[MarineTeng]

i have the exact algae as far as i can tell that made him tear down his tank, i was wondering if he ever tried emerald mithrax crabs since mine ate a bit but i'll need more to keep up with growth, anyone else found stuff that eats it here's the pic

thanks for your help

[Reefland]

Hi MarineTeng,

I tried every biological control I could, including Emerald crabs. Although I didn't have any luck with them, that doesn't mean that they won't eat it. Just like some Emerald crabs won't touch Valonia, others will eat all of it in sight!

[charlie]

Did you try the big Mexican Turbos Scott?

[Reefland]

Yup, well the Mexican Turbo's that I could find I tried. I think if one thing would work it would be manual extraction through siphoning only. Using a large diameter siphon tube and once started, place it right on the algae to try to siphon out. It is fragile enough that it might work.

[Samper]

It's a shame it's a nuisance cause it's pretty

[Reefland]

We actually had a very small patch of it for a long time that we kept and didn't think much about because it had a nice appearance. Then one day....BOOM!

[MarineTeng]

mine's a bit more brown in appearance but can go bright red under direct freshwater, umm, i never noticed cause i thought it was like another thing that i had then i realized it was different but pulling it out didn't work, i think i might have had a gorgonian that could grow several inches a week, it was a similar color to what i have, a bit less red then the picture above but seemed to have polyps, then it just almost all disappeared, now i have a small piece that i want to try and restart, i'm ordering 5 emeral crabs so let's hope they can at least control it, i don't mind it as long as it doesn't kill my corals and fish, which are all softies minus the green frogspawn

[MarineTeng]

here's some more on what i've observed and looking to try, here's a few threads from high population forum rc and local rf

what do you think of my algae eradication plan, not a normal algae
ok i've devised a plan in my mind to get rid of this algae without completely restarting, i think, first of all here's the threads where i've gathered info about it
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=795058
i posted here just for shear number of people's opinion
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/...ad.php?t=13512
not much progress in this one in terms of elimination as no one who responded has had it before

My Observations
Where it grows - mainly on the front side of my rocks, even some well lit areas by daylight lights (10k) only have very little of it what i'm talking about i tried to show in my first picture attachment where
blue is actinic light beams
yellow daylight
and the live rock is brown
and the red spray paint is where the algae grows
this pattern holds quite strong throughout the tank in a more 3d fashion.
The pattern is it only grows where actinic beams reach the rocks, and not where only daylight (10k) lights hit the rocks
Another note - It lived in Actinic only for a month probably since my daylight ballast died (no corals were lost in this endeavour)
[IMG]http://www.reeffrontiers.com/photos_...nk_pattern.JPG[/IMG]

It's death, the few and far between - One time i placed a rock over an area, a large rubble piece (oxymoronish i know, but large for a piece of rubble rock) over an area of my rock where this stuff was flourishing -note this happened by chance with no intention of experimenting - sometime later at least a couple weeks i moved to rock for one reason or another and the area was barren of it, well most all algaes for that matter, but this one included

Where it doesn't grow
In fuge, despite having this algae for many months at least 4 and cleaning the sponge to the HOB overflow while it was still running and seeing some of this algae go into the fuge i have never ever seen it grow in teh fuge

What eats it
Nothing consistantly, i had my hopes up for emerald crabs because one chewed away a patch when i first put one in but i have seen no such patches since then and he hides somewhere unknown though i see him about at times.
Yellow tang never really touched it
i have astrea snails margirita snails naracisuiss (however you spell it) snails and hermits of various kinda mostly red legged i think or scarlet, none of these bother with it
At the lfs i brought in some not knowing of it's complete plague like nature in search of an eater, hungry tangs and foxfaces nibbled, the foxface eating the most but not finishing the small sample brought in
Might try an Urchin (blue tux) soon

My Proposed method for maximum usage of all parts of tank
Start a new system for corals (in my case it would be a downgrade so that i can upgrade to MH lighting, this is due especially to my parents limiting my electrical usage)
Frag off all corals and/or remove all of the algae by breaking the rock where it anchors before going into this theorectical at this point new tank.
Remove rocks into a low light (standard fluorescent used for most fw tanks) one by one or a few at a time

Remove all substrate or remove the lights from the tank with the substrate to retain pod/fauna life as much as possible. Removing the lights would be an option if i move all my corals to another tank
Downsides/dangers lots of pollutants, i would have to start another tank though this does cost a lot of money a smaller tank for corals and a FO tank, i dunno if i can pass this idea with my parents yet either, i will have to take down my fw tank if this does happen just knowing my parents

Another method
Turn off actinics for an extended period of time
Corals- I don't know how'd they'd fair on less light, though i could put in two old 10k bulbs,
Water polution A lot of die off with corals in the tank would happen, potentially i could limit this by removing as much as possible since assuming the algae lives off actinics the new sprouts would just die to lack of light
dangers: if they don't live off just actinics, i don't know if this is the case just an observation, only other guy on RC mentioned he had it in his reef before, i assume with actinic or perhaps higher k like 14k or 20k more blue hopefully

I know this isn't a convention algae control mehtod but this isn't a normal algae that can die to cleaner crews and nutrient choking as it stands in my mind as of now, i'd like your opinion on the matter before i engage in either of this ideas though when they will happen i don't know as life is unpredictable

Also another thought, should i detach my refugium to protect my fish from the potential pollutants as i have all that i need to give them a suitable living environment i think, given that i can move some live rock down to give them proper filtration this live rock would have the death algae on it that i am trying to kill, also given i don't think it will live in the fuge.