HELP!!! What The Hell Is This Stuff???
 

My tank had almost become taken over by this red moss like algae. Noticed it a couple of months ago, took a couple of rocks out and scrubbed them. It always came back in no time and was starting to grow over some of my corals. Today I dismantled the whole set-up. Every rock was taken out and scrubbed, the back glass which was also grown over with the stuff was scraped, a bunch of the sand which had collected a pile of it was chucked and finally a 90% water change was done. What in the hell is this crap and where did it come from? An aquarium store suggested possible overfeeding and high phosphates. The smell of this stuff is almost enough to make you puke and I sure as hell don't want to rip apart my whole set up again. Any advice would be appreciated.


http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...5/CIMG0942.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...5/CIMG0943.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...5/CIMG0945.jpg

Looks sort of like cyano. Here's a link for more info.

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...ighlight=cyano

It could be asparagopsis taxiformis. look through this search and see what comes up.
http://www.joefaraoni.com/ReefCentra...sa=Search#1237

HTH
Jason

Pictures are a bit fuzzy but what I can see, and from what you've said, I'm thinking this is red turf algae. Long story short: get a number of Mexican turbo snails.

Here is some additional reading for you:
http://canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=31253
http://canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=30942
http://canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=37293
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...nftt/index.php

Oops, guess I should of read the 1st post better. It does seem more like red turf algae.

Thanks for the info guys. Do any dealers in Edmonton or Calgary have any Mexican turbo snails. I think someone in Edmonton had Austrailian turbos. Do they work the same?

I've never heard of an Australian turbo so don't know if that's the same species or not. The articles about it seem to specifically go out of their way to label the turbos snails that eat this stuff as "Mexican". Having said that, I thought all turbo snails came from Mexico and area anyhow. If you see turbo snails offered just ask where they came from.

Failing that I'm pretty sure you can order them from J&L. Seeing your pictures, you don't exactly want 1 or 2 here, you want something like maybe minimum 20 or thereabouts, which surely is on the verge of justifying the mail-order shipping expense. Or see if anyone wants to go in on a group order with you, or see if there's one already going on that you can piggyback onto..

20 snails? I only have a 20 gallon tank, I was thinking about maybe 5 to 10. How big are they?

What are you using to provide biological filtration on this system? If it was the rocks, you have potential problem there because you would have destroyed your bio filter when you scubbed all your rocks....

I had this problem for 3 months. I did the same thing by taking all the rocks out scrubbing them only for it to grow all back in a week. I just started up my tank and had been battling this red turf algae until.....................................I went to Red Coral and got a Sea Hare, (thanks Kevin). Saviour! It devoured all of my red turf in about a week. 30lbs of rock covered in this. This is what worked for me. I have not seen any grow back, its been over a month. Good Luck!