Lights & Tunnels: How long did you fight nuisance algae before you defeated it?

[AlyciaMarie]

Some things in reefing make you want to kick the tank stand and give up. Persistent nuisance algae is one of those things. Some algae outbreaks are more annoying than anything, while others can devastate whole systems. But hopefully, every reefer will see the light at the end of the tunnel at some point (unless you really do give up...). How long did it take you to see your labor of love paying off?

How long did you fight nuisance algae before you defeated it?

 

[AlyciaMarie]

I'll kick it off at approximately eight months in; I'm still in the thick of battle.

 

[mjszos]

I never really "won" my battle but I definitely managed to get it under wraps. A combination of more diligent water changes, less feeding, introduction of proper CUC, etc all seemed to get it to a position of harmony. I never really intended on fully eradicating it as in my mind these things all balance each other out; a little algae here means a little food for something over there, etc. My battle went on for probably 6 months before things balanced out to a point I found acceptable.

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

Horrible cyano that was covering my corals and impeding their growth. I upped the flow, used coral snow with Microbacter Clean (I know its not a proven anything) and things turned right around. Now, I have hair algae that is mostly in the background on the areas unseen but I like it because it consumes a good deal of phosphate.

 

[Reefer Matt]

Months and months on end until I bought a microscope and researched exactly what I was dealing with. Now if/when algae, dino or cyano pops up, I usually know how to quickly handle them.

 

[CHSUB]

It’s a never ending part of the hobby.

 

[SantaMonica]

I fight it for a living.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I had a problem with caulerpa racemosa in my display, along with a few small areas of other algae types. A one spot fox face ate it all (a yellow tang did not). I don’t recall the time frame, but it did its job perfectly.

 

[JoJosReef]

I don't think the battle is every really over. These organisms seem to persist in our tanks whether visible or not. Hadn't seen a single strand of GHA in months, then an acro dies leaving a white skeleton and in a week it's covered in GHA (only spot in the tank with GHA on it).

 

[KrisReef]

I think I surrendered and then the tank got older and it moved on?

 

[PharmrJohn]

With my last tank it wad about 6 months. With my next tank, I'm leaving lights off for 3 months and adding utilitarian fish first. So when lights go on, my microbiome will have a solid head start in claiming territory and what DOES decide to grow will be eaten up before it grabs hold.

I hope anyway!

 

[Fenral]

It never showed up to the party in my display tank - heavy cleanup crew, pods, phyto, macro, where it did show up was my brightly lit fuge on the lifeguard aquamesh - which was sort of the point

 

[sixty_reefer]

I usually choose mine, one aspect of the hobby that I’ve learned over the years is that we always will have algae one way or another.
Choosing the algae earlier on can help down the line to avoid some of the less desirable ones to show up.

 

[amateur.alchemist]

I had a RSR350 that went from the worst cyano I've ever seen to drowning in GHA to overrun with sea lettuce. I was manually removing the sea lettuce for ~2 months before getting two tuxedo urchins and a fox face. The sea lettuce was completely gone a week later.

 

[Paul B]

I don't call it a battle, if it becomes a battle I have a dumpster about 50 yards from my front door. After half a century I still have algae. It comes for a couple of years then leaves, then comes back.

it's a natural part of a tank and the sea.

 

[overseascarson]

introduction of proper CUC

What CUC members have a preference for green hair algae?

 

[Gumbies R Us]

What CUC members have a preference for green hair algae?

Urchins do wonders for it!

 

[mjszos]

What CUC members have a preference for green hair algae?

Tuxedo Urchins! And some Goby’s or Blennys should pick away at it.


If it gets super long then I manually removed it and siphoned out during a WC because nothing would eat it at that point.