Return of the Algae: Darth Sith Style

So haven't been on 3reef for a while, been busy with work, school, and an overflow that clogged up somehow (my guess is an astrea snail which went MIA) At the same time I noticed a huge spike in parameters and a massive algae bloom. I was also feeding heavily for a week or two prior to this algae takeover. To add to the problem I've moved most of all of my snails down to my refugium, only 2 astreas 1 tronchus 1 tiger cowrie and 10 tiny blue hermits are whats left for CuC in my DT, plus a few chitons I see moving around at night. Anyway I don't think it's suffiencient enough of a CuC to battle my algae in the DT, where as the fuge is looking nice and clean.

In the first image you can see how bad my tank has become... Diatoms on the sand, dinoflaggelets on the rocks, green hair algae on the big rock, and even my SPS frag(which is below the candy cane) is covered in GHA on the entire skeleton that isn't currently sporting polyps and flesh. And to the far right is where this red (cyano) stuff is starting to bloom


Here is a close up of the what I've been calling Dark Sith Algae cuz it's red, evil looking, and starting to creep like the stuff from starcraft when you played as the zerg(for all you gamer nerds who remember this)

**btw the white stringy stuff is the exoskeleton from my stupid cleaner shrimp servant named Jasper. he sheds about once a month**

I'd assume its cyano but I've never seen cyano sprout like this, not to mention I've never had it in my tank... or well until now.

Any information leading to cleaning this up will be great. For the hair algae I used to just remove it with an old toothbrush and do a 25% WC. I plan to do the same approach with this red stuff... give it a good scrub and rearrange all my rocks so I can get a better all around flow from front to back since detritus has been accumluating behind the rocks lately.

Hopefully brushing won't cause it to spread. Any suggestions for new CuC additions is also what I'm looking for. Going to LFS later today and my plan is to buy 10-15dwarf ceriths or 6-10 ceriths and 6-8 astrea snails and 5-10 nassi's. The astrea's are great for destroying the hair algae and the ceriths do a great job at keeping my glass clean. So far I haven't seen the hermits doing any positive besides sift the sand here and there.

Anyways thanks for reading and any tips is always appreciated! Please refrain from referring me to John from reefcleaners.... They are wonderful but I like to support my LFS's since they have hard enough time doing successfully in the blue-ridge mountain area!

Thanks all!

AVLian

 

How about some nerite snails? They help with my display tank.

Good plan with water change. Did you fall behind on that when school took over?
I had/have a similar problem. Still battling after I fell behind on water changes.

I have the red sith algae as well popping up in my sump after I put a light down their for my chaeto. I actually was manually removing it last night. That stuff is like cotton balls - flossy. Scary. I suspect low flow. I am concerned it will smother the chaeto. I am planning on looking at some of the stickies on the algae board and go from there.

I will hitch here as well to learn more.

 

+1 Interesting, well recently one of my JBJ oceanstreams went out, not sure why but when I plug it in nothing happens! I would be using that MaxiJet1200 I won from you but the suction cups are not strong enough to hold it upright and it just falls and points down. I use it for easy water changes and this and that, but not putting it to as good of use as I should.

Never had much luck with nerites, they seem to be on the side of more brackish or fresh and also not liking the 78-80º temps my tank reaches... at least this is what I assume. I started my tank with 10 pretty nerites and they all died out.. very nasty experience when you remove a dead snail!

Reading an article here on 3reef talking about algae eating snails versus detritus eating snails. Most people especially when starting their tank add algae eating snails, but as a tank matures and algaes die out, but detritus accumulates, you need a different approach with the CuC.

I just added 4 astreas, 1 mexican, and 1 margarita. So that puts my 30g DT at 6 astreas, 5-6 nassi's, 7-10 blue hermits, 1 fighting conch, 1 tiger cowrie, 1 tronchus, 1 mexican turbo, and 1 margarita snail.

Realistically I should probably add more ceriths and more nassis. Ceriths for glass clean up and for the hermits, and the nassi's for sand sifting and detritus clean up.

I'm trying to find info on this type of algae, but I am coming up empty handed. Looks like a combo of cyano and dynoflag(without the airbubbles)

I haven't really neglected my WC's but I did go 1mo last month without a WC, and usually I do it every two weeks.... also I had that DIY overflow problem where a astrea snail went MIA and all the sudden my overflow clogged, algae bloom, and now this red sith darth maul crap! haha

Reefcleaners.org shows nothing that resembles what I'm hoping to identify and remove!

 

You posted this a few years back, I'm trying to go through all the red algae pics but so far still nothing positive
New Database Marine Algae Now Online

After looking through all the red algae's described pretty much I have three that are suspect. Unfortunately I do not have a microscope to look closer at this algae.
Gelidiella trinitatensis
Pterocladiella caerulescens
Asparagopsis taxiformis - when I zoom in the picture, this one looks closest

Again still not sure on either of those 3, I could still be very well housing something totally different!

 

Your memory is better than mine.
Thanks for pulling that up - I hope you find a match. I have the exact same stuff. I will dig more as well when I have time.

Weird about the nerites - my tank params are the same. They seem happy. I acclimated mine - did you?

Good detail about the powerhead - sounds like you have a flow issue now as well.
As for the maxi, if you have Tunze brackets laying around - they can be mod'd to clamp another powerhead. I've done that before. It's a mix of parts though and certainly a hack though.

Good luck!

matt

 

No Tunze brackets... tried tweeking my old hydror 1050, i think if I rearrange some rocks, keep one oceanstream set to turn on and off every 20-30sec and keep the 1050 pointed from the back left up and out to the right front and get some good water movement, plus with the new clean up crew hopefully all the algae will go away. just dont like that darth maul algae and want a true id!!

 

Nice work. I am thinking of increasing the flow on my sump pump. Problem is my return ramp on the new nano - if you go too strong it creates quite a waterfall. But I could probably squeeze a little more out of it to help with the sith in the sump.

I'd love an ID on that algae too.

 

Just peaked on my CuC and most are cleaning the back wall >,<

 

bumpppp

 

nice find