Feb 21, 2012

Sea hares work really good to except if they are startled they can ink your tank and you have to immediately run carbon and do a small water change to keep something bad from happening in your system

reefknight · Feb 21, 2012

I've got a tank full of it currently! I'm guessing you have gelidium as I do. I attempted the Tech M treatment, don't waste your time or money as it does not work. I agree with the others go natural. I have two sea hares, two diadema urchins and am going to add some turbo snails this week. I have a foxface and a tang and they'll nibble at it but they won't keep it in check. I'll post a link later to what mine looks like, so that you may compare the two.

Good luck with your battle!

EpicWin · Feb 21, 2012

Yes keep me updated!

reefknight · Feb 22, 2012

This is a thread that I've been following.

Nuisance Algae Guide - Reef Central Online Community

It has some great information on different problematic algae. I have a gelidium outbreak for sure and one of my LFS's has it in a one of his display tanks. Makes sense considering I purchased my rock from him. This is the real kicker, I sun bleached my rock, scrubbed off the remainder and blasted the rock with fresh water. It came back after all that! It is very persistent!

I'd be interested in knowing if this is what you are battling as well. The diadema urchins are doing the most work currently in removing it from my rock. The sea hares are nibbling, don't see them doing a lot at the moment. Only problem with the urchins, is that they will remove all algae including coralline.

EpicWin · Feb 22, 2012

Yep same stuff

SteezySPS · Feb 23, 2012

[FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif]yeah definitely the gelidium red turf. impossible to remove manually. I purchased 2 large turbos and they eventually ate all of it within a week but that stuff came back and had to repurchase large turbos again. never reappeared ever again
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reefknight · Feb 23, 2012

I'm headed to my LFS this weekend to grab some. Anything I can add that will rid me of this nightmare would be great!

Otter_rs · Feb 23, 2012

Helps to run GFO to keep it from taking hold again once the snails and urchins get rid of it. It's also a good idea to siphon off the snail and urchin waste that settles onto the rocks.

EpicWin · Feb 24, 2012

I sort of found a solution. I removed my bad rocks and hit the bad areas with hydrogen peroxide. Hit the last remaining areas in the tank with a 1.2 watt laser. Well see. I've had no luck with turbos.

SteezySPS · Feb 24, 2012

how long have you had the turbos for? mine didn't immediately go for it but if i could remember correctly if was a week. I had two very large turbos in a 40g and they did the job. they're like pigs, their main mission in life is to just devour all sorts of algae and once they get through the preferable ones they will go after the turf

nvdiz · Feb 24, 2012

Turbos do the job. Just give them a month or two, and they'll easily get rid of the red turf algae.

CalmSeasQuest · Feb 24, 2012

I fought a major Red Turf outbreak. I found minimal success with any inverts, (including turbos.) The only effective solution I found was eliminating excess nutrients. Aggressive use of GFO, a couple weeks of MB-7 followed by mechanical removal was enough to knock it out. Once the loss of nutrients starts to take effect, it's easy to loosen and pull out the algae.

reefknight · Feb 24, 2012

I wish there was a way of manually removing mine. It's so entwined throughout the rock that its just not capable. I would have to break down the entire reef structure, remove the rock and proceed. I haven't added GFO because my NO3 and PO4 are both 0.

Epicwin - What laser did you use, lol? I hadn't thought about getting high tech.

CalmSeasQuest · Feb 24, 2012

reefknight said:
I wish there was a way of manually removing mine. It's so entwined throughout the rock that its just not capable. I would have to break down the entire reef structure, remove the rock and proceed. I haven't added GFO because my NO3 and PO4 are both 0.

Epicwin - What laser did you use, lol? I hadn't thought about getting high tech.

If you have algae growing, your PO4 is not zero. Your reading zero due the the algae consuming the phosphates.

The mechanical removal is helpful, but not required. If you don't manually remove it as it dies, it breaks down and releases nutrients back into the water column, lengthening the time it takes to eradicate the algae (this is another reason for the GFO.)

Here's the thread on Lasers - https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/re...use-lasers-controlling-pest-algae-corals.html It does work on Red Turf, but it requires long lase times and would be very difficult to do for large amounts. If you decide to try the laser, please carefully read through all the safety concerns.