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Cultivated Reef

Nuisance Algae Guide


johnmaloney

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Hey Cowkid! I just picked up a pep shrimp last night, and the guy at the LFS threw in a branch of something that looked just like the pics you just posted. When I asked, he told me it was red grape caluerpa, slow growing. From your pics, I'm sure I made the right call when I opted to toss it and not put it in my tank. :huh:

 

Yea that first pic is really slow growing stuff. That what you see is probably 5 months of growth.

 

 

You should leave those in the water and take pics... It makes it easier to ID them.

 

First one looks like Acanthophora spicifera. Take look at this post (most of the way down) and see if the red algae there looks like what you have.

 

EDIT: Fixed link.

Thanks I will look at that link. I am thinking I might get a emerald crab. I've got a bit of small bubble and then all this other crud. Just kinda :scarry: to add one of those critters. I know I should have left the rocks in the water. But if your pichur taking sux like mine then out of the water is far superior to what you would have gotten. :) Sorry I wanst trying to to make the id hard for you guys and gals.

 

Isnt it strange how you can have a tank set up for 7 months w/o the first algea and then WAM!

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John, I know we PMed about this, but maybe one to add to the list:

 

705201874_cqvc4-L.jpg

 

thanks! I will do that. I have like 10 others I have to get to as well. TIme to get on that ball

 

Hey Jon. Great thread youve got here. After tooling for hours I've decided to leave these up to the algea god.

IMG_8616.jpg

IMG_8621.jpg

IMG_8628.jpg

IMG_8629.jpg

IMG_8630.jpg

 

Thanks 4 your help

 

 

let me use those pics and I will get names for all of them out to you. ;)

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John, I know we PMed about this, but maybe one to add to the list:

 

705201874_cqvc4-L.jpg

 

I have a nasty plague outbreak of this stuff right now, trying to figure out the best way to tackle it...

 

Wait, is this the kind of cottony stuff and not the cyano type stuff?

If so, that's what I have. :angry:

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that is a species lyngbya, a type of cyano. (not cotton candy algae if that is what you are thinking) Warmer water helps fuel it, but it isn't necessary I have had a lot of "fun " having to deal with this myself a few months back. The Sprung book identifies something similar looking as the sporophyte stage of Asparagopsis taxiformis, but I doubt that is it here. It spreads and becomes fully mature without ever turning into the beautiful A. taxiformis macro. It was (spelling alert!) Lyngbya muscujalra (way off on the spelling probably), in my 72g tank, looked exactly the same. The nerites were beating it back, but I got tired of waiting and put in a bunch of hermits, (I mean a bunch), and it took are of it. Acitinic only lighting seemed to effect it, as well as lowering the temp, but it still lived. Although growth slowed. It grows so fast, I mean really, really fast, that without slowing the growth I don't know if I would have ever caught up with it. Ragged sea hares were doing a lot of damage to it, but I have two Koralias, in that 72 so the sea hares kept wandering into them and I had to remove them entirely. In the end I think a strong stocking of nerites would have eventually got it, but the 1000+ hermits took care of it in really short order. I am not sure if it was hermit v. hermit fighting, or hermit v. nerite fighting, but there may have been an adverse effect on CUCs that were eating it. I am not sure about that, but it seems I either lost some nerites and hermits into the rock work maze, or that stuff hurt it. Not sure, but I didn't pull out as much as I put in. Just speculating there, I didn't have it long enough to really learn more about it other than how to kill it off.

Edited by johnmaloney
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Hey John you can use those pics if you wanna. I did go ahead and get a little bitty emerald crab. Do you have any other advise on this stuff. My CUC is all the snails that you sent me, 2 blue leggers, and a single emerald. Oh this is in a 12 gallon.

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the emeralds will be your best. gelidium americanum (the red one - that is a about as close as i will get from a picture), is pretty wirey. I would be shocked if snails or hermits ate it, your new emerald or an urchin is your best bet. (I know you can fit an urchin in, but others may be reading)

 

IMG_8628.jpg

 

the first picture, acanthophora spicifera

 

IMG_8616.jpg

 

might benefit from hand removal. The emerald crab might eat it, it is edible but being as stiff as it is, I am not sure about that.

 

I swear I knew the name of the yellow one when I posted, or at least a species with similar characteristics...give me a minute let check the books.

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Cool. I did remove it all, or as much as I could when I had the rocks out. I even went as far as to take a torch and toast the rocks a bit. LOL Corvettejoe is suppose to go collecting in a few weeks. Hopefully he will find a little urchin for my tank. Do you have any recomendations on what type of urchin?

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if it is acrylic, don't get any, they will all scratch the tank. little rock borings are good for glass tanks. I like them because they eat algae (of course), but also don't pick things up and walk around with them. It is easy to get ahold of one that is small, their sharp spines and general low cost make shipping large ones prohibitive. They grow to the size of softballs though, so he will need a home at some point. I am just checking in real quick now, but I will go find that id for you...will pick up the books tonight. Help me out though...what is the range I should be looking at? Is that Florida rock?

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Its not acrylic so I am safe. I do not know what rock those algeas are on but this is what I have in there. HTH. Timpora, Kaelini, and Fiji. I got it from Premium Aquatics.

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having some trouble looking up that last one...it looks almost like Pterocladiella capillacea, that is what i thought it initially was, I had remembered the picture at least, but the branching is different. in yours the branching is pretty irregular, and in P. capillacea the branching is opposite....Problem with a lot of the species in the Gelidiaceae family is they don't tend to look much like each other, and there is broad differences even in between species in the same genus....i will come back to this...i should get a tax book for pacific species at some point, i just have some field guides that don't really do the trick...

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DSC01453.jpg

 

Does anyone know what this algae is? I recall having it cover my glass and powerheads during my tank's cycle. I still get it on occasion if I don't scrape the glass for a long time as well.

 

Seems like fairly common stuff... Maybe Calothrix? Although this stuff seems to grow best in areas of higher flow.

Edited by ajmckay
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littlemeggido

I'm not sure what this light brown/tan feathery/hairy stuff is on my rocks and I couldn't find anything that looked similar in this thread. Any help ID'ing is appreciated. thanks

 

100_1899.jpg

 

 

100_1900.jpg

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lm - where is your rock from? what is the texture like? might need to see a close up of the branching, but lets see where i can get from the above info...

 

ajmkay - if it is an "algae" type species it may be a type of cyano or chrysophytes (spelling, but you guys should be used to that from me by now..),looks invert related from the picture though

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littlemeggido

lm - where is your rock from? what is the texture like? might need to see a close up of the branching, but lets see where i can get from the above info...

 

This rock is from Fiji. The store I bought it from said they get Walt Smiths Fiji LR (I'm pretty positive that's what he said.) This stuff started growing about a month ago, the tank has been set up since February. Nothing new was added when this stuff started growing.

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littlemeggido
is it brittle or fleshy?

 

 

More brittle than fleshy. If I was to scrape it off, it comes off really easily. I took out all of the rocks and scrubbed them with a toothbrush and put them back in, It seems like it came back with a vengence.

Please let me know if there is anything else you need to know. Thanks!

Edited by littlemeggido
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oh by the way - caulerpa verticellata (probably an extra "l" or something that spelling) aka fuzzy caulerpa - is an easy fix. Blue legs and rock boring urchins are devouring it. More testing to come, those were my first pics (emeralds also eat it), and now to try out some chitons, and limpets etc...

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