I have tried the manual removal for over a year. I do manual removal with every waterchange. I even took the rocks out in January or so, and "cooked" them in a Rubbermaid in the dark for 9 weeks or so. At that time, I removed ALL visible algaes before putting them in the dark. Nitrates and phosphates were both reading 0 when I returned the rocks to the tank, but lo and behold Valonia EVERYWHERE now.
The blowtorch idea sounds great!!! Mostly because it just sounds fun!
