Algae between zoas

[reefercorey]

Anyone know what kind of algae this is? Its kind of stringy and looks fern-like. It's spreading fast. Is there anything that will eat it or a way to get it off my zoa frags?

[JavaJacketOC]

Anyone know what kind of algae this is? Its kind of stringy and looks fern-like. It's spreading fast. Is there anything that will eat it or a way to get it off my zoa frags?

 

Could be bryopsis. I would suggest you remove the frag and dip it in a 50% hydrogen peroxide / tank water solution for a few minutes, give it a good rise in clean tank water then put it back in your tank. You'll piss the zoas off but it will kill all the algae on the plug w/in a couple days. If that algae has spread at all you need to treat the other areas as well. You can spot dose peroxide on the algae growth outside of the tank or something like that, there are several options.

 

You want to stop it before it spreads.

[reefercorey]

Uh oh. I might be screwed. Its on a few of my frags and there's quite a bit on a piece of LR.

[genetao]

If there's a lot of it, you have a couple of options:

 

1) Take the LR that has the algae on it and nuke it with peroxide. I'd recommend draping paper towels soaked in peroxide over the LR. But in my own experience, I've found that using freshly opened bottle of peroxide straight out of the bottle at full strength 3% would only kill the bryosis for only a while, with it coming back a week later. I wouldn't dip the zoa frags though because it killed some of my zoas. Instead using an eye dropper/syringe and drop only onto the live rock in-between the zoas. At least this way, 9% of the polyp head will remain free of peroxide.

 

2) Use Kent Tech M. There are many, many threads on this. Do a search.

 

3) Lettuce nudibranch. This was the route I went as I had some corals stressed and die from Kent Tech M and peroxide dipping. The nudibranch WENT TO TOWN!!!!! on all bryopsis! It was glorious!!!! Now that my lagoon 25 tank is cleared out, I transferred it to my office tank where it's cleaning out that tank as well. I left the lights on for two weeks straight by accident (crummy timer) and had an algae out break. So the nudi is doing awesome in that tank as well. The only issue with using a nudi is that I don't think it can completely eradicate bryopsis. Just manage it so that you don't see it. And if there's too little algae left, it will starve to death.

 

The one thing you don't want to do is pull off pieces of bryopsis. All it takes are tiny little fragments of bryopsis to remain free-floating in the water, which will re-attach somewhere else and take hold. If it's only in a few areas of LR, I'd recommend you chisel off that section of LR or toss the LR altogether. This stuff is no joke!!!

 

Let us know how it goes!

[BulkRate]

Couple notes of caution, but genetao & javajackeOC have you covered:

 

1. If you have ornamental shrimp (blood/scarlet or skunk particularly) make sure to do a second dip to rinse off the hydrogen peroxide before returning the frags or larger chunk of live rock to your display tank. They're very sensitive to the stuff & can be killed by it.

 

2. If it comes back (and if it's byropsis it may very well come back following even multiple H2O2 dips) the lettuce sea slug can be a great way to turn a pest into somethign fascinating to watch - both the green Caribean and brown pacific variets appear to love the stuff. Make sure you put a fine mesh over any open impeller driven powerheads (vortech & Korallias especially) to keep your slug from getting itself mulched.

 

3. Tech-M (and only that) seems to work as well for stunting the growth of actual byropsis. But there's lots of green hairlike/fernline pest algaeout there so may not work on your particular one. And I'm ordering my take by personal preference, darn it!

 

That said, IME the peroxide dip works most of the time. Especially if you have dwarf hermits in residence - likely they'll swarm the dying algae like you rang a dinner gong.

 

PS, make sure you use a 50:50 mix of tank water to freshly opened 3-6 PERCENT hydrogen peroxide - NOT a 50% solution of pure! It's hard to get ahold of accidentally but the OTC stuff is pretty safe whereas the chemical supply warehouse version has a length safe handling sheet.

[genetao]

PS, make sure you use a 50:50 mix of tank water to freshly opened 3-6 PERCENT hydrogen peroxide - NOT a 50% solution of pure! It's hard to get ahold of accidentally but the OTC stuff is pretty safe whereas the chemical supply warehouse version has a length safe handling sheet.

BulkRate is right. Pure peroxide is powerful enough to damage grainte countertops!! I am actually unable to find anything else other than 3% in the drug stores around my area, and I live in the Bay Area.

 

Again, I had the same experience that Metrokat had with peroxide. I did multiple dips with 3% at full strength and it always came back. I'm sure if I'd used something stronger like 6% or 10% like Brandon recommended, that would have been a different story. But at even 3%, I lost some really lovely zoas when I did a full immersion dip. Again if I thought it through beforehand, I should have used an eye dropper instead and dripped the peroxide in-between and around the zoas. I probably could have saved my zoas that way.