fishnlou Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 Hi everyone, So about 4 months ago my tank was over taken by these goofy looking little fan shaped plant/ algae things. It got out of hand due to me being away at school and not being able to properly keep up with the tank. I removed all coral and shut the lights off for the last 4 months. Everything died off within a month and i left the lights off for a few extra months since i was finishing up my new led setup. There was absolutely no signs of it left in the tank and I turned my lights back on about a week and a half ago. Its now starting to grow back all over again! Water test shows no phosphates or nitrates. I put some blue legged hermit crabs in hoping they may eat some of it, but they havent even attempted to eat it. I have no idea what this is and with it not being out of control yet i would like to think there has to be someway for me to control it before its to late. Any suggestions on what to do? Thanks Link to comment
yoshii Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 Mermaid's Fan Udotea sp. If the rocks don't have coral on them, you could sell it Not sure what would eat it sorry Link to comment
fishnlou Posted March 8, 2011 Author Share Posted March 8, 2011 After researching mermaids fan it sounds like it doesn't tolerate constantly being cut or trimmed. Guess ill just keep chopping it and hope for the best. Link to comment
mynd Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 After researching mermaids fan it sounds like it doesn't tolerate constantly being cut or trimmed. Guess ill just keep chopping it and hope for the best. You are going to end up hating this hobby if you have to do this all the time. The worst part of any rock is that you will never get all the particles of algae that are inside the rock out, and 3 years down the road when it decides to rear its ugly branch in your tank, well that sucks. forget it. Do yourself a favor if you are able. Take the rock, all the rock ( this will kill everything on the rock ), put it on a cookie sheet and then put it in the oven and turn on the broiler at 350 degrees for a good hour or two. Then take the rock out and put it into some nice new ( let it cool first silly ) salt water without lights and let the process begin. I would do this all at once otherwise the other rocks will just contaminate the first clean rocks. Do this at your own risk, taking hot rocks and putting them in cold water could make them explode, so if you do this and lose an eye it is not my fault you did it wrong. Research this first and then make good decisions. You want to get rid of algae, this works, then stop putting ( not that you did, this is for others ) infected coral frags in your tanks without first quarantining them to make sure they are okay and algae free. ( the best you can of course ) Link to comment
yoshii Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 You can also freeze the rocks for 48 hours, that will kill any plant cells Link to comment
SbCaes Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 udotea. please dont do that. id like to have it. you can just break off that piece of the rock if youd ont want it. and ship to me. Link to comment
fishnlou Posted March 9, 2011 Author Share Posted March 9, 2011 Im not entirely sure if this even is mermaids fan? As the individual plants dont get bigger then maybe an inch. There is a little on every piece in my aquarium. If i was to take out the worst pieces of rock and freeze them for 2 days, then put them back into my tank, would this cause the tank to cycle again due to pretty much killing off all life on the rock? Maybe i could slowly do this one piece at a time? Link to comment
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