hair or wire algae ?

[cichlidtx]

This algae came in on a frag and I been searching for ID. I tried Algaefix to no avail and been keeping up with water changes. It seems to be spreading. I need to get test kit for Phosphate this weekend. Your help is greatly appreciated.

[brandon429]

once it gets to the point you are really frustrated its an easy peroxide kill. down a few threads, the peroxide thread is the largest one on this forum and just the last 8-10 pages have all the treatments for your invasion, a localized kill option also works if you get your po4 down to dangerous low ranges and it still keeps growing. nice options to consider

[12_egg_Omelette]

I have that, it's mixed in with some bryoposis, I've dosed peroxide and bought my magnesium up to 1800. I left for a week and did a big water change because I did a big feed before I left and it came back. Going to hit it hard again this week.

[brandon429]

in addition, the drain and treat or external treatment w really speed up the effects much faster, its also nice because no peroxide touches corals, only the targets. tank dosing is most popular since we can predict most reef animals tolerate it fine, but that drain and treat is a real boost of safety and outcome too.

 

even just pouring kent tech m on the bryopsis while drained, vs raising the entire mg levels of the water, is amazingly fast~ neat to have options at least for review.

[cichlidtx]

Thanks, for the response. I did start peroxide dosing a few days ago but not seeing a change. I will give it some time. I may pull the main rock and dose locally. I do have concerns about my clam as it's on the same rock.

[brandon429]

good details there, that actually needs the emersed or drain treatment even more, if dosing the full tank we are limited by what the clam mantle w take wo stress, so much more powerful to apply only to target. safer too

 

even the drain and treat is orders better, thats how i do my tanks, i dont take out rocks except each decade to clean lol

 

drain down, hit the bad spots, let it sit in the air drained about 2 mins, be creative with your clam or your drain levels here, dont pump him full of air etc, then you refill partially, do a large wchange (to export the peroxide mix) then refill again, do another wchg (export more leaving only a trace, less than you've been dosing) and finally refill again.

 

its simply worth the work not to stress the clam and hit the algae fast, so you can wrap up treatment. that algae above w die off a single direct run, and have light growback so much more easy to control

 

additionally, even an underwater injection of your dose amount, slowly directly on the target, hits that algae better than a full dilution topwater dose. you can still the pumps, use a syringe of peroxide and your current dose amnt, slowly injected on the target up close, that too is much faster than just dosing the topwater, just offers to maximize what you are doing thats all.

 

if it was mine, id not mess with po4 rates in a system with localized issues when a target kill is usually 1 or twice total, good water change work benefitted the tank and reset the params correctly in balance, im not a fan of po4 chasing just my opinion.