Turf algae kicking my butt

  • Thread starter Thread starter b4tn
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my long term goal is to focus on coral health and letting the corals out compete the turf algae for nutrients and space

This is a good goal. But do keep in mind that natural reefs are 90 percent algae, and only 10 percent everything else. The algae is doing all the filtering.

I think the key was removing its hold in the display

Yes there are tricks to (slightly) speed up the letting-go in the display. But, long term, it will still go away if your exports are strong enough.
 
I'm currently battling turf algae as well. I have extremely low nutrients and it's still thriving. Been trying Vibrant for about 5 days now. 2 doses/week. It might be working, but I need some more time to observe.
Will I vibrant hurt the algae in my refugium
 
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I think you have hair algae by the looks of it. I had something similar. While it is short it certainly looks like "turf'" but as it grows out it is definite fine algae that breaks off in the fingers.

I'm starting to win the war with manual removal, Nassarius snails, a blennie and chaeto in a newish tank. My tank literally looked like rolling fields of green. The trick is to get you hands in there.

I run chaeto in the refugium on an alternate cycle. I scrub off any algae starting to get longer than half a cm with a stiff plastic bristled brush. I find that the snails are more inclined to eat it if it is shorter as well. Once the snails give the scrubbed areas a once over I'm finding that not much is growing back, if anything. The chaeto is out-competing new growth. I'm starting to find that any new growth is being dealt with fairly quickly by the snails and blennie because they aren't busy going over a tank full of the stuff.

It's a bit chicken and egg but the more mass the algae has, the more capacity it has to chew up nutrients. Simply removing it and allowing the chaeto to get a foothold by getting to the nutrients first is the key.

Also, beware of dead algae breaking down and causing further nutrient issues.
 
I should also say; it's surprising how much detritus, waste and food comes out of this algae when you scrub it. It's easy to see how it can become a difficult self sustaining cycle.
 

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