SPS dying because of algae?

TroutWithLegs

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Hey everyone, im looking for some advice on treating algae growing ON my sps colonies. How can I treat it, how dangerous is it? How can I avoid it in the future.

I've got three colonies it's really affecting. Two that had some kind of nuisance growth when I got them, one that didn't.


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This miyagi tort frag I picked up from my lfs a few days ago that had what looks like green ulva growing on a portion of the base. I did my normal dip then gently peeled off what algae I could, but it now seems to be creeping up one of the branches, killing it.

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This is a twofer here the left is a frag of some kind of Stylo from a friend of mine that's had some red algae growing on the top, and the right is a mdigi Monti that recently had that little branch die from some algae and looks like it's spreading.

I wish I could put some algae grazers into the tank but I don't have the volume of space for them. Is there a best practice for handling this? Thanks
 

Copingwithpods

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Usually algae growing on corals is secondary to a preexisting problem. Algae won't grow on healthy coral tissue.

Recently I had two corals duke it out with the birdsnest almost being taken out. Just about 80% of its tissue was gone and I knew it was going to be prime real estate for algae, I let it ride and to my surprise my hermit crabs kept it clean enough to where it was able to recover and reclaim most of its skeleton.

So if I'm saying anything is look at the algae as a result of and not a cause of your issues. In my experience small hermit crabs helped, worth a shot.
 

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